Fat and climate change - one and the same

O!bama announced yesterday that the Climate Summit in Copenhagen is not a venue for a deal - it is the beginning of a long process. Why do I think nothing will come of various efforts to reduce global warming? For the following reasons:

1) There are parts of the US that believe they will gain from global warming, so no real need to do anything. Think a warm and sunny Minnesota. Since they may well be right in their analysis their reps in Congress ain't gonna toe no hairshirt line.
2) Americans are fat and happy in general, and not renowned for thinking in generations. Plus, they move a lot and do not see themselves as rooted in any one geographical spot, so there is no reason to defend any one part of the US over any other. The seaboards are ravaged by storms? Move to Minneapolis - it was good enought for Mary Tyler Moore. It may make sense to invest in Midwestern real estate.
3) The matter of fat. For years we saw the US mass(es) struggle to ditch their excess weight. Sadly the latest diet shake cannot make up for driving everywhere and scarfing Big Mac's. When that realization dawned there was much looking for a pill to cut fat, because, hey, the American way of life is sacrosanct. Quite a bit like looking for ways to sequester carbon from coal plants. When that did not work did the change of lifestyle that is required to boot fat come back into vogue?
4) The utterly pragmatic fat American (and they are now the majority) decided that the right way to deal with the problem is to vilify the thin minority (genetically programmed to bust fat, shallow and concerned only with looks) and to worship at the altar of chunk. So we have plus size models, a new TV show that embraces a fat lawyer etc.
5) Getting thin is a personal goal where success can be felt and measured minute by minute by every one who manages some change. Lifestyle changes could not be managed by the US mass for something so tangible. What makes you think the same changes (and they are the same changes - walk more, change the temperature settings in your house, eat less meat and junk food) will be implemented to help someone you do not know in a plague ridden country far far away, where people anyway croak at 40, in a time when you will be dead and gone.

Fatties in frocks are here to stay. Given the likely rise in global temperatures the frocks will be minimal. I am not sure I want to stick around to see massive mama's in mini skirts.