Apparently fat people are responsible not only for the loss of proper aesthetics in the Western world and the decline of civilization in general, but also the rapid spread of global warming, the decline of the polar bear, and other sorts of impending global disasters.

Are we bad, or what?

This is the report coming from London public health professor Ian Roberts, writing in the latest issue of New Scientist in an article titled "Say No to Global Guzzling."

There is, says Roberts, a clear link between the world obesity "epidemic" and the rise of global warming.

Gee, and I thought it had something to do with ozone and carbon emissions. Oh no! Wait! We're like cows emitting vast amounts of methane, perhaps? Oh, no, I was wrong. It's because fat people drive cars and use other "labor-saving devices." Americans are particularly at fault, says the veddy British prof, because we are such a fat nation that we drive even more cars and use even more labor-saving devices.

Overweight people also ratchet up the global warming effect by eating more food, which results in more food production, which requires more of those labour-saving devices and manufacturing process.

Then after we eat all that extra food, we, uh, create more "organic waste," so to speak, producing the dreaded methane.

And we take up more room and get hotter and run our air conditioning more, so we're using up more fuel, too.

So, let me get this straight. ONLY fat people drive cars and use "labor-saving devices." And since overweight people are bigger they must eat much more food and create more manufacturing--because, of course, that food wouldn't be produced if there were no fat people in the world.

The worst part of it is, says Dr. Roberts, is that -- heaven forbid -- the militant American fat people are actually "changing public policy and perceptions about obesity." Egads.

That would be disastrous, for fat people to receive equal treatment and acceptance, he says. "The social stigma attached to obesity is one of the few forces slowing the epidemic...How long before there are calls for energy-guzzling escalators, moving sidewalks and motorized mobility aids?"

We bad.