Extremely fit have larger carbon footprints than do couch potatoes: scientific study

The following is a scientific study:

1. INTRODUCTION

Ever since the Supreme Court has (wisely) ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, the number of people who have been made exceptionally nervous has increased nearly exponentially (exponentially is a mathematical term). It is up to science to discover ways of reducing this vile gas, to root out its sources, and suggest interesting ways of scientifically punishing environmental malefactors.

Thus, it follows that it is the duty of every single person to reduce their carbon footprint in every conceivable way, and to do so in the shortest amount of time humanely possible before disaster strikes.

The purpose of this scientific paper, therefore, is to bring to mind a particular activity that had previously been assumed virtuous but under the unerring eye of science has proved to be pernicious. That activity is exercise.

2. MATHEMATICAL CALCULATIONS

We accept, as we must accept after the highest court in the land said so, that carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a pollutant. Many common people—unfortunately, those without sufficient educations—are not aware that each time they exhale they are adding to the excessive burden of CO₂ in our precious atmosphere. This is because humans inhale oxygen into their lungs with each breath—oxygen that is forever depleted from the air, because that oxygen is processed into CO₂.

Each exhaled breath contains a certain amount of CO₂. The exact amount is a function of total lung capacity, residual lung volume, and vital capacity, as well as related to other measures of pulmonary function. In this paper, we make the reasonable approximation that variations in the amount of CO₂ exhaled per breath are negligible, that is, the amount of exhaled CO₂ is fixed for all people, except in two ways which we note below. It is important to recognize, however, that most of this human CO₂ outgassing takes place in the troposphere (troposphere is a meteorological term), in the boundary layer. Shockingly, this is also where most people live.

The main source of variation of exhaled pollution (CO₂), the intra-person variability, is due to respiration rate (RR). Higher RRs mean more breaths per hour and therefore more pollution added to the atmosphere, and therefore the more likely we are to experience runaway greenhouse effects. Therefore, people with lower RRs have smaller carbon footprints (or lungprints as we should properly say) than those people with higher RRs.

Let LS = lung size. The average resting breath for an adult North American human male contains about LS_rest = 325 ml of air. This expands to twice this under aerobic stress (exercise), to about LS_stress = 650 ml of air. There will be variations in these values, of course, but we scientifically dispense with this uncertainty.

Because all tissue in the human body has to be oxygenated lest it turn sour, it implies that the fatter (larger) a person is the more oxygen they consume. This is mitigated somewhat because those at that highest scale of fatness, the couch potatoes, tend to engage in very little movement. And since movement means using muscles, and muscles rely on oxygen as part of their fuel, less movement means less oxygen usage (or utilization, if you prefer).

Since the humans under our consideration are assigned to have equal lung volume and other pulmonary functions, more oxygen usage is equivalent to higher RRs. As explained above, more oxygen usage is directly proportional to more CO₂ creation. To be explicit: higher RRs give rise to higher amounts of CO₂ degassing to the atmosphere. Not all of the air inhaled in processed into CO₂. Let the fraction of each breath that is converted to pollutants be f_co2.

The RR of couch potatoes is likely to be even and vary little throughout any 24-hour period because of their habit of remaining as stationary as possible. This rate will be slightly higher than thin, non exercising people, and higher than exercising people at rest because couch potatoes’ larger bodies need more oxygen. Studies have shown that this rate is RR_CP = 14 breaths per minute. Thus, we present equation 1, the amount of pollutant added (PA) to the atmosphere per day for this class of individual:

Eq. 1    PACP = RRCP x LSrest x fco2 x 60 minutes hours-1 x 24 hours day-1

This equation is unlikely to be wrong because it has been written in the proper mathematical format. It also uses scientific notation, and your author has a PhD.

Equation 1 can be contrasted to a similar equation for those who engage in excessive exercise, which is defined as 22 hours of calm followed by two hours (not necessarily contiguous) of frenetic bursts of ludicrous activity. The RR for exercisers at rest is known to be RR_Ex:rest = 12 breaths per minute. While engaged in stressful activities this rises to RR_Ex:stress = 30 breaths per minute. Thus, the daily amount of PA for exercisers is

Eq. 2    PAEx = RREx:rest x LSrest x fco2 x 60 minutes hours-1 x 22 hours day-1 + RREx:stress x LSstress x fco2 x 120 minutes

Substituting the precise values into equations 1 and 2 gives

Eq. 1b    PACP = 14 x 325 x fco2 x 60 x 24 hours

which equals

Eq. 1c    PACP = 6552000 x fco2

And

Eq. 2b    PAEx = 12 x 325 x fco2 x 60 minutes hours-1 x 22 hours day-1 + 30 x 650 x fco2 x 120 minutes

which equals

Eq. 2c    PAEx = 5148000 x fco2 + 2340000 x fco2 = 7488000 x fco2

which makes the ratio of PA_Ex to PA_CP equal to

Eq. 3    PAEx/PACP = 1.142857

Conveniently, we do not need to know the exact value of f_co2, as it cancels in the equation.

3. CONCLUSIONS

Through the strictest scientific procedures, the same as those used in a myriad of studies of this type, we have conclusively proven that those people who exercise have a carbon foot (or lung) print 14.29% higher than those who, altruistically it turns out, lie around on the couch. Future studies will examine the additional benefits of progressing to a drunken stupor, a state in which minimal oxygen usage is obtained.

It might be argued that CPs eat more, thus they increase the amount of CO₂ added because of their increased food intake. But this argument is specious when contrasted with the habits of the very fit, defined as people who typically motor to Whole Foods in their SUVs to buy only “organic” comestibles, the creation of which produces far more CO₂ than does, say, manufacturing bags of Cheesy Puffs, the chosen snack food of most couch potatoes. Plus, of course, those who exercise more actual consume a greater amount of food than do lazy slobs (this is scientifically true).

The policy implications of this study are obvious: people must be discouraged immediately from exercising. They should be taught the immorality of it, how their narcissistic habits unnecessarily add to carbon burden of the atmosphere, thus endangering the fragile climate system, and therefore the future for our children.

If we can each stop just one jogger from donning his multi-colored, garish shorts and trotting through the neighborhood, we will have done the Earth a tremendous service.

Editor’s note: please help disseminate this scientific study as widely as possible. Inform journalists of the perilous and frightening nature of its conclusions. The time to act is now.