Cheeseburgers ending paradise?

By Jeff Hage (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Friday, February 8, 2008

I’ve never given lots of though to the end of the world.

I’ve always figured that that those who subscribe to the “Big-Bang Theory” of creation might have a lead on the end-of-the-world theory, too.

Kind of like, we came in with a bang, we’ll leave with an even bigger bang.

I must admit that after Sept. 11, 2001 I thought a little more about The End. For the first time I thought there was a chance that it would be world violence that would result in our final days on Earth.

al Quida was crashing planes into skyscrapers, the Pentagon and taking aim at the White House.

There was talk about the wapons of mass-destruction and the United States was launching the war on terror.

The world is still on shaky ground and world peace is always a volatile situation, I later began to believe that it may be natural disasters that would bring the world to an end.

In Feb. 2000 700 people died in African flooding while 280,000 were left homeless. In September of 2000, 235 people were left dead and 4.5 million homeless from a flooding river in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

In the summer of 2002 floods killed more than 2,000 in China, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Two years later annual monsoons left 5 million homeless and more than 1,800 dead in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

The worst disater came in December of 2004 when a 9.0 earthquake—the largest earthquake ruptured in the Indian Ocean, resulting in the the deadliest tsunami in world history. More than 225,000 people have died from the disaster, a half a million have been injured, thousands still remain missing, and millions were left homeless.

Just this week we saw how devastating Mother Nature can be when early morning tornados killed 56 people in five states, including 32 in Tennessee.

I continue to see strong arguments for weather or war bringing the world to an end.

What I never envisioned, however, is the latest argument being made in a documentary being aired by National Geographic.

In program called “Six Degrees” to be aired on National Geographic TV in February, it is suggested that it won’t be tsunamis or nuclear war that do us in.

We are inevitably facing death by cheeseburger.

That’s right, the chesseburger. You know, that treat Jimmy Buffett sings about when he sings “I like mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz Fifty-seven and French fried potatoes.”

It looks like he might even get his with a free ticket to the afterlife!

The National Geographic documentary goes on to say the world will end because we eat too many cheeseburgers.

Why? If the planet cools 6 degrees, we'll be in another ice age. If it goes up 6 degrees, we'll have catastrophic global warming.

According to a published review of the program, one scientist interviewed puts the blame on our appetite for cheeseburgers.

The scientist says the carbon footprint of the 900 million cheeseburgers we eat each year, the slaughter of the beef, and all that cheese makes for 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivilent.

So according to this latest in the line of end of the world scenarios, that cheeseburger you eat will be the reason we all become extinct.

Now that’s a cheesy way to go!

Jeff Hage is the managing editor of The Daily Journal. He wrote this column while enjoying a Big Mac.