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Carbon Offsets For Tummy Tucks?

Plastic surgery has long posed serious risks for many of its vain victims: death from infection, bursting boobs, migrating silicone and the like. But who knew it was also bad for the environment? The Washington City Paper reports that disposing of all the fat sucked out of people during liposuction and tummy tucks puts 1,000 tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, largely because the fat (which is 78 percent carbon) is incinerated.

Since belly fat as biodiesel is a tough sell, a local upscale plastic surgery practice is now buying carbon offsets to cover disposing of its nips and tucks. The surgeons tell CP that while jogging would be a healthier alternative for shedding all that fat, it wouldn't make much difference on the environment because the exercise would still "liberate" carbon into the atmosphere. I find this claim somewhat dubious (especially given the self-interest of the source), but since I'm too science challenged to work this out on my own, I'll put this to you, dear readers: Are joggers really the human versions of farting cows, huffing out more carbon that fat incinerators?






Comments

ok, I am not science challenged to figure this out. But, I am more inclined to wonder when all these various carbon impacts for everything is added up we may very well reach a figure that is far beyond the number of miles driven by us. At that time, we will need to another baseline to compare the carbon impacts of everything.
Though, from a process standpoint, the tummy tuckee has to drive to the clinic where the tummy tuckers have to drive there too. Then once the deed is done, a bunch of things have to happen to actually move the tummy fat somewhere. Obviously, such packaging and transportation is more involved than dropping the fat in a baggy and hauling it off. Anyhow, once it gets to the incinerator, I assume there are checks and balances in place that kick in to ensure that such fat is actually incinerated. Anyhow, the backend billing systems do kick in too and further drive the "servers" eating power and spewing heat and whatnot.
So, there you go, that is a carbon footprint of some type. After all, whenever we move a carbon atom from point A to point B there is an equal reaction happening (at least, as in physics).
So, everything is connected. But, we can never create any more carbon in this infinite world. We can definitely move them around in a more beneficial manner that ensure us mere mortals go extinct. Either way, the carbon will still be around.

Posted by: Derik on 04/30/08 at 8:46 AM  Respond

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