To defend our way of life abroad we may need to reconsider how much junk food it involves at home.

It’s not every day that former generals and admirals speak out about children’s health and education. But last Thursday was one of those days. According to Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit, bipartisan organization led by retired senior military leaders, 75 percent of 17 to 24 year olds cannot enlist in the military because they fail to graduate high school, have a criminal record, or are physically unfit.

One trend called out in the report deserves special attention: America’s obesity epidemic not only limits the military’s recruiting base, but is a growing drain on the Department of Defense budget and hurts the readiness of our forces. The numbers are alarming. Since 1998, the rate at which active-duty servicemembers received a medical diagnosis of being overweight or obese increased more than 2.5-fold.

We all know Americans are gaining weight. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of adults in the United States are obese, double the rate in 1980; around two-thirds are at least overweight. (An adult with a body mass index between 25 and 29.9 is overweight; 30 or higher is obese. Someone 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing 169 lbs, for example, is considered overweight. If that same person weighed more than 203 lbs, he would be obese.)

There’s no mystery behind this phenomenon. Less than 10 percent of high school students consume the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables daily. Less than one-third meet the recommended levels of physical activity. Children and adolescents average several hours of TV, DVD, and movie-watching daily. Sugar-sweetened drinks are everywhere, including schools.

These lifestyles, however, are reflected in our military, and the costs are considerable. One-quarter of DoD beneficiaries (which includes servicemembers and their families, and retirees) are obese, little better than in the general U.S. population, while 40 percent are overweight. As in the civilian sector, the military health system is spending a lot of money treating conditions that obesity promotes, like heart disease and diabetes. The DoD estimates its healthcare costs attributable to obesity at $2 billion per year, more than for alcohol- and tobacco-related conditions combined. The cost is sure to grow under an expanded DoD entitlement program for retirees (the Congressional Budget Office projects a near-doubling of DoD healthcare costs, from $46 to $85 billion, during the next 30 years), and could constrain other critical DoD medical treatment and prevention programs.

Then, of course, there is the impact on individual military members. The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center reports that rates of joint and back disorders—among the leading causes of lost duty time—in overweight or obese active duty servicemembers are three times higher than the overall active duty rate. Nearly one-quarter of servicemembers diagnosed as obese or overweight last year also were diagnosed with a joint disorder during the previous year.

Obesity may even play a role in the mental consequences of war, a link we’re only just beginning to understand. This year, a large DoD epidemiological study that includes many personnel who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan reported that servicemembers who don’t see themselves as healthy—which we know correlates with being overweight or obese—were at significantly higher risk for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The link between America’s obesity epidemic and national security is becoming clear to public health experts like Dr. Richard Carmona, who is especially qualified to recognize the connection. He enlisted in the Army, served in Special Forces, and was a combat-decorated Vietnam veteran before beginning his medical career and going on to serve as President George W. Bush’s Surgeon General. Dr. Carmona said recently that “Obesity is not just a health issue” but “affects our national and global security.”

The DoD is launching new initiatives against obesity. The military health system recently completed a pilot project using an internet-based program to help beneficiaries lose weight. Commissaries now have shelf signs with dietary tips based on U.S. Government dietary guidelines. More important, probably, is to help children establish healthy lifestyle habits. Investing in early education on food and health is a good bargain for America whether or not these children choose military service later.

And that’s something that healthy lifestyle campaigners and supporters a strong military—not always a natural constituency—can agree on.

The University of California is an awesome institution. Its ten campuses give 150,000 college students a high-quality public education every year and UC Berkeley, UCSF, and Boalt Hall can compete with any super-expensive private school on quality and reputation. UC Davis is largely responsible for California’s fantastic wine, and for some reason UCLA is crazy famous in Asia. It’s a model for public higher education.

But the University of California has been getting less awesome because it’s been getting less affordable. The state has been giving the University of California less money, and the UC system is passing the favor along by hiking up rates for students. This year, the UC’s Board of Regents is raising college tuition another 32 percent. A year at UCLA will now cost $10,300, three times the price in 1999. Students are rightfully outraged.

But you know what California has managed to find the money for? Warehousing people in prison. This chart from Kevin Drum shows the parallel between tuition hikes at the UC schools and money spent on “corrections” in the state.

Do you think making the UC schools less affordable will create more or fewer future criminals? That’s a rhetorical question. The budget issues are complex, but it’s ridiculous to be spending this kind of public money on prison and denying it for education.

Photo from Flickr user Epioles (cc).

Luckily for me and all travelers, the TSA knows how complicated deciding what fits into the ever-nebulous “gel, aerosol, and liquid” category, especially with holiday specific items, so they’ve published this helpful list of holiday foodstuffs not to bring on the plane:

• Cranberry sauce
• Creamy dips and spreads
  (cheeses, peanut butter, etc.)
• Gift baskets with food items
  (salsa, jams and salad dressings)
• Gravy
• Jams
• Jellies

• Maple syrup
• Oils and vinegars
• Salad dressing
• Salsa
• Sauces
• Soups
• Wine, liquor, and beer

Also, no snow globes. Remember, knowing is half the battle.

Via TPM.

Despite the deadline of the Copenhagen conference, Obama placed energy second on his priority list, guaranteeing that health care would occupy most of the year…. And then—as with health care—he left it pretty much entirely up to Congress to write the necessary legislation. That kept him from having to bear the blame for a byzantine bill, but it also meant that the Senate—the body from which he came, and whose culture he had to know—could work in its usual style, without White House pressure. Which at the moment means that Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham are essentially rewriting the legislation, to what end no one really knows.

Yesterday, Dave Roberts, another of the heavy-hitting environmental writers, chimed in on Grist with a piece called “Is Bill McKibben Right to Be Angry with Obama?”:

Alas, despite the far-reaching powers people tend to ascribe to the U.S. presidency in general and Obama specifically, it seems to me the real culprit is—yes, I’m going to say the same thing again, I’m boring!—the U.S. Senate.

….When it comes to matters under executive branch control, the progress over the last 10 months has been amazing—new fuel-economy rules, new enforcement of efficiency standards, EPA moving forward on CO2 regulations, energy standards and goals for all federal departments, tons of green stimulus money, national retrofit programs, delay of mining and drilling permits, sustained bi- and multi-lateral international climate diplomacy … the list goes on. Obama is doing what a president can do—more than any president has ever done.

Roberts argues that without conservative Democrats in the Senate on board, there’s only so much that Obama can do, and that further “White House pressure” in the form of public campaigning wouldn’t help. He blames Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Jim Webb (D-Vir.), and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.).

What do you think? Elizabeth Kolbert, want to weigh in?

Conservative pundits are pissed, and so is she. But maybe we all should be a little bit? Her confusing use of the third person aside, I agree with her comments. In her words (from her Facebook page):

“The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this “news” magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner’s World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness – a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention – even if out of context. —Sarah Palin”

What do you think?

It’s been a bummer of a week for climate news. The Senate bill continues to languish behind health care and there have been some disconcerting rumbles that it might now be back-burnered even longer as an increasingly spineless nervous Senate focuses on jobs and deficit. And out of Singapore on Sunday we hear that Copenhagen definitely won’t produce a legally-binding agreement, but will rather be the first piece of a “one-agreement, two-step” process, the controversial (and dangerous (pdf), and expensive) delay due largely to U.S. inaction.

So allow me this week—amidst immense frustration—to focus on something positive. Let’s take a look at the core climate solution, the lowest hanging fruit on the emissions reductions tree, the no-brainer fix that is so practical, so cheap, and has such potential, that it’s going to make America’s hesitation to commit to even modest CO2 cuts seem absolutely ridiculous. We’re talking, of course, about efficiency.

Lost in all the argument over mitigation targets and emissions reductions is the simple idea that reaching these goals might actually be easy. Well, easier than anyone is anticipating, and potentially a great boon for the economy at large and for the average American’s wallet. Consider this: The emissions reductions goals laid out in the Waxman-Markey House bill could be met by improving energy efficiency alone and at a net savings to the public and U.S. businesses. According to a July McKinsey report, a $520 billion investment in efficiency through 2020 would yield gross energy savings to the tune of $1.2 trillion, effectively lowering the nation’s energy bill by nearly $700 billion while cutting emissions by 23 percent from business-as-usual. Just how big is this savings? “Greater than the total energy consumption of Canada excluding transportation,” said Ken Ostrowski, a senior partner at McKinsey.

A similarly enlightening report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that the efficiency provisions already in the Waxman-Markey bill would save the average American household $750 annually by 2020 and a whopping $3,900-a-year by 2030, meanwhile creating around 650,000 jobs. This is part of the reason why a diverse coalition of nearly 200 business, labor, civil rights, and environmental groups sent a letter earlier this month to Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, urging her to support an important energy-efficiency provision in the Senate’s legislation.

What’s more, these reports didn’t even touch the transportation sector, where increased fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks that the Administration has already rolled out will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly a gigaton (add another roughly three-quarters to the efficiency savings noted above) and save the average car buyer more than $3,000 in fuel costs. Nor did the McKinsey report factor in a price on carbon emissions, which most analysts and experts see as inevitable. “Even if we don’t get a climate bill this year, it’s extremely conservative to think there will not be a price on carbon in the next decade,” said Peter Lehner, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Meaning the cost savings will surely be even greater.

Translation: it won’t be painful to meet the reductions goals of Waxman-Markey or whatever version comes out of the Senate. And while these goals are admittedly far too modest and don’t nearly achieve what the latest science demands, Congress’s hesitation to commit them to law remains the biggest barrier to a global climate agreement. Americans need to understand that for all the drawn-out debate, these target emissions levels aren’t so big a hurdle. We can step right up to them using existing technologies in ways that actually save consumers money and creates jobs. The commitments that we just can’t seem to make, for which the world is impatiently waiting, can be met with the simplest of win-win-win solutions. Energy efficiency’s moment is long overdue.

Why the restriction on abortion in the health care bill is unfair.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) tussled with his party’s leadership in the House of Representatives for months before finally making an actionable threat: give me a floor vote on an abortion-restricting amendment, or I’ll kill your health care bill. Under the terms of that health care bill, uninsured Americans will be required to purchase health insurance, and the government will partially subsidize those who can’t cover the hefty price. The so-called Stupak amendment, which passed with the support of dozens of Democrats, forbids people who receive that government assistance from buying insurance policies that cover abortion.

The pro-life argument for the dread Stupak amendment is pretty straightforward: If the government helps a woman buy health insurance, and she uses that insurance to finance an abortion, then the government is indirectly spending taxpayer money on abortions. And we can’t have that because…a majority in Congress say we can’t.

So now, if Stupak and his sympathizers get their way, most, if not all women paying for health insurance will be forbidden from buying plans that cover abortions. What this will mean for the vast majority of women, who will continue to receive health insurance from their employers, isn’t known. If over time most people enter the market to buy their own insurance, the impact could be farther-reaching than even Stupak himself foresees. But at least the government won’t be “funding” abortions, right?

The problem is that the argument for the Stupak amendment oversimplifies the connection between government money and abortions. Even before Stupak muscled his way into the health care fight, the government was never really going to be funding abortions. The government was going to be funding insurance—private insurance, for the most part—which is really just an intermediary tool for pooling risk and money to finance privately-provided health care services, including, in some cases, abortion.

If you’re opposed to abortion, and think the government should stay out of it, this may sound like a direct enough connection to justify the Stupak amendment. But there’s a logical flaw at the heart of that position that hasn’t been fully explored, and that can only be resolved if the government were to either criminalize abortion or end all welfare services completely.

The problem with the Stupak amendment is that it assumes there’s something unique about each individual dollar—that serial numbers are like DNA and government dollars are distinct from private dollars in a meaningful sense. But they’re not. The insurance subsidies can’t be used directly to finance other spending—a woman couldn’t take her insurance tax credit directly to a grocery store to buy canned goods—but, like all welfare, the point of the spending is to ease up the burden for working Americans so that they’re free to pay for other goods and services without going broke. This concept—fungibility—leads us uncomfortable places.

Imagine for a moment that Members of Congress had decided that obesity, not abortion, was the nation’s most pressing crisis. Americans are too fat, they’d say. Heart disease is a shameful epidemic. They could do a lot of things, in theory, to change peoples’ behavior. But, of course, this is America, so taxes and blanket prohibitions are out of the question. Enter hypothetical Rep. Art Stupak, who has a different approach. Instead of battling to ban transfats, Art Stupak demands instead that poor people be forbidden from redeeming food stamps at stores that sell junk food. Government money, he says, shouldn’t be used to finance heart disease and its causes.

Let’s say he wins. Soon, thousands of poor people will cash in their food stamps for Shredded Wheat, resulting in profits for the same company that makes Oreos. Isn’t this also the same as government funding junk food? To really cut the tie, you’d have to ban junk food, or end the food stamp program. Anything in between would be an unfair half-measure targeted at the poor.

Back in the real world, conservatives may not be a huge fans of food stamps in principle, but they would mock Democrats if they described the food stamp program as “government financing of Nabisco.” And yet, this is exactly the gambit Bart Stupak and his allies are pulling in their quest to reduce abortions in this country.

That their pet policy will disproportionately effect low- and middle-income women is, for them, an unavoidable side-effect, and an afterthought (if by some curse or miracle, 65 year old, voting women started becoming pregnant, would Stupak be so cavalier about forbidding Medicare from financing abortions?)

Now take the logic one step further. Somewhere in America a poor woman on Medicaid is feeding her family with foodstamps, while saving up for an abortion. Obviously she can’t redeem her foodstamps at Planned Parenthood, but the dollars are basically still interchangible, and if it weren’t for those welfare programs she’d never put together enough money to pay a doctor to end her pregnancy. So is the government funding her abortion? If Bart Stupak had the courage of his convictions, he’d say yes. Welfare, he’d say, is incompatible with the idea that the government shouldn’t finance abortions. But nobody says this, either because they don’t believe it, or they realize that resolving the conflict would result in an unthinkable injustisce. So instead the fallback position becomes, “make it as hard as possible for the neediest among us to do things we don’t like.”

The political opportunism at the heart of the Stupak amendment is precisely what makes it so incoherent. Private doctors and private hospitals provide abortions, and private insurers feel it’s within their interests to finance them. Today, anybody who has the money can buy such a policy, or they can buy abortions out of pocket. That includes rich men, and poor women on food stamps and people whose paychecks come from the government. Using Stupak’s logic, and the logic of fungibility, the latter two groups of people are guilty of using government money to help fund abortions.

In three years, millions of people will likely be required to buy health insurance. Subsidies are the price the government has to pay to foist that requirement upon them. But the Stupak amendment treats the subsidies as a gift they give to women, conditional on their adherence to pro-life protocols. They’ve got it backward.

These problems, I won’t lie, seem like they could have been anticipated a little earlier than a month before the conference. We have our Guide to COP15 available now on the website. Look for our Guide to the mid-2010 Mexico City climate negotiations sometime next year, though it’s easy to imagine world leaders will just kick the can a little further down the road then, too.