Though we like to ignore the elephant in the room, global climate change effects us in Indiana. In addition to our tendency towards obesity (we tied Michigan for 9th most obese state), high smoking rates and low academic attainment, we're a polluter. Our air pollution rate positions us in the 70th percentile of states with cancer causing air contaminants.

In just days, Al Gore will be addressing the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia. In support of his trip, former Vice President Gore is urging people to sign an important petition calling for visionary leadership leading to a treaty on climate change. And while there is movement on the international front to force leaders to confront the effects of pollution on the environment, the response in Indiana has been poor enough to go beyond notice. Individual responses to global warming tend towards "Hey, anything to keep from shoveling snow this winter" or my personal favorite, "Well, this is just a sign of the End Times."

Dammit.

As an athmatic, I know that freezing temps tend to slow the progress of germs and viruses which don't survive well in arctic temperatures--freezing temperatures we're not likely to get. Also, increasingly, I've noted the Ozone Action Days, clear warnings to those who, when we can see the haze marking the presence of gunk in the air, are told to stay in, top off the tank and mow in the latter part of the day...and I watched, indoors, the poor response.

I have lots of company on the wheezing weinie front: child asthmatics (under 18) have increased to 9% in 2005, up from 7.5% 1995 and 3.6% in 1980 (according to the State of Childhood Asthma, United States: 1980-2005). Get this: with over 6.5 million childhood asthma sufferers, there are more asthmatic children in the United States than there are citizens in the entire state of Indiana!

Face it. Doing what it takes to keep our bodies and enviroment healthy is a damned nuisance. A costly nuisance. And though I hate it that he said it, Mayor-elect Ballard was right: we Hoosiers like our cars. We just don't care that by refusing to consolidate trips or commute, we're adding significantly to the pollution. Hell, we experienced drought conditions and many of my neighbors defiantly watered their yards (despite restrictions) without regard to the impact on the water supply for household or emergency use. It was only when it became obvious that they were fighting a losing battle that they gave up.

Childhood obesity, a national epidemic, has gotten guilty-feeling mothers or time-strapped dads plowing their heads into the dirt...letting little Jim and LaWanna eat their McMeals and maintain sedentary lives because, frankly, it's easier than fixing something at home and actually spending time with those kids. Scientists have wondered aloud whether our young ones will be among the first generation that will not outlive us. Even the knowledge that 80% of obese children will become obese adults with shorter life expectancy isn't enough to  have us tell Jimbo and young sistah LaW to put down the Ninendo and go outside to play at the park (without stopping by McDonald's on the way).

Here's a brain burner: as our children get fatter, our girls experience menarche earlier (the First Change, ya'll), usually, when they hit 120 pounds. Now, consider that if your daughter begins ovulating at 7 or 8 due to obesity and follows the trend of later initial childbearing, it's no stretch of the imagination to realized that those daughters will be fighting an uphill battle to have children.

Us chicks don't lay eggs forever.

There seems to be no amount of evidence that will get us to act. Maybe we'll believe the increasing body count.

Nah.

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