UPDATE: Holy moly. Dr. Richard North over at the EU Referendum points to this, (screencap below) which makes Ric’s article (further below) look tame. Add this to what’s going on in the AMA, and it looks like a effort to co-opt the medical profession in the role of “trusted advocate”. They couldn’t get the TV weathercasters to go along, so they moved up the food chain. Expect climate change lectures with speeding tickets next. “Sir do you realize you were going 65 in a 60 zone? That hurts the planet with excessive emissions”. – Anthony
North says:
We are back to “foxtrot oscar” time. The medical profession is having a hard enough time convincing me that they can deal with the issues for which they are paid. The very last thing I am interesting in hearing from them is their ill-informed views on climate change. To use their positions to push them would be an abuse of trust. And it is quite disturbing that these people can’t even see that.
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Guest Post By Ric Werme
I give up. I almost was able to shake my head and move on, but no, this latest bit of congressional spin combined with general disdain for rational discourse and a vapid comment in Lancet got under my skin. All I can do is to try to pass it on. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll turn the page, metaphorically speaking, of course.
Has the world gone mad with stupid science, stupid testimony, and stupid editorials? I guess so. Consider this from The Hill:
Capps pointed to a 2009 article in The Lancet, a medical journal, that said climate change could be the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”
“That makes climate change a bigger public health problem than AIDS, than malaria, than pandemic flu,” Capps said. “That’s why we need to take steps to address this cause behind this growing public health problem.”
I’m going to skip the rest of the article, read it if you wish, it will sound all too familiar. I merely want to call attention to this “spin device”.
Note that the reference to The Lancet included the word “could.” Right off the bat we’re into a lot of uncertainty. I assume they didn’t offer other possibilities. Personally, I think Alzheimers deserves consideration, but who knows, hangnails could be the biggest threat. Time will tell.
Capps took that reference, discarded the “could” and added a few possible candidates – OMG! I just Googled for |aids malaria pandemic flu| and Capps’ comment is referenced by seven other web pages already! I was looking for what might have been her source or if she thought of that list on her own. Try Epic Disasters, it’s pretty close.
Where was I? Oh – she changed the indefinite statement into something that is completely certain and included things that The Lancet may not have considered. Perhaps The Lancet left those off just to make its comment about climate change look more dire.
Why do people continue to use this sort of spin? It’s almost as though Capps has no better argument and resorts to something she hopes people won’t see through. Judging from the comments at The Hill, it didn’t work.
Oh well, if climate change is the worst thing to happen to us this century, we’ll do quite well.
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Instead of questioning the hypothetical effects of global warming, one should put the question “What is the effect on health of the measures already taken to ban the carbon emisson?”
1. Several diesel engines are more economical in consumption than gasoline engines and eject less CO2. On an annual basis, the difference in emission reaches 0.2 to 0.5 ton CO2 per car (mean distance about 15,000 kilometers a year). So, some governments grant large fiscal advantages to owners of diesel engines.
But diesel engines pump out a lot of harmful particles: NOx (nitrous oxides) and particulate matter (“fine dust”). Thus, the effect of such policy is air pollution with harmful consequences for all road users: bronchitis, asthma, heart infarct, cancer, shorter life. In Belgium, more than 60% of the cars are diesel engines. There are thousands of victims due to the noxious air in cities.
2. And which are the effects of the introduction of biofuel? Vast and increasing amounts of land and agricultural production are diverted into making ethanol. This leads to higher cost for food production and to more poverty.
“One way or the other, agricultural lands and forests are being diverted away from smallhold producers, fishers and pastoralists to commercial purposes, and leading to displacement, hunger and poverty.”
“Land grabbing – even where there are no related forced evictions – denies land for local communities, destroys livelihoods, reduces the political space for peasant oriented agricultural policies and distorts markets towards increasingly concentrated agribusiness interests and global trade rather than towards sustainable peasant/smallhold production for local and national markets.”
(http://farmlandgrab.org/12200 )
3. I hope that in the coming winters, enough electricity will still be available in countries that promote green energy (such as the United Kingdom).
Are these measures taken by the governments not much more harmful for health than the phantom that Capps points out? She should know better.
Oh, come on! Be nice to the old lady. She just wants your money.