From the exaggeration department …because that extra 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit is somehow far more powerful than the range of climate and weather extremes that human experience and live in daily. And, since when is an opinion poll equal to science? Next they’ll be telling us that 97% of Thoracic physicians…
Climate change affects human health, ATS membership survey shows
The American Thoracic Society has published the results of a survey of the ATS membership on climate change which found that the majority of ATS members believe that climate change is real and that it is having a negative impact on the health of the patients that they care for.
“Our physician members are seeing the effects that climate change is having on the well-being of their patients,” said John R. Balmes, MD, Chair of the ATS Environmental Health Policy Committee, who was one of the survey’s authors. “These results talk to the importance of groups involved in healthcare taking a stand on this issue, and educating their members and the patients that they serve that climate change is a healthcare issue.”
Key results of the survey include:
- 89% of respondents believe climate change is happening
- 68% believe climate change is being driven entirely or mostly by human activity
- 65% believe climate change is relevant to direct patient care (either a great deal or a moderate amount)
- Free text responses indicate physician believe they are seeing climate change health effects in patients today
The survey, which was conducted by the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, polled 5,500 US ATS members and asked a series of questions about climate change and its impact on patients. The survey had a response rate of 17% and received responses from 49 states and the District of Columbia.
Reported adverse health effects attributed to climate change included worsening of asthma due to exposure to ozone or other pollutants, longer and more severe allergy seasons, and an increased number of cases of acute and chronic lung conditions.
In addition to Dr. Balmes, other ATS authors of the survey included Gary Ewart, Senior Director of ATS Government Relations and George D. Thurston, DSc, and Tee L. Guidotti, MD, MPH, who are Vice Chair and member, respectively, of the ATS Environmental Health Policy Committee.
The survey results are published in the February issue of the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.
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“Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University” — Aren’t these the crooks who have a huge grant to cook up new ways to scare people (communicate) about climate change.
It’s true, Pachauri got overheated!!
It’s true. My blood pressure is badly affected when I read bollocks like this.
How many actually responded to the survey?
More importantly, this is evidence that professinoal organizations are being corrupted into being political puppets.
The response rate was 17%. That is, 83% of those contacted did not believe climate change questions were worth answering.
Which proves that 17% should not answer surveys when drunk.
It’s all about what they believe! Well do you ‘believe’ that milder winters will reduce deaths from respiratory illnesses and heart attacks? The IPCC agrees with this last ‘belief’. [PS I read above pollution. Are they trying to muddy the waters?]
I am glad that science is now all about ‘belief, such as ‘religion’ and ‘dharma’. (Pachari resignation letter)
17 % response is much higher than the percentage of climate articles utilized (as a percentage of those reviewed) in concocting the 97 % AGW “consensus.” Either way, both surveys are garbage.
Does anybody have a copy of the survey? That would probably explain why 83% chucked it.
Below is a survey reported 2 days ago on NTZ. It also involves the lungs…………..of BATS. Bats are being killed in their droves by wind turbines spinning at up to 300km p/h causing Barotrauma. [“Barotrauma involves tissue damage to air-containing structures caused by rapid or excessive pressure change; pulmonary barotrauma is lung damage due to expansion of air in the lungs that is not accommodated by exhalation]
Next up……….climate change will caused extinction of some bat species in Europe. It sure will, just not in the way they imagined.
Not exactly sure what “…wind turbines spinning at up to 300km p/h…” means, but I’m interpreting it as wind turbines causing wind to accelerate to 300km/hr (200MPH).
This website (http://www.naco.org/programs/csd/Green%20Government%20Database/Atlantic%20County%20NJ%20Wind%20Farm%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf) of unknown credibility states 120 ft long wind turbine blade-tip speeds reach 120-180 mph (the blade tip, not the air). How blade-tip speed translates into even higher wind speed is a mystery.
Wind turbines extract energy from moving air (i.e. slow it down) to convert it to electrical power. They sure don’t accelerate air to 300km/hr.
Chip, if the wing tip is moving at 180mph, then the air next to the wing tip is also moving at 180mph.
The problem is caused by the shock wave created by the blade as it moves through the air.
For MarkW –
The speed of sound is well, well over 180 mph, so there is no possibility of shock waves. (Many, many years experience in the aerospace industry, with 15 years working on helicopter rotors, whose tip speeds are normally around 0.9M at most.) Also, with the blade tip moving at 180 mph, the air next to the tip is moving at whatever the ambient wind condition is, plus any airspeed induced by the passage of the turbine blade. However, again, the blade cannot possibly accelerate the air to the same speed as the blade tip. For helicopter rotors, traveling at about 0.9M, the induced airflow is between 30 and 100 fps, depending upon the rotor flight condition and tip speed – maybe, just maybe about 15% of the tipspeed.
retired engineer
Thanks for the explanation (I’m a finance guy, not an aeronautical engineer).
I read a little of the NTZ survey referenced by Jimbo (above), which appears to blame bat killing wind speeds of 300km/hr on turbine blade-tip speeds (i.e. air speed experienced by bats flying near the blade-tip) that approximately equal the blade-tip speed thru the air. Your helicopter blade analogy seemed to rule this out.
Do you have any further insight or is the NZT report pure bovine excrement?
Not so sure Barotrauma so much as a 300kn/hr WHACK! to flitting bats trying to catch those moths that are attracted to those lights on the tower
Bo, your link is done broke.
So anyone that moves more than 100 miles south from where they now live will have “adverse health effects” from the climate change. LOL
And by going north your health will heal. Magically.
Of course, Greenland is no longer what it used to be.
We English will all move to the Highlands of Scotland, and, obviously, live for ever.
/Sarc. I suppose it’s needed.
Auto
@ur momisugly auto
careful laddie- the boys up there’ll likely be swingin’ claymores
So I suppose that thoracic health is far worse in Florida than Maine due to the much higher temperatures there?
Sure, DHR. I mean… look at how many 80 to 90-year-old people die in Florida every day from thoracic health problems; huge numbers compared to the rest of the U.S. except maybe Arizona ;o)
(another unnecessary /sarc, but who knows what unimaginative, humorless CAGW alarmist might be reading this?)
So, only around 11, 5 % of ATS members reported that they believe climate change is mostly by human activity.
This is a bit like how they arrived at the 97% nonsense.
OOOO KKKKK.
Now onto the religious aspect. Here is how many times I see the word belief and variations thereof as per the above post.
Never has so much rubbish been written by so few and read by many. Into the dustbin pleeeeease.
And looking at all the implications of • 89% of respondents believe climate change is happening
Means that 11% of these med doctors do not believe that AMO, PDO and ocean currents and temperatures have an effective change on weather over +/- 30 year time frames, the very definition of ‘Climate’.
Anyway, these are ‘Specialist Doctors’ and your insurance probably will not allow you to get a recommendation with out a referral.
All these papers and statements are designed to evade the critical unproven claim that man-made CO2 is causing global warming. The Warmists know that there is no proof so keep harping about wanting to do something, to avoid the facts.
“68% believe climate change is being driven entirely or mostly by human activity”
Not 97 percent? Doctors are 29% smarter than climatologists.
I think your sums is well dodgy.
3% of climatologists don’t agree, compared to 32% of doctors, making them almost 11 times (1060%) smarter, not 29%.
I stand corrected.
The survey, which was conducted by the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, polled 5,500 US ATS members and asked a series of questions …
Whenever I see a reference to ‘ATS members’ my first though is the people who inhabit the UFO/conspiracy theory website:
Above Top Secret
The paper is paywalled but the abstract is available free and says “A majority of respondents indicated they were already observing health impacts among their patients, most commonly as increases in chronic disease severity from air pollution (77%), allergic symptoms from exposure to plants or mold (58%) and severe weather injuries (57%).”
Well, okay, let’s see the data that shows U.S. air quality has worsened. And the data that shows allergy-affected people are more frequently being exposed to plants or mold (WTF?) And the data that shows more people are being injured in weather-related incidents. If the latter is true, it almost certainly involves increased numbers of frostbite cases, Sun so hot I froze to death…
But seriously, they only had a 17% response rate. Who would be more likely to respond to a survey about climate change, and who would view it as a cynical political survey and ignore it? It could easily be that a majority of thoracic physicians thinks climate change does not affect their patients.
Yes, such a low response rate is indicative of the interest level among those individuals contacted, and corresponds well with results of recent public surveys ranking climate change. Most people who don’t participate in alarmism will not respond because they distance themselves from politically polarizing issues. I noticed the response rate was mentioned only after all the statistics had been presented to make their case.
Those survey results are troubling not because it tells anything about climate but because doctors are supposed to be educated. In other news these same doctors are reporting the benefits of leeches, divining rods and crystal pendulums.
Could you imagine the number, complexity, and cost of studies that would be required to make the above claims (on top of proving cAGW)?
But why bother when you can quiz three guys around the water cooler?
“Reported adverse health effects attributed to climate change included worsening of asthma due to exposure to ozone or other pollutants, …”
So the surveyors have conflated “climate change” due to CO2 with “climate change” due to “ozone or other pollutants.”
That’s routine now. I saw a commercial about some green product, and at the end it showed a mother and her children (from a low angle looking up at them and the sky) “breathing more easily,” as if now the air was free of respiratory pollutants.
Don’t you just love Karma-free products?
Here’s the survey and results tabulations –
http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/suppl/10.1513/AnnalsATS.201410-460BC/suppl_file/sarfaty_data_supplement.pdf
read the comments at the end – couldn’t copy and paste – some of these folks were seriously distressed with the “climate change” bias and politicization of their organization
The distribution of the respondents by state explains a lot, too.
Here is the conclusion at the end of the article:
“This survey does not prove that the specific health impacts reported by the survey respondents are climate related (e.g., by direct health measurements) but does demonstrate that it is the judgment of these physicians and other clinical professionals that the health of their patients has been affected by climate change and will be more affected in the future. Further research is needed to better understand and quantify climate change’s impact on respiratory disease, both in the United States and globally.”
Indeed they should be very concerned about climate change. Exposure to cold air is a common asthma trigger. Imagine shoveling snow in the cold as the climate change. However no mention of this trigger in their article.
The same issue is also concerned with marijuana (JA Kemper page 135). No mention that this is full of pollutants, including 33 carcinogens! Could this have an effect on their patients?
Here is part of the conclusions:
“Our findings regarding the respiratory symptoms of habitual marijuana smokers corroborate the existing evidence. Many studies have demonstrated that habitual marijuana smoke increases symptoms of bronchitis, and our data similarly show an increase in recent self-reported respiratory illness, with trends toward increases in self-reported respiratory infections and symptoms of wheezing”
No mention that the State of California has declared marijuana smoke to be carcinogenic under Proposition 65!
Never mind!
Just above the comments in that PDF I see madness being caused by
global warminga broken air conditioner. They should now be re-named the AMERICAN MENTAL SOCIETY. No treatment available for this lot.Even better. Read the questionnaire!
All the questions are related to increase in temperature! Too many of them but here is one Question and 6 choices to answer.
No mention that cold air is a common asthma trigger included in any choice. The authors of this questionnaire believe that climate change is an increase in temperature.
Question:
In which of the following ways, if any, do you think your patients are currently being affected by climate change, or might
be affected in the next 10-20 years? Select: Yes/Don’t Know/No/TOTAL
Heat-related effects (e.g., heatstroke, heat
exhaustion, cardio-respiratory illness)
48% 22% 30% 749
Vectorborne infection (e.g. Lyme, West Nile,
Dengue Fever, Malaria)
40% 28% 32% 744
Diarrhea from food/waterborne illnesses ( e.g.
Salmonella, Giardia, Cryptosporidia) following
downpours or floods
26% 31% 43% 742
Injuries due to severe storms, floods, droughts, fires 57% 17% 26% 749
Air pollution related increases in severity of illness
(e.g., asthma, COPD, pneumonia, cardiovascular
disease)
77% 12% 12% 752
Increased care for allergic sensitization and
symptoms of exposure to plants or mold (visits to
office/ER for asthma/allergic symptoms)
58% 25% 17% 749
example comment:
Here is another example comment in their survey.
Like I said earlier, it is a survey about ‘belief’.
I’m off to other stuff now before I become very angry.
Living in Barbados is bad for your health? Retiring to Florida is bad for your health? Living in London as opposed to Scotland is bad for your health? Going to Spain on holiday is bad for your health? Changes in temperature of 0.02C over 10 years is bad for your health? Whether smoking pot is bad for your health may be an open question. However, it does not appear to be good for research.
See just above. Appears that smoking pot is not so good for your health either!
Another rigged survey by an org that hopes to cash in on the funding being thrown around in support of CAGW.
Educated persons do not believe in the CAGW,as shown by independent surveys conducted by those who are NOT seeking a slice of the CAGW funding pie.
And why should we care any more about their opinions on this matter than, say, a group of dentists or auto mechanics?
I tried to have a conversation with my GP (who was head of interns at the local hospital) about a science/health matter that I thought might interest him.
He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “I’m not a scientist, you know.”
He didn’t think of himself as a scientist, why should anyone else? Why would a thoracic specialist be any different? These people, for the most part, are highly trained technicians, not scientists. There may be the odd few out of thousands with true science training but not many, I’d wager. That fact does not belittle their value to society.
Pointless opinion poll #__.
Susan Crockford
I like the idea of doing a survey of auto mechanics.
“These people, for the most part, are highly trained technicians”
‘
Absolutely correct Susan. Highly trained pattern-recognition body mechanics.
If doctors really want to know the science of something they are peddling they speak to the real scientists in the relevant laboratory and ask for it to be explained and sometimes in the simplest terms that can be understood!
Trust me…..
Confusion again between sooty pollution and benign and beneficial CO2 that promotes plant growth.
Yeah, yeah, whatevva!
Few people understand that most North American coal generators use scrubbers to remove particulates and sulphur and other pollutants. (Except co2) Just talked to a friend who thought coal electrical production was polluting.
To be fair coal electricty production IS polluting. Those scrubbers are not 100% effective and many older plants have systems that are minimally effective. Of course burning those fuels in domestic stoves is MUCH worse as they are less efficient and more polluting.
The current assault by regulators on coal fired plants in Europe and North America means that businesses have zero incentive to improve. If you are threatened with closure because you produce CO2 why bother spending money on SO2 or particulate scrubbers ?
Just when you think that was bad you find the law of unintended consequences going in to overdrive with the adoption of biofuels. Pollution control standards have been REDUCED for Drax and Eggborough power stations to alow them to burn wood pellets. Apparently SO2 and particulates are bad if burning coal but good if from burning wood. The result is that in europe coal fired power plants will have to upgrade their scrubbers by 2016 OR switch to burning wood which has no effective controls !
I read about this wood pellets stupidity and apparently the wood will be imported from the USA.
Is this correct?
I found the answer to wood pellets:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/12/141208-wood-pellet-energy-boom-driven-by-exports/
From this site: “Wood is a renewable fuel: Where one tree goes down, another can grow”
Just waiting now for a pipeline to transport pellets from USA to Europe to accommodate the boom.
According to EPA this is a great idea. Recoup the CO2 by burning the tree instead of waiting for the dead tree to rot. The British, after a comprehensive study as noted at the above site also think it is a great idea. It is not like burning coal. Burning wood is just part of the carbon cycle.
yup, we’ll deforest the US to pelletize UK through Drax with low carbon-density wood, instead of that formerly great coal, but rd50 –
Coal is not? Has my non-approved by EPA woodstove made it into the annals as an officially accepted carbon capture machine? Well, I know I shoot it into the atmosphere and not the ground, which will be good plant food come Spring (if that ever comes).
To Bubba Cow.
NO, coal is NOT part of the carbon cycle.
The rule is, according to EPA, when you burn coal, you cannot create coal again from the released CO2.
See, but when you burn wood, the CO2 released is taken up by a tree and you can burn the new tree. See? Wood is renewable fuel, not fossil fuel. The carbon cycle is …
Never mind!
The real headline should be: “83% of doctors laugh at survey questioning effects of climate change on their patients health, file survey in the nearest waste basket.”
No doubt the number of people smoking is increasing with the intense CAGW scares. That must be it.
I wonder if the 17% response rate is similar to the subscriber rate to the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.
Sorry, misplaced post.
Can we get a list of names on the survey please? I’d like to know who I wouldn’t trust working on my thoracic cavity. I’d trust a witchdoctor before trusting someone that claims they’ve seen effects of climate change on their patient’s health.