By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Several concerned senior members of the medical profession in Australia have contacted the Lord Monckton Foundation to express their disappointment at an opinion survey on climate change circulated by the Association’s President, who proposes to promulgate what would be yet another me-too “Position Statement on Climate Change”.
Though, as one doctor has pointed out, it is welcome that before the Association commits itself to any position statement it is first consulting its members [which is more than can be said for most scientific societies that have issued “me-too” statements on climate change], members are dismayed that they are being consulted on a subject that is wholly beyond the scientific competence or remit of the medical profession.
An eminent specialist at a tertiary training institution put it thus: “I have no expert knowledge in the sciences associated with climate, meteorology etc. I very much doubt if many members of the AMA have the relevant knowledge to come out in support or protest of any particular climate stance … any noise generated by the AMA carries no more weight than any other trade grouping.”
It has also been suggested that “the President has political aspirations and may be doing a Gore”.
The most frequent complaint, however, is that the terms of the survey are prejudiced, being calculated to reflect only an interventionist viewpoint. For instance, one of the survey questions cites the final report of Tim Flannery’s relentlessly partisan and now disbanded Climate Change “Authority”.
Flannery is the activist, paid $180,000 of Australian taxpayers’ money per year for his former part-time sinecure as head of the “Authority”, who foretold that, because of manmade global warming, never again would water flow through the rivers of the vast Murray-Darling Basin to the major population centers of south-eastern Australia.
Just months later, the most recent of the region’s frequent droughts broke and heavy rains filled every river and reservoir in the system to the brim.
To assist doctors who may wish to participate in the AMA President’s propaganda exercise, but in a manner that accords not with his self-evident prejudices but with objective scientific data and peer-reviewed results, each of the survey’s questions will be set forth, followed by relevant data and references.
To what extent do you agree that “There is now substantial evidence to indicate that human activity – and specifically increased greenhouse gas emissions – is a key factor in the pace and extent of global temperature increases”?
The upper few meters of the ocean, which must warm if the planetary surface is to warm, have cooled very slightly during the 11 years of systematic subsea temperature observation by the 3600 automated bathythermograph floats of the ARGO series. The floats only measure the top mile and a quarter of an ocean that is in places many miles deep. Over the entire mile and a quarter there has been warming, but only at a rate equivalent to 1 C° every 430 years:
The gentle increase in the ocean warming rate with depth suggests volcanic warming by slow diffusion from below rather than greenhouse-gas-driven warming from above. The warming may be occurring chiefly via the mid-ocean divergence boundaries through which magmatic heat is transferred directly to the sea floor. We do not know for sure, because the ocean below 1.9 km depth is not systemically monitored.
Or there may be no ocean warming at all, for each buoy has to measure a 200,000 km3 volume of seawater about 200 miles square by a mile and a quarter deep, so that the coverage uncertainty is monstrous.
The UAH and RSS satellites show that the lower troposphere, the body of air directly above the Earth’s surface, has not warmed for 18 years 5 months and 18 years 6 months respectively, notwithstanding increases in CO2 concentration at a rate exceeding 200 μmol mol–1 century–1 over the period:
According to the RSS dataset (Mears & Wentz, 2009), the central medium-term rate of global warming predicted by the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1990 has proven to have been exaggerated by more than two and a half times. The slow rate of observed warming over the past quarter of a century has proven very substantially below even the IPCC’s then least estimate, and is well within the natural variability of the climate:
The terms of the AMA’s survey question are accordingly prejudiced in that they strongly imply that global temperature is increasing apace when in fact in almost two decades it has not increased at all.
To what extent do you agree that the policy of the Australian Medical Association should strongly assert it is Australia’s and the global community’s responsibility to limit global temperature rise?
In 1032 AD, England had a wise Danish king who became disappointed at the propensity of the official and professional classes to assume that because they were the big enchilada they had powers that they did not in fact possess. One day King Canute caused his throne to be set up by the sea, gathered his courtiers about him, stretched forth his hand and commanded the tide not to come in.
The fascinated courtiers watched as sea-level rise nevertheless occurred and the king got the Royal tootsies wet. He turned to them and reminded them that if the powers of the divinely-anointed King were limited theirs too were circumscribed a fortiori:
“Verilie, my Flatterers, We hold not fo much Powre as ye believe. Mind ye well, then, yt reigneth ane onlie King, He yt is All-Myghtie, He yt gouernyth ye Sea, & holdyth ye Ocean in ye Holloue of His Hande, Keep ye then yr Praifes vnto Him alone.”
What, then, is the power of the Australian government to command the temperature and hence the sea level not to rise? Scientific considerations demonstrate that it is little greater than that of King Canute.
Monckton of Brenchley (2013), A reviewed paper published by the World Federation of Scientists, examined the then Australian Government’s “carbon” tax. Based on that paper, the following conclusions may be drawn.
If the Australian Government’s CO2 tax were to achieve its stated aim of cutting 5% of Australia’s CO2 emissions by 2020, and assuming HM Treasury’s 3.5% pure-rate-of-time-preference commercial discount rate for inter-temporal investment appraisals –
Ø By 2020, CO2 in the air would be 411.987 parts per million by volume, compared with 412 ppmv if no action were taken.
Ø Global warming forestalled by 2020 would be 0.00007 C°: i.e. 1/14,000 C°.
Ø 0.00007 C° is 1/700 of the threshold below which modern instruments and methods cannot detect a global temperature change at all.
Ø At this rate, total cost of the carbon tax/trade policy would be not less than $127 billion between 2011 and 2020, not counting gasoline and power price hikes.
Ø If all the world’s measures to cut greenhouse-gas emissions had the same unit mitigation cost per C° of global warming forestalled as the Australian Government’s policy, forestalling just 1 C° of global warming would cost the world $1.7 quadrillion.
Ø Forestalling all of the 0.24 C° global warming predicted by 2020 would demand almost $60,000 from every man, woman and child on the planet.
Ø That cost is equivalent to almost 60% of global GDP to 2020.
Ø That is 22 times the maximum estimate of the welfare loss from doing nothing about the climate, which is just 2.7% of global 21st-century GDP.
Ø It is 83 times the minimum welfare-loss estimate of just 0.7% of GDP.
Ø Ross Garnaut’s 1.35% and 2.65% inter-temporal discount rates, proposed in a 2008 report for the Australian Government, are very low by usual economic standards, artificially making the cost of action seem less costly compared with the cost of inaction than it really is. However –
Ø Even at Garnaut’s artificially low discount rates, the cost of the policy would be 7.6 to 15 times the cost of doing nothing about climate change.
Ø At the 5% minimum market discount rate recommended by President Dr. Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic for climate-related appraisals, the cost the policy would rise to 36 times the maximum cost of doing nothing.
Ø For most Australian households, the $10.10/week benefit from the Gillard scheme will exceed the $9.90/week cost, providing no disincentive to emit.
Ø For the 500 big “polluters” at which the policy was directed (CO2 is not a pollutant, but plant-food to green the planet), compensation plus higher prices provide no disincentive to emit.
Ø Thus, all of the above calculations overstate the scheme’s cost-effectiveness.
Accordingly, it is beyond the powers either for the Australian Government or for the international community to “limit global temperature rise” in any meaningful degree, even if the climate were not a thermostatic object that has for the past 810,000 years regulated the Earth’s surface temperature to within the 3.25 C° either side of nominal permitted by the average household thermostat (Jouzel et al., 2007):
The Australian Government Climate Change Authority’s final report, Reducing Australia’s greenhouse-gas emissions – targets and progress, states that a global emissions budget can be used to define the limit on emissions that is consistent with limiting the global temperature rise to below 2 degrees. To what extent do you agree that the policy of the Australian Medical Association should make reference to (a) a global greenhouse-gas emissions budget; (b) an Australian greenhouse-gas emissions budget; c) specific emissions-reduction targets for Australia necessary to limit global temperature rise to below 2 C°?
The analysis in Monckton of Brenchley (2013) is consistent with the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (2013) and with the near-unanimous opinion of the reviewed papers on mitigation economics in the learned journals in concluding that the cost of mitigating climate change today exceeds that of adapting to its adverse consequences the day after tomorrow, even if per impossibile there were as much climate change today as predicted, and even if per impossibile the adverse consequences were as severe as predicted.
The survey question is also remiss in not stating what it means by “limiting global temperature rise to below 2 degrees”. The ideal global mean surface temperature that must not be exceeded by more than 2 C° is not stated: nor is any scientific or other justification offered either for that ideal or for limiting any temperature rise above that imagined ideal to 2 C°.
Some 90% of the Earth’s species live in the tropics, where it is warm and wet. Only 1% live at the Poles, where it is cold and dry. Until the global warming scare, climate scientists used to refer to warm periods as “climate optima”. For life on Earth, warmer is better than colder.
Nor does the survey question make it clear that the “2 C°” limit is a purely political and not scientific target, adopted by non-scientific representatives of governments at one of the interminable UN annual climate conferences.
Nor does the question make it clear that the politicians had arbitrarily decided that the world should not be allowed to become warmer than 2 C° above pre-industrial temperature, or just 1 C° above today’s temperature.
Given that only 1 C° of future warming is the politicians’ capriciously-adopted target, the question whether the temperature as it is thought to have been in 1750 is the ideal global temperature is of no small importance. Yet none of those who advocate shutting down the economies of the West in the name of saving the planet from Thermageddon has ever explained why the temperature of 1750 is the ideal surface temperature.
If the policy of the Australian Medical Association includes emission reduction targets for Australia, should the Climate Change Authority’s targets be endorsed, or some other targets?
The only “target” mentioned in the survey questions is the 2 C°-above-1750 target. But that is not the Climate Change “Authority’s” target: it is the UN’s political target. Since the Climate Change “Authority’s” targets are not specified in the question, it is meaningless.
Should the Australian Medical Association advocate for the health sector to reduce its carbon footprint?
Given the absence of any global temperature response over the past 18 years 6 months to CO2 emissions at a rate greater than in the past 810,000 years, there is no scientific justification for any reduction in “carbon footprint”. In any event, in the absence of any specified magnitude for the reduction, the question is meaningless.
To what extent do you agree that the policy of the Australian Medical Association should advocate for a) disinvestment from non-renewable energy sources; b) investment in renewable energy sources?
Disinvestment is ineffective. While it remains profitable to extract and export coal, as Australia does, shares sold by some will be bought by others. A representative of Shell, speaking in May 2015 at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, made it quite clear to a questioner that Shell were entirely relaxed about disinvestment, since it had been shown to make not the slightest difference to the share price or to anything else except the inadequately-informed consciences of the disinvestors.
While it remains necessary to burn coal to lift third-world economies such as China and India out of poverty, which is the fastest way to increase their prosperity and thus to stabilize populations and minimize the eventual environmental footprint of Man, disinvestment campaigns – even if they worked – would cruelly deprive the poor of the cheap, low-tech, reliable, base-load electricity they so desperately need.
The entire teeming continent of Africa, setting aside the Mediterranean littoral and South Africa, consumes no more electricity per day than the single, small outback town of Dubbo, New South Wales. Africa is in the literal sense the Dark Continent.
Therefore, any attempt – however unlikely to succeed – to harm the work of fossil-fuel corporations is calculated to condemn the world’s poorest people to a life without electricity – a life that is poor, nasty, brutish and short.
It is, to say the least, a curious interpretation of the Hippocratic oath that would lead any professional association of doctors to advocate measures calculated to prolong the severely adverse health consequences of denying coal-fired power to the sick and struggling billion of our fellow-men who cannot so much as turn on a light:
References
ARGO (2015) Bibliography of papers related to the network of ARGO temperature-salinity floats, http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Bibliography.html
IPCC AR5 (2013) Climate change 2013: The physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, et al (eds) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne
Jouzel J, Masson-Delmotte V, Cattani O et al (2007) Orbital and millennial Antarctic climate variability over the past 800,000 years. Science 317:793–796
Mears CA, Wentz FJ (2009) Construction of the RSS v3.2 lower-tropospheric dataset from the MSU and AMSU microwave sounders. J Atmos Ocean Tech 26:1493-1509
Monckton of Brenchley C (2013) Is CO2 mitigation cost-effective? In: Proceedings of the 45th Annual International Seminar on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies, World Federation of Scientists (A. Zichichi and R. Ragaini, eds.). World Scientific, London, ISBN 978 981 4531 77 1, 167-185
How can Doctors know the costs of adaptation to climate change relative to the costs of trying to control the climate? They are not atmospheric scientists.
And why do they think we can control the climate anyway?
They’d be better off being led by a Cnut.
I think it’s plain that climate scientists are terrible at economics. They have a skill in justifying large grants to gullible politicians, most of whom are also terrible at economics.
Cnut is an anagram, so they are being led by a Cnut – a whole load of Cnuts
A quote from Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winning physicist:
“The first principle is not to fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool”
Posting really appreciated but why do we have to put trend lines through the temp data especially when its mostly fraudulent. Its a bad habit of all lukewarmers. You may note that R Spencer does not put a line through his data anymore. A sine curve would be more realistic (best fit curve).
So Eliza, just what determines a “best fit curve” ??
There is no single best fit curve to any data set.
Consider for example a set of numbers that plot as a somewhat linear looking graph with a decidedly up slope.
One can compute the straight line that minimizes the mean square errors of the data points from that line. Climate people do that all the time.
Is that the best fit line ? Well you say that it isn’t’ maybe a sine curve is better.
But is it the best fit STRAIGHT LINE to that data ??
Well maybe not.
Suppose those numbers are from a function that has a real zero value at some point.
A straight line fit that ignores the actual scales, could have as large an error at the data point close to the zero point, as it has for the data point most remote from zero.
Maybe only the fractional errors from the straight line should be minimized in a mean square summation, so that the best fit straight line will always pass exactly through zero.
Clearly the line giving the minimum absolute errors square is not always the best fir straight line.
You have to know more about the information to attempt to represent it by the best straight line, if a straight line is for some reason the best choice.
How would you decide between a “sine curve” as you suggest and a polynomial function perhaps with many adjustable parameters ?
I happen to believe that the data itself is the best fit to the function, if there is any functional connection between the data values.
g
Suggested response to survey:
Dam* it Brian, I’m a doctor not a climatologist!
PS “Neither Brian are you. If you have a personal opinion on CAGW, keep it to yourself and dinner parties”
cnxtim, I may be mistaken, but the original post was a Star Trek joke based on a parody of the character “Bones” (the ship’s doctor) rebutting his commander, one James T. Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise.
“It is, to say the least, a curious interpretation of the Hippocratic oath that would lead any professional association of doctors to advocate measures calculated to prolong the severely adverse health consequences of denying coal-fired power to the sick and struggling billion of our fellow-men who cannot so much as turn on a light:”
or anybody else for that matter
Here Endeth The Lesson
“It’s dead, Jim”
Would the last question benefit from a third choice – or c) disinvestment from renewable energy sources??
Is this true? (in the interest of your usually impeccable accuracy)
“The entire teeming continent of Africa, setting aside the Mediterranean littoral and South Africa, consumes no more electricity per day than the single, small outback town of Dubbo, New South Wales”.
I lived in Nigeria for four years and in areas (Abuja and Yola) that are fairly well lit up on your Africa image, albeit largely by diesel generators. There is something of a grid under construction but, last I knew, it wasn’t hooked up to any electrical power source.
Hmmm Nigeria … last I heard any copper (or aluminium) thicker than a telephone wire is stolen in quite short order. I saw some solar street lighting going up in Port Harcourt a few years back and suspect that didn’t last long.
Until the rampant kleptocracy is dealt with and a sense of community (a loaded word in W. Africa) is instilled little if any progress will be made. Africa is home to much petroleum exploitation but very little in the way of downstream petrochemical / energy endeavours – except South Africa…
If I remember the original article correctly (I think at Jo Nova’s site), the comparison was between the country of Niger (17million population approx.) and Dubbo (13,500 approx.). Thee article also quoted some cities in the US of approximately the same size.
Typo – population of Dubbo is approx. 33,500. Apologies.
People in Lagos, Nigeria are connected to a grid, they are forced to pay connection fees, but there is no reliable power from the grid. So everyone uses small petrol powered generators.
Ethiopia is building the largest hydro power plant in Africa. Apparently it dwarfs Aswan.
I suppose Lord Monckton got the numbers wrong. Dubbo has 33.000 inhabitants approx. and the australian consumption of electric energy is roughly 8400 kwh/p.a. per capita. So, I estimate Dubbo has a daily consumption of 0.76 MWh. or 277 MWh annually. That will do as a rough estimate.
The total number of people in Africa increased from 221 million in 1950 to 1.1 billion in 2013.
Yes. It seems ridiculous to put that mistaken “fact” in the middle of what was quite an interesting article
It probably has got something to do with the Hippopotamic oath: that species defecates into the waters it lives in. In other words: stick to your knitting, doctors, unless you want to end up as bunglers who just want to curry favour with the mainstream.
A.M.A. President’s message,
https://ama.com.au/ausmed/climate-change-failure-would-be-%E2%80%98intergenerational-theft-worst-kind%E2%80%99
Young and gullible?
Postscript,
From their recruitment page it states “I hereby apply to be elected a member of the Australian Medical Association Limited and agree, if elected, to observe the principles stated in the Declaration of Geneva and the Rules of the AMA.”
Now the ‘Declaration of Geneva’ from their link states.
At the time of being admitted as a member of the medical profession:
“I solemnly pledge to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;
I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude that is their due;
I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity;
The health of my patient will be my first consideration;
I will respect the secrets that are confided in me, even after the patient has died;
I will maintain by all the means in my power, the honor and the noble traditions of the medical profession;
My colleagues will be my sisters and brothers;
I will not permit considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene between my duty and my patient;
I will maintain the utmost respect for human life;
I will not use my medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties, even under threat;
I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honor”
Now how many ‘Pledges’ has the President of the Australian Medical Association broken?
.
Thanks to Lord Monckton for that concise collection of facts and the deductions made. It is appalling to see those people who have a say making things worse day after day instead of bettering the access of the poor to reasonably priced energy. It somehow becomes obvious why third-world-nations want the money back they have to spend on diesel for their generators with, thanks to the UN, some surcharge for “administration costs”, of course.
a) disinvestment from non-renewable energy sources;
Perhaps the doctors should consider disinvestment from non-renewable HELIUM sources.
Bye-Bye nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging.
C’mon psychiatrists, this is a social mania. It’s not likely lethal to the body politic, but certainly is morbid, multisystemic and malevolent.
=============
Yeah kim, it seems it is left to people like you and I to address the craziness of this “social mania” which demonizes CO2 instead of praising it, while the Psychiatrists remain silent. I think we deserve a lot of money for even pointing it out!
It appears to be even worse here in New Zealand. See attached statement from the chair of the New Zealand Medical association. There are some appropriate statements about health in general but there appears to be no appreciation whatsoever of the Science of Climatology and a blind acceptance of the “warmists” claims.
https://www.nzma.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/42843/NZMA-Submission-to-MFE-on-New-Zealands-Climate-Change-Target.pdf
How many organizations have a committed “Position Statement on Climate Change”, who “suggested” that they have one, and what would have happened if they refused to cooperate? I bet all the mainstream media outlets have signed-on to this, which effectively says, “We hereby agree to function as a free public relations and information dissemination resource for the proponents of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change”.
Perhaps a different trade group, let’s say carpenters, should be asked to complete an opinion survey on medical practices.
1. To what extend do you agree that lack of current information and outdated protocols by general practitioners causes delays in the testing for and diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.
We have some 4,00 associations in Australia. Watch this space for more news from those who advantageously found grant opportunities in the inbox for Climate Change Surveys.
N U T S!
http://www.army.mil/article/92856
A question and a thought… What benefit do scientists, meteorologists, physicians, engineers, etc get from being a member of these esteemed bodies?? Would it not be possible for those who object or disagree to their names being put to such outrageous lies to divest themselves from these institutions and set up their own apolitical organisations as alternatives?
Non-,
Apart from being parted with their cash and being a ‘Member of a Club’.
All these are scams to extract money from the gullible and make them feel superior to others.
[Fake email address. ~mod.]
You missed a few actual quotes…
===============
MAXINE McKEW: But you can’t be certain, though, that at some point we won’t see – in spite of what you’ve laid out there, we won’t see a return to more normal patterns?
TIM FLANNERY: Well, you can’t predict the future; that’s one of the things that you learn fairly early on, but if I could just say, the general patterns that we’re seeing in the global circulation models – and these are very sophisticated computer tools, really, for looking at climate shift – are saying the same sort of thing that we’re actually seeing on the ground. So when the models start confirming what you’re observing on the ground, then there’s some fairly strong basis for believing that we’re understanding what’s causing these weather shifts and these rainfall declines, and they do seem to be of a permanent nature. I don’t think it’s just a cycle. I’d love to be wrong, but I think the science is pointing in the other direction.
–ABC, 2005
===============
Climate change is working against Sydney. “There’s only two years’ water supply in Warragamba Dam,” says Flannery, “yet Frank Sartor [NSW Minister for Energy and Utilities] is talking about the situation being stable … If the computer models are right then drought conditions will become permanent in eastern Australia.”
–Sydney Morning Herald, 2005
===============
CHARLES WOOLEY: While many farmers believe that drought is just part of a natural cycle, scientist Dr Tim Flannery sees much broader and more sinister forces at work. We live in a new world where global warming and climate change now have Australia on the edge of permanent drought.
PROFESSOR TIM FLANNERY: We are in by far the worst position of any country that I’ve had a look at in terms of climate change.
–60 Minutes, 2005
===============
Andi Hazelwood: Should Australia be preparing for permanent drought conditions?
Dr. Tim Flannery: The pattern that we’re seeing now in the weather in Australia is very much the pattern was predicted by computer models as much as a decade ago. We will have to get by with less water. The CSIRO’s telling us that. We’re seeing it now, in the evidence before our eyes in our rivers and creeks, and of course the computer models in the global models have been predicting just this now for some years. I think all evidence says that this is our new climate and we have to get by with less water than we’ve ever had before.
–Global Public Media, 2007
===============
How peculiar , these comments seem to encompass nearly every single possibility and yet the very opposite appears to have happened ! Flannery is well named ,as in ,”don,t give me a load of old flannel son”
What part of the Planet is greening do these temperature molesters do not understand? Local weather is not freakin climate!!
It really is sooooooooo galling to hear this repetitive weather crap being related to CAWG.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH
Several years ago I had to see a orthopedic surgeon about a possible volar plate avulsion (due to a hyperextended finger).
It turned out he was a climate warmist and a participant in the American Medical Assn’s committee to draft a statement on climate change. I forget if it was the national organization or state, I think national.
I figured I should make an extra special effort to disagree agreeably given that we might be in a situation where he had the scalpel and I couldn’t do anything about it. Ultimately, he welcomed my comments though I certainly didn’t make him a skeptic. We passed on the surgery. My finger recovered reasonably well.
I have no idea if I had any influence on the result, or even if the surgeon was involved in it, but the US AMA’s policy statement is a pretty mild “Me too.” It even refers to “evidence-based global climate change”. https://www.ama-assn.org/ssl3/ecomm/PolicyFinderForm.pl?site=www.ama-assn.org&uri=/resources/html/PolicyFinder/policyfiles/HnE/H-135.938.HTM says in entirety:
Perhaps the next doctor appt I have I’ll ask about the risk of “population displacement” in New Hampshire. After February 2015, I suspect a lot of people thought it was a good idea.
Again: Why is there a need for such a statement (and it IS a political one)?
The Great Central Government simply has too much power, while trying to make Individualism an Endangered Species. On the other hand, if you want to get money, you go to Government “because that’s where they keep it.”
I think I had better ask my urologist if he believes in CAGW.
Don’y rely on his/her they are well known for taking the p1$$!
Some friends of ours have decided the same and just spent two weeks selecting housing in the Carolinas.
Also interesting, is they want to move in before November.
A dip or stall in house pricing may be an early indicator.
“I don’t know, Jim. This is a big ship. I’m just a country doctor.” (Star Trek, original series)
I think of sinecure as the word applying more to hiring an entourage of attractive interns, etc..
But then again, Flannery’s 180,000 dollars of taxpayer money for part-time scary water model activism is probably sinecure as well.
Scary water modeling is not harmless and has costed Australians billions in damages from dams kept too high to handle sudden water surges. Also they have paid for desal plants which cost 10xs more that Texas plants, and for raised water rates.
Shouldn’t world peace and eliminating human mortality also be on the AMA’s policy to-do list?
Shouldn’t world peace and eliminating human mortality also be on the AAA’s policy to-do list?
I think, as is often the case, that the problem here isn’t the membership of a large organization “jumping on the bandwagon” but rather the leadership. The members of a medical organization are primarily interested in medicine, not CO2 and “Climate Change”. As long as the AMA is a benefit to the individual member on the medical side then this climate statement is likely considered an odd side issue not worth an objection. Pity.
Dear Doctor Owler,
I am in receipt of a survey letter from a climate activist group but it appears to have a signature in your capacity as President of the Australian Medical Association, please find your letter enclosed and respect my wish not to be involved in your climate activism. I am of course happy to receive correspondence relating to medical work of the Australian Medical Association.
Yours …..
Just this week somebody commented that he may be considering a political future.
Owler is using his presidency of the AMA to build up his leftist credentials before his impending tilt at a seat in parliament as a member of the Greens or the Labor party.
It’s gotta be much easier and better paying being a politician than a doctor.
I may approach my professional engineering association to put out an opinion piece on vaccinations, you know, on the weight of the preponderance of media coverage and ‘facts’ dredged up by Jenny McCarthy et al.
Owler is a wannabe greenie politician in his real life.
That’s probably why he got the job of mouthpiece of the AMA.
I would like you all to think carefully about one of the REAL problems facing the future of the planet.
Over the next 50 years or so, it is estimated that the Earth’s population could grow by some 5 billion.
I assume that these extra people will require to be fed.
Now, all food on this planet, be it meat, vegetables, grains, fruit etc is ultimately dependant on one single chemical reaction.
That chemical reaction is photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis requires 3 basic ingredients. Sunlight, H2O and CO2.
We are stuck with how much sunlight we have, and with good planning can generally get enough H2O (even if it requires desalination)
This raises the BIG question……
HOW are we going to raise the atmospheric CO2 concentration far enough to feed these extra 5 billion or so people ?
Thankfully, China and India are doing their bit, but other countries need to wake up to the reality of the situation.
“I assume that these extra people will require to be fed.”
If they are not fed, they won’t exist, so “problem solved”. But I completely agree that we should be creating as much CO2 as possible. Otherwise, we might not exist – if CO2 levels drop down to the ~200 ppm level. Therefore, I’d be much happier with any policy advocating the production of CO2, not the reduction. In contrast, the homicidal-suicidal “Greens” want us all to die simply because they are very unhappy with having to exist. And they want us all to agree with them, especially because Freedom of Thought is just so messy: According to these Groupists, CO2 starvation if the key to saving the Planet.
What’ll they come up with next?
“CO2 starvation if the key to saving the Planet.” oops, “is” not “if”…sorry I just couldn’t take if !
The American Association of Plumbers and Home Supply Retailers’ Statement on The Oort Cloud.
The Finnish Federation for Homing Pigeon Training’s Statement on Prostitution
The Morocco Free Radio Alliance’s Statement on Knife and Scissor Sharpening
You left out what they have to say about free-range chickens.
(I’m sure they are all for it.)
“The Morocco Free Radio Alliance’s Statement on Knife and Scissor Sharpening”
Maintain a safe distance from any Whirling Dervishes!
Such a statement would be totally unscientific.It would also reveal an unscientific mindset of of the medical profession in Australia. It would reveal that the bastion based on a scientific mindset has fallen within medical science. We may expect that such a mind set eventually will cause human suffering. Opposed to what we expect from the medical profession.
As phrased by Karl Popper in “The logic of scientific discovery”:
“a subjective experience, or a feeling of conviction, can never justify a scientific statement, and that within science it can play no part except that of an object of an empirical (a psychological) inquiry. No matter how intense a feeling of conviction it may be, it can never justify a statement. Thus I may be utterly convinced of the truth of a state- ment; certain of the evidence of my perceptions; overwhelmed by the intensity of my experience: every doubt may seem to me absurd. But does this afford the slightest reason for science to accept my statement? Can any statement be justified by the fact that Karl Popper is utterly convinced of its truth? The answer is, ‘No’; and any other answer would be incompatible with the idea of scientific objectivity.”
And – by the way. I left my own association because parts of the organization used a lot of resources to produced unscientific climate propaganda.I propose you all do the same, whenever your association behave in such ways. Of course – I informed the president of the association about the reason for my actions.
“The sound of two hands clapping”. 😎
The leadership of a large origination going astray doesn’t mean much when they have no one to lead.
Good for you
Educated professionals wish to make a declaration of orthodoxy.
“We are complying. We have been assimilated.”
… members are dismayed that they are being consulted on a subject that is wholly beyond the scientific competence or remit of the medical profession.
How refreshing.
I find this more interesting than the content of the debate. Many social and political debates are akin to religious debates. Conversions are rare, and neither side is ever shaken by disconfirming evidence.
Owler can’t compete with the Pope, now the media darling of the CAGW-infested, usually anti-Catholic, MSM:
13 June: Guardian: John Vidal: Explosive intervention by Pope Francis set to transform climate change debate
The most anticipated papal letter for decades will be published in five languages on Thursday. It will call for an end to the ‘tyrannical’ exploitation of nature by mankind. Could it lead to a step-change in the battle against global warming?
In an unprecedented encyclical on the subject of the environment, the pontiff is expected to argue that humanity’s exploitation of the planet’s resources has crossed the Earth’s natural boundaries, and that the world faces ruin without a revolution in hearts and minds…
However, it is certain to anger sections of Republican opinion in America by endorsing the warnings of climate scientists and admonishing rich elites, say cardinals and scientists who have advised the Vatican…
The rare encyclical, called “Laudato Sii”, or “Praised Be”, has been timed to have maximum public impact ahead of the pope’s meeting with Barack Obama and his address to the US Congress and the UN general assembly in September…
By adding a moral dimension to the well-rehearsed scientific arguments, Francis hopes to raise the ambition of countries above their own self-interest to secure a strong deal in a crucial climate summit in Paris in November. “Pope Francis is personally committed to this [climate] issue like no other pope before him. The encyclical will have a major impact. It will speak to the moral imperative of addressing climate change in a timely fashion in order to protect the most vulnerable,” said Christiana Figueres, the UN’s
climate chief, in Bonn this week for negotiations…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/13/pope-francis-intervention-transforms-climate-change-debate
Why I wonder when illustrating historical recordings the time scale on a time series plot shall be inverted? Left side is present time, vs normal time series plot the right hand side is present time…
Medical organizations (like many other industry bodies) have been targeted by the “organized” left. Doctor’s for the Environment Australia(DEA) was specifically established to recruit medical students (including other allied health students to make its membership seem larger) and then was morphed with help from grants and favours into a front group representing the young medical profession. It soon became the “go to” organization for medical environmental quotes on climate change, encouraged by the Labor government, Greens and left leaning media that were pointed in its direction. It’s only taken a couple of years for the AMA to also become a puppet of the leftist machine. Most doctors are really too busy or generally politically unaware to even contemplate the possibility that their professional organization might be deliberately targeted for such a take-over. Regardless, the left is now running the AMA agenda and using its credibility to influence political policy. One wonders whether any AMA members have even noticed. The left now has a powerful influence on medical policy and related ethical issues such as euthanasia, abortion, climate change and even migration. The AMA broader membership needs to wake-up, turf out people such as Owler and get back to the issues within its purview before it is totally destroyed as a professional body.
Dr Brian Owler, the current AMA el presidente is widely rumoured to be a future Labor Party candidate ( US = Democrat but with perhaps stronger big labour affiliations) or with this he may even be a Green.
The AMA president is usually pretty outspoken generally on matters affecting the profession and they usually have a pretty good public profile and of course no politician in their right mind attacks the doctors in public.
This particluar bloke is manifestly on the make. Take it all with a grain of salt.
“Verilie, my Flatterers, We hold not fo much Powre as ye believe. Mind ye well, then, yt reigneth ane onlie King, He yt is All-Myghtie, He yt gouernyth ye Sea, & holdyth ye Ocean in ye Holloue of His Hande, Keep ye then yr Praifes vnto Him alone.”
The olde ‘thorn’ character þ, þ was often printed as a y, e.g. Ye Olde Tavern was really The Olde
Tavern.
If you substitute ‘th’ for the y in yt and ye, you get ‘that’ and ‘the,’ making the passage more readable. Same with s for ‘f’ and v for ‘u.’
“Verilie, my Flatterers, We hold not so much Powre as ye believe. Mind ye well, then, that reigneth ane onlie King, He that is All-Myghtie, He that governyth the Sea, & holdyth the Ocean in the Holloue of His Hande, Keep ye then their Praises unto Him alone.”
I had no trouble reading it as it was. I’m curious about the source, though.
I was talking with my plant friends the other day, and and they relayed to me, their science academies and medical associations have all fully endorsed continued CO2 emissions. They too have reached a unanimous consensus that all humans are crackers. Just letting y’all know. GK
Memo to the AMA: Stick to ensuring that doctors are competent.
The Australian Medical Association’s leadership is under challenge.
This is how they think they can make themselves more relevant!
I am not convinced by the Knut example. Things have changed since his time. Henry VIII and Queen Victoria (by her stance on anaesthesia in childbirth) made it clear that English monarchs outrank God. Thus, their powers and the powers of their Prime Ministers may well exceed those of King Knut.
(Australian republicans have not considered the question of whether disassociation from the Crown would lead to a reduction of Prime Ministerial power.)
Australia used to be the smart, lucky country. Now it is full of dimwhits like Flannery sucking at the taxpayers teet! Please go away Flannery!
There were never 500 big polluters. The list never exceeded 250. On that list of “big polluters” was Hydro Tasmania and in the first year of the “price n carbon” (Carbon tax – CT) made an extra ~AU$50 million. Other “power utilities” in Victoria also made significant profits as a drirect result of the CT. Supporters of the CT have stated that it worked in reducing emissions of CO2 and energy consumption. What they forget is that much energy intensive industries have SHUTDOWN and have gone off shore. Holden (General Motors) and Ford announced after the CT was in effect that they will shutdown their businesses in 2016. This year, Toyota has made the same decision. Oil refining has shutdown too.
Garnout and Gillard (Labor) and Brown (Greens) were the architechs of the CT and the effects are still rippling through the Australian economy. None of them have a scientific qualification between them. Garnout made millions out of resource mining by persuading the PNG Govn’t to sell land to mining companies in the early 1970’s and was on the board of directors of the Ok Tedi (Gold and copper) mining company.
yup, and add Pt Augusta shutting the power plant soon warnings already of price hikes to SA ..and Alcoa in Vic shut down and their perfectly clean and useful power gen plant to be decommissioned as well.
the docs? apart from political aims by the president are silly enough to fall for rising temps bringing tropical diseases here..illegal immigrnts and island hopers from the straits are FAR more likely to bring drug resistant TB dengue etc
pity they shut down the NGuinea health care clinics treating them isnt it?
“…members are dismayed that they are being consulted on a subject that is wholly beyond the scientific competence or remit of the medical profession.”
I’m confused, again, Sir Christopher. I thought everyone is an expert on climate change nowadays. Surely, if a few Aussie doctors can’t be bothered to keep up with the news, that’s their problem
There’s a nice irony, here. Had not the catastrophists attempted to guilt trip everyone, quite unnecessarily given what a boon increased CO2 has been, we’d not all be climate experts. The unnecessary guilt, and the draconian policy prescriptions focussed enough attention on climate that skepticism has arisen, and seems now to be driving climate science and energy policy in a new and improved direction.
===============
This planet has just gone thru 3 decades of what are likely the best weather and climate since the Medieval Warm Period almost 1,000 years ago. Add to that, the fact that beneficial CO2 has increased and there is no question that life on earth(including humans) has not had it this good in a very long time.
Yet another comment censored by over-zealous Mods
[Rick, perhaps if you’d stop trying to be a shape-shifter, in violation of site policy, and stick with one user ID, your comments might not need to be held for inspection before they are approved -mod]
Shape-shifter – that’s stretching it a bit! I’m sure I ‘mislead’ nobody. Surely if it’s good enough for Monckton of Brenchley, it’s good enough for us others??
digital oliVe – now that would take more figuring out 😉
Dear Mods,
Of course you have absolute power, at least here in the Village, to manipulate and engineer threads to give them the appearence you deem desirable. You weed out any sort of thoughts that dissent from the message you want to promote, or comments that try to lighten the oppressive, sychophantic, conspiratorial and ad hominem atmosphere. Even replies are culled to stifle dialogue.
Being a private site you are able to create a ‘reality’. But keeping an eye on the future, with Climate Science becoming more robust, you might want to hedge your bets and not throw everything in with the denialists – time has shown that they offer only what amounts to wishful thinking, straw-clutching and promised false dawns.
Lighten up and widen out! By backing only denialism, you’re backing the dinosaurs
(Reply: Your comments are posted, you are not being censored. But you need to stop labeling readers as deniers, denialists, etc. Read the site policy page. ~mod)
Idiot, you are the one who needs to ‘lighten up’. All you’re doing is complaining because the planet isn’t doing what you wanted it to do, or expected it would do, or predicted it would do. You’ve been completely wrong about everything. Isn’t it about time to admit that your original premise was wrong? Because it could hardly be more obvious to the rest of us.
Your name-calling is pure projection. You can’t admit that Mike Maguire is right: We’ve just had a century of the best weather and climate for the past thousand years. But you can’t accept that fact. You would prefer runaway global warming and climate catastrophe, just so you could say you were right.
But guess what? You were wrong. You would get some respect if you admitted it.
Good Lord, do you practice this pablum before a mirror very often in a day? Post here if you must, but Idiot of Village is becoming self-identifying (too early to say, “trans-idiot“?) and translatable as S P A C E C A D E T. Wowza.
By the speed of these postings, I see I have your attention:
1. I have never used the term ‘denier’ in any of my previous comments
2. This was a post deliberately off topic and using the ‘d’ word to ensure that it would not be posted as per your site policy. Would you care to explain how this got through your censorship (and why)? As I mentioned above you are manipulating the thread
3. A good number of my comments and replies have previously AWOL despite your denials, that’s why it’s best to keep them short. I’m sure many other have the same problem.
4. Over-zealous culling of posts makes reading the coon message only comments bland and boring
5. I have never used abusive language at either Villager or blogger
6.” perhaps if you’d stop trying to be a shape-shifter, in violation of site policy, and stick with one user ID, your comments might not need to be held for inspection before they are approved ” My comments have been ‘held’ for months – why? Because they are not ‘on message’?
7. I am really not such a dangerous person
8. Of course I concede that it’s your show and you can create the reality you want, but that doesn’t change the real world
[coon? That’s derogatory. Explain yourself sir.-mod]
NO In our modern world “coon” is racist.
I couldn’t believe anyone would deliberately use the ‘c’ word, so I assumed it must have been some kind of typo. He’d better have a good explanation, or his days here might be numbered.
It’s also interesting that no one else has Village Idiot’s list of complaints. Looks like he’s got a persecution complex.
I think he meant ‘on message comments only’, but he’s generally incoherent anyway so he may have meant anything.
I’m self-identifying as a raccoon today, and let me tell you, I’m telling the gang about it tonight. So beware the raiding.
=====================
Reads better (and actually makes sense) as “the (co)on message only comments” 😉
In Australia, it is the name of a brand of cheese.
Idiot: “…keeping an eye on the future, with Climate Science becoming more robust…” Surely you’re not suggesting the settled science is not robust enough already? Why, it’s robust enough to determine that opposing it is “wishful thinking, straw-clutching and…”well, you get it. If you’re saying that it’s not settled, that makes you a d*nier, no? An Idiot by any name.
Isn’t this the same organisation that called Dr Marshall of ulcer fame a fraud? They said his work was incorrect and made him poison himself with other people’s stomach contents before accepting that he might be right ?
Doctors should push hard their opinion on the impact on health of higher energy costs for Australians. More deaths from lack of air conditioning perhaps?
Or the impact of lack of energy during blackouts caused by intermittency of wind farms and solar power.
Nice one, m’lord. The facts, ma’am. Just the facts.
The AMA does not represent the majority of doctors. Those days have long gone. A lot, yes, but not the majority.
Maybe this is an attempt to find relevance in a changing world??
Good stuff, but China is not third world.