Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Greens desperately trying to harness concern about Covid-19 for their fake climate crisis.
COVID-19 and climate change: A healthy dose of reality
Joel Makower Monday, March 16, 2020 – 2:11am
It’s too early to tell whether COVID-19 is linked in any way to the climate crisis. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t; we’ll likely never know for certain. Still, consider the global health crisis currently upon us as a warm-up act for a climate-changing world.
In the immortal words of the ‘70s rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
For nearly two decades, health officials around the world have warned about the rise of infectious disease from a warming climate. The Pentagon, for example, started raising concern back in 2003 in an independent study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Defense. It warned that “As famine, disease and weather-related disasters strike due to the abrupt climate change, many countries’ needs will exceed their carrying capacity.”
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Such warnings seem both prescient and obvious today, given the global scramble to corral COVID-19. But it also provides an opportunity to plan for the next infectious outbreak, and the ones after that.
Indeed, climate change could make the coronavirus seem like the good old days.
“Infectious disease transmission is sensitive to local, small-scale differences in weather, human modification of the landscape, the diversity of animal hosts, and human behavior that affects vector-human contact, among other factors,” write the authors of the Third National Climate Assessment, produced by more than 300 experts guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee and reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences. It warned:
The public health system is not fully prepared to monitor or respond to these growing disease risks. The introduction of new diseases into non-immune populations has been and continues to be a major challenge in public health. There are concerns that climate change may provide opportunities for pathogens to expand or shift their geographic ranges.
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Read more: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/covid-19-and-climate-change-healthy-dose-reality
Claims of a link between global warming and disease are nonsense. Even mosquito borne diseases thrive in Arctic climates; in the 19th century, in the depths of the Little Ice Age, endemic Malaria was a major killer disease in Northern Europe.
But what if I’m wrong?
Is there any doubt that in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, medical research will receive a lot more attention? A decade from now, if a new disease like Covid-19 emerges, it will be contained and cured so fast we won’t even know there was a problem.
Even the Covid-19 crisis may be solved much faster than people fear. The unprecedented focus on Coronavirus is producing results, everything from vaccine trials to experimental drug therapies, partly based on experimental treatments developed during the SARS and MERS outbreaks are being tested, and promising results are emerging.
From February;
Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro
Manli Wang, Ruiyuan Cao, Leike Zhang, Xinglou Yang, Jia Liu, Mingyue Xu, Zhengli Shi, Zhihong Hu, Wu Zhong & Gengfu Xiao
Dear Editor,
In December 2019, a novel pneumonia caused by a previously unknown pathogen emerged in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in central China. The initial cases were linked to exposures in a seafood market in Wuhan.1 As of January 27, 2020, the Chinese authorities reported 2835 confirmed cases in mainland China, including 81 deaths. Additionally, 19 confirmed cases were identified in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and 39 imported cases were identified in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, United States, Vietnam, Singapore, Nepal, France, Australia and Canada. The pathogen was soon identified as a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which is closely related to sever acute respiratory syndrome CoV (SARS-CoV).2 Currently, there is no specific treatment against the new virus. Therefore, identifying effective antiviral agents to combat the disease is urgently needed.
An efficient approach to drug discovery is to test whether the existing antiviral drugs are effective in treating related viral infections. The 2019-nCoV belongs to Betacoronavirus which also contains SARS-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome CoV (MERS-CoV). Several drugs, such as ribavirin, interferon, lopinavir-ritonavir, corticosteroids, have been used in patients with SARS or MERS, although the efficacy of some drugs remains controversial.3 In this study, we evaluated the antiviral efficiency of five FAD-approved drugs including ribavirin, penciclovir, nitazoxanide, nafamostat, chloroquine and two well-known broad-spectrum antiviral drugs remdesivir (GS-5734) and favipiravir (T-705) against a clinical isolate of 2019-nCoV in vitro.
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Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0
Imagine if all the money wasted on useless renewables had been spent on something useful, like medical research. Where would we be today, if the billions which have been wasted on wind and solar subsidies had instead been spent on finding new and better ways to cure disease?
The last thing we all need is for climate fear-mongers to drag the world into a new medical research dark age, by sucking all the money out of the system with their ever growing demands for special consideration and government subsidies.
With thousands on ventilation, the economy in deep recession, and countries retrenching from globalization on a massive scale, somehow I don’t think budget-busting climate change white elephants are going to be a top priority.
It is media hype that there are thousands on respirators. Many might be in a hospital, but they are not being overrun. The measures being taken right now in the US will serve to ameliorate the curve, as long as we keep to it.
You are projecting! Projection isn’t about bad thought or immorality. It’s about thought/moral.
Everyone is projecting, most of the time. (It works OK when most people think nearly the same way.)
Actually they will claim that it’s necessary to take New Deal style measure to restart the economy.
It might also help if people in the developing world had access to cheap, reliable, FF derived electricity to drag themselves from poverty, and stop hunting, catching and eating Bushmeat.
Especially Bats!
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/coronavirus-bats/
Humanity has progressed though – reading the logs of Captain Cook’s exploration voyages from ~300 years ago, certain peoples have at least stopped eating each other.
Not sure that they’re ready for the full vegan farce yet though.
Mr.
Those poor vegetables. What a way to go.
I know a lot of people who hunt, because they like to hunt. They eat what they kill, but they wouldn’t go hungry if they couldn’t hunt.
“Still, consider the global health crisis currently upon us as a warm-up act for a climate-changing world. You ain’t seen nothing yet. For nearly two decades, health officials around the world have warned about the rise of infectious disease from a warming climate”
Translation
You aint seen nothin yet
We’ve got climate lies you won’t believe
Which are always just beyond most peoples life expectancy.
All the experience I have in my life on Earth teaches me that people are healthier when it is warmer. These people are idiots, and nasty vindictive ones at that. How else can you explain their attempts to divert people’s attention from a real emergency?
Linking a prediction to a subsequent outcome reminds me of the old joke:
“They warned me if I voted for Barry Goldwater we’d be at war.
I did, and we were!”
“All the way with LBJ!” I went all the way to Nam.
LBJ was crude and crass and makes DJT look like a choirboy; but, he was a social liberal dim so it was OK with the media, even in 1960s puritanical America
I remember LBJ showing his gall bladder incision scar to the media. I was sure glad he didn’t have hemorrhoid surgery.
Coronavirus is a crisis that will not go to waste for the sky is falling and big government crowd. I’ll save you the rant for now.
The CAGW crowd will keep on re-packaging their Global Warming/Climate Change meme until the next glacial cycle of the Ice Age we live in gets active. The remarkable thing about the CAGW crowd is that some of them know this is nonsense, but it fits their political agenda perfectly, so go for it. It’s 10:43 in the morning, but I need a drink (think of it as internal hand sanitizer).
The current infection data show lower rates in warmer areas – maybe global warming ain’t all bad!
Viruses thrive in cool areas not warm/hot areas, I said in a post yesterday the green terrorists would be rubbing their hands together. GSMs have been shown to happen at the same time as virus outbreaks .
Indeed I was just reading a scientific paper:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767
High Temperature and High Humidity Reduce the Transmission of COVID-19
It says: “One degree Celsius increase in temperature and one percent increase in relative humidity lower R by 0.0383 and 0.0224, respectively. This result is consistent with the fact that the high temperature and high humidity significantly reduce the transmission of influenza. ”
Global warming is a significant benefit to health and has saved millions of lives directly. Let alone the additional food etc..
Words fail me with respect to the utter rubbish highlighted in the main article above – it defies belief.
Will CAGW be eager for results of world wide shutdown from Wuhan virus event? What effects do you expect will occur from China, Asia, Europe, and USA shutting down social activities, manufacturing, business buildings, school buildings, and travel? This group better be prepared for those results. On the flip side, people emerged from Spanish Flu into the Roaring 20’s. I suspect an increase in baby making also.
“What effects do you expect will occur from China, Asia, Europe, and USA shutting down social activities, manufacturing, business buildings, school buildings, and travel?”
I don’t know if there is any connection, but the ENSO meter just took a big jump. It’s been jumping around a lot lately for some reason.
yeah watching it and got depressed again as it swung back to the +side yet again
we missed another cyclone on east coast Aus due to that ;-((
its dry if not overly warm down here
Thanks for the link, it’s the usual ploy by the eco terrorists, their relying and or hoping the wider public dont understand what their saying, they will try as hard as possible to spin this virus as a global warming effect, even the political class have stated their hoping for warmer weather to slow down the virus.
The usual approach for climateers is to shout something loud, long, and get it in as many places as possible. Doesn’t matter if it is true, false, or irrelevant or coincidence. Just make a big fuss. The rest of the liberal press will carry the water.
“You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”?
I prefer The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.
Flu type diseases like corona peak in winter, so any warming will reduce these diseases.
What verifiable info can we currently get from Africa, South America, Australia?
the autumns not that cold or wet downunder
and our cases are damn near doubling every few days;-(
In a previous post Willis pointed out the relatively small number of Covid-19 deaths in the US (so far) compared to many other causes of mortality .
Here in the UK the Govt is imprisoning 10 million people for an indefinite period of time on the basis of about 100 deaths from this virus because it fears the NHS will be overwhelmed as more intensive care beds are required.
However in a normal winter 10000 people die of flu related illnesses. Are all those deaths at home? Do people with severe respiratory response to flu or pneumonia soldier on in their own beds rather than inflict themselves on the NHS?
Some will no doubt , but most will be referred to hospital. How can a system that copes every year with 10,000 people so sick that they die not be able to cope with 10,100?
The hysteria surrounding this outbreak is so similar to that of climate alarmism that it raises questions about the way in which politicians, usually totally deficient in knowledge of practical matters, rely on “experts” to determine policy. Already in the UK we are seeing businesses fail because customers are told not to go out and because of the effect of just one employee having a positive test. Already the BBC is proposing that the only answer to a masive loss of jobs is a major programme of nationalisation.
A comment on Jonova’s site draws attention to this video from a German pulmonologist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=yn074EB5NNY&feature=emb_logo
who points out that in a “normal” year about 10% of winter flu cases are caused by a corona type virus. If that is so then last winter a corona virus killed 1000 people in UK .
So what is so different this time that we have to destroy our economy , estimates on the BBC are about a 20% loss of GDP almost immediately. And will there be a recovery?
“Deaths so far”. With that little qualifier, the whole argument is rendered moot.
We know that forty thousand US citizens will die each year in automobile accidents. (the number is relatively constant).
– Why not outlaw or restrict the sale of cars?
– Why not cut the speed limit on interstate highways?
– Why not significantly increase the tolls on all roads to discourage driving?
– Why not close down Car Rental agencies?
Because somehow the public accepts these deaths, unlike Covid-19, or a nuclear accident.
Any cancer anywhere could be “linked” with a nuclear accident, nuclear testing, or even the inherited genetic defects (!) from those. (Because the past of genes was radiation free, I guess.)
Anyone can make up any number.
For car crashes, not so much.
Democratic countries had no viable alternative to extreme isolation. The problem is extreme isolation needs to continue.
… will there be a recovery?
When the entire population in each develop country is vaccinated, say one to two years with a war like effort?
When and not before extreme isolation for Corvid ends. When tourism, restaurants, movie theatres, hotels, Broadway, West End, and so on start again/open.
The estimates I have seen are that the Corvid extreme isolation will reduce GDP (world) by 15% to 20% based on China’s experience.
I believe the virus has saved world governments, and is being used to cover a financial crisis,that was just about to happen.if we look at the extent the USA government (fed) has increased QE and just now the UK government announcing 330 billion in loans and Grant’s , the virus is serious but so is the flue we have never as a global community chucked billions of notes at the flue to prop up the economy, listen to Mike hes got his finger on the pulse and predicted this years ago.the last few are the ones to watch and his classics parts 1-7 from a few years ago.
https://youtu.be/GPuP2OlXZys
B d How much of this financial crisis is to do with global wind and solar rollout? All for no return.
Hello Megs
I think they could afford the wind turbines and solar panels, I dont think the public will buy into vast areas of the country side being taken over by wind giants and black panels, I think the government know all to well even with the above it will be intermittent as a source of power generation , the UK not only promised 330 billion today ,but is promising more and or more measures in the next few days, I cant see were this cash is coming from unless they drop some or all infrastructure plans, or they go the USA route of quantative easing , which they have not announced, if we go the QE route this will see inflation rise at some point, if there borrowing from central banks ,it will at some point see the return of austerity measures , so theres not going to be a lot of spare cash floating around. No doubt for the USA too as well as Europe.
As for the governments using the Corona virus as a scape goat , watch Mike tell you how it is hes based in USA every thing he predicted 4 years ago is coming true now I’ll link to the first of 7 videos
https://youtu.be/Q3BjMUd391c https://youtu.be/T62x1vqn0Aw
My best guess is the more money (sorry currency money should be backed by a standard ie gold) they pump into a real world crisis and the aftermath the less will be available for green vanity projects, I’m sure there using the Corona virus as a scape goat , if there going to put back or drop the green deals green infrastructure plans we dont know,but it ain’t looking good for the green revolution right now.
Hello Megs
Lost my first reply to you.
I dont think the financial crisis is down to wind and solar, here in the UK its financed through companies and part government, the tariffs paid for the power generation is another matter ,the government knows even though they dont say so , they would have to cover huge areas with this intermittent at best power source, there is not the public will for this, plus for every watt generated they will need the equivalent back up from fossil fuel. It does not add up !so not in the short term in the long term a very expensive white elephant.
Using the Corona virus as a scape goat for world financial collapse is a gift for governments, it’s just a bit too convenient that companies are going to the wall right now after 3 weeks ! These companies were on there way out , more will follow, the measures adopted by the UK government today we have not seen since WW2 there even calling it a war footing ! It only makes sense if there not telling you what’s going on in the background. The videos I will link too will explain from a USA and world view on how they have messed up. The real big question now is after all the major powers in the world committing billions to fight the virus, will they moth ball /forget green energy roll out ,that as we know would never work on a national scale
https://youtu.be/iFDe5kUUyT0 https://youtu.be/Q3BjMUd391c
I really appreciate your response B d, both times. I too have suffered the frustration of typing a response only to lose it.
I think you’re right about the ‘scape goat’ opportunity regarding coronavirus for global governments in regard to the green schemes. I’m sure there are many governments that are pandering to the ‘green’ opinion, to buy votes, wrongly thinking that they are in the majority. Most politicians don’t have a clue about the reality of green renewables and how damaging they are. Wind and solar are heavily subsidised by our government here in Australia. The profit margin that the developers enjoy is basically courtesy of us, as taxpayers. Hopefully large numbers of government bodies will be informing the powers that be that it is no longer possible to attempt to meet the Paris Agreement.
It occurred to me that a global depression would have us all on rations, then I realised we already are! Our supermarkets have put restrictions on many items that we routinely buy.
Hi megs same in UK we are beginning to be rationed, USA are starting to issue helicopter currency ,that’s a check sent to every household to tie them over, USA treasury doubling base currency reserves to 5 trillion !
As I’ve said all long for the last 2 days all world governments are copy cating each other as they hide this financial disaster behind the virus.
couple of things
the usual corona virus isnt as severe in effects and its normally linked as a a cold virus
and a normal flu or cold yr well colds dont kill Flus can from pneuomina following
but
its RARE for massive numbers to all hit hospitals in the same few weeks normal is spaced out over 3mths ormore slow trickles of very ill.
when Aus had H1N1 hit here our hospitals and nurses in some places were flat out and beds were short and ECMO and ventilators were in full use and we needed more.
looks like someone didnt fund that.
if wed spent the money wasted on greenscams to paying the budget down or fixing REAL problems , we would be far better off now.
I am pointing out to as many as I can, the billions spent on co2 wind/solar duds out as people wake up to the reality of shortfalls in health/comms/ and taxes
used for stupid ideas with little use or proof of need.
And the turn-around time of greenies exploiting this crisis is…
How many climate change band wagons are there that they can jump on one after the other without pause.
With world travel and a thriving tropics, where is is hot, how can small changes in climate cause anything more than we already have.
They are partially right in we will be in deep trouble, but only if the global warming crowd gain a grip on tax dollars and implement the draconian agenda they are promoting. The danger is them and willing politicians who would strip us of prosperity and way of life.
Oh, how cute! The Green Blob is trying desperately to stay relevant in the face of a real crisis.
Glasgow COP must go on as it’s too important for the future of the world not to. Just ask Greta for guidance on this.
As far as I’m concerned, COVID19 has killed climate change. We have enough real problems to deal with. It’s time to stop being polite to fear mongers focused on politically distorted utopian minutia. Enviros are making things worse, not better. Harder, not easier. Over it.
The Greenies will revive the climate nonsense as soon as they can.
“For nearly two decades, health officials around the world have warned about the rise of infectious disease from a warming climate. ”
Covid 19 started in November in the northern hemisphere. Last time I checked that is a winter month. The Medieval plagues took plade during the LIA. And while I’m at it the heavy rainfall in the UK has been during the winter.
The corona crisis will pass and our economies will recover and so who could be the likely beneficiaries of these events? China has benefited a great deal from the GW scare but now it appears that the West is becoming less keen on Chinese products and having manufacturing plants in China.
It will be interesting to see who starts to buy into Western stocks once the market starts to recover.
Not true. Europe as the idea of a union has exploded and China is “helping” Italy and the media are propagating the seduction campaign.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if when a hot spell arrives, covid19 goes into retreat, and everyone is than rejoicing that the hot weather has saved us. I’d love to see these ultra climate alarmists spitting feathers over that.
Interesting attempt to link global warming to COVID-19. All the medical research I have seen suggests that warmer, more humid climates deter the spread of corona virus. Cliff Mass has a map on his blog showing that the COVID-19 is concentrated in northern states.
How would humidity help?
Climate experts say coronavirus could help the global fight to reduce emissions.
Social distancing, self-isolation and working from home could become the new normal, and that’s seeing emissions drop worldwide.
Victoria University of Wellington climate scientist professor James Renwick said the global response to coronavirus could set a precedent for how the world reduces its emissions in the future.
“Some of the things we’re having to do are exactly what’s called for.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120301221/coronavirus-could-teach-us-how-to-mitigate-climate-change
Clutching at straws as the Climate change scare is well and truly gazumped. When it comes to influenza related infections they seem to thrive in winter ( flu season). A bit of global warming might be the cure and not the cause.
It’s absolutely crazy for AGW alarmists to seize on the Covid-19 outbreak to try to urge action to prevent climate change. Currently, the death rate from Covid-19 is about 2%, so in a worst-case scenario, if everyone in the USA was infected by Covid-19, there would about 6.6 million deaths, which is clearly a more urgent problem than what might happen to a coastal city 50 or 100 years in the future, where everyone has a lot more time to deal with it.
Many researchers have concluded that coronaviruses in general tend to thrive in winter but are inhibited in warm, humid weather. With the vernal equinox three days away, most of the world’s land area in the Northern Hemisphere will be warming significantly over the next three months, which should help slow the spread of Covid-19.
A much higher priority for researchers right now is to find a drug which is effective against Covid-19, especially in severely-affected patients. There is some promising research using chloroquine, an anti-malarial drug which has been available for 75 years, whose side effects are well-known. There should be a high priority for running more tests of chloroquine and other drugs which have been effective on severely-affected Covid-19 patients, and if these are found to be very effective in curing people, this would be a much better solution to this problem than having millions of healthy people in lockdown for months at a time, wondering when their next paycheck or roll of toilet paper is coming.
If 98% of people who are infected with Covid-19 can fight it off with their own body’s immune system, and enough effective drugs can be made to cure most of the other 2%, then there wouldn’t be much to fear from Covid-19, and everyone can get back to life as usual. This should be every nation’s top priority.
The warmists are in a panic right now because their pet religion is being superceded by a real global threat. Also, once this threat has passed we will be in a protracted global recession that will remove the ability of governments to provide subsidies to satisfy the ideological aspirations of the lobotomised left.
CC religion might now be officially dead !
Maybe this outbreak is an opportunity.
For too long we have been fed glossy images of a world without fossil fuels – images as unreal as an artist’s impression of a new housing development, where the sky is always blue and happy couples stroll in the sunshine. If we could only get people to see that the shortages and restrictions imposed by the response to coronavirus will be, not the exception, but the norm in the cold grey world proposed by Greta and her chums, they would perhaps start to realize just where the current eco-madness is leading us.
The “Green New Deal” and similar responses to fake “Climate Change/Global Warming” could make the coronavirus seem like the good old days! We now need the billions of dollars which were wasted on wind, tide and solar boondoggle subsidies to pay for accelerated medical research.
Germs can reach anyone. That’s what makes an accidental release from a biology lab and a nuclear accident so different: there is only so much iodine released even after a nuclear meltdown, and the amount only decreases after.
That’s what makes biological warfare pretty dumb, unless you are suicidal.
But Green New Deal would have exceptions for greenies who need air travel to meet in remote locations.
“everything from vaccine”
Possible but some people say the type of virus creates only very short immunity, and that’s from the natural infection. I don’t think vaccines ever create longer immunity to a germ than the natural disease.