Essay by Eric Worrall
“… I had to tell them something that would wake them up.”
To Address Climate Change, This Psychiatrist Goes Where No One Has Gone Before
November 29, 2022
H. Steven Moffic, MDPsychiatry and inner space—closer than you think.
PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS
In my November 15, 2022, column, “I SCREAM for More Climate Action!” I bemoaned the slowness of society and psychiatry to help reduce climate change and instability. I asked for creative ways to obtain climate attention. I found one by serendipity.
While writing what became the column “A Day of Launching Dreams and Nightmares,” I had CNN on in the background. I was catching a bit about someone who was flying balloons around the earth to save fossil fuel. Then he was being interviewed and I stopped writing to listen. To my great surprise, he was also identified as a Swedish psychiatrist: Bertrand Piccard, MD. I had never heard of him.
… In 1999, Bertrand made history with the first nonstop balloon flight around the world, topping that in 2016 when he did the same with a solar-powered airplane.
…
“My experience as a psychiatrist is that you have to speak the language of the people you want to convince. . . I had to tell them something that would wake them up.”
…
Read more: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/to-address-climate-change-this-psychiatrist-goes-where-no-one-has-gone-before
I’ve got to admit, there is something catchy about the vision of psychiatrists riding balloons around the planet shouting to everyone to wake up about climate change.
I thought of making a wisecrack about cutting back on participation in psychotropic drug trials, but I believe the real culprit is CNN.
The author admitted CNN was on in the background when inspiration struck. Think about the psychological damage watching and listening to CNN all day might cause. Perhaps the distress caused by constant exposure to CNN sometimes leads to deep rooted fantasies of running away and leaving the planet, even when CNN is just playing as background noise.
I hope the balloon identifies the person and type of agenda. Then we can send drones and colored flares to increase the excitement.
I guarantee that the HOT AIR BALLOON is still powered by CO2 belching Fossil Fuel using C3H8 (Propane) to super heat the air inside the envelope (balloon) made primarily of Nylon (also requiring Fossil Fuel extraction). Certainly not FF free, in fact they Burn through about 30 gallons of propane per hour AND depending on wind speed, might only travel 30 miles before fuel runs out (with a 30 MPH wind). About 1 mile per gallon. So not very efficient.
Tried to edit the session BUT, after completing the update…”This comment is no longer editable”…sooo…
I guarantee that the HOT AIR BALLOON is still powered by CO2 belching Fossil Fuel using C3H8 (Propane) to super heat the air inside the envelope (balloon) made primarily of Nylon (also requiring Fossil Fuel extraction). Certainly not FF free, in fact they Burn through about 30 gallons of propane per hour AND depending on wind speed, might only travel 30 miles before fuel runs out (with a 30 MPH wind). About 1 mile per gallon. So not very efficient. To remain over land it would likely take more than 20 days and likely more than 30,000 gallons for 1 person to circumnavigate the earth. You’d likely do better and more efficiently to utilize Helium filled Blimps with larger passenger capacity though you would still need days or weeks to cross country or the ocean rather than hours
Mmmmmmmm……Dunno about that. We had a helium crisis last year or so.
Also, you only get supplies of helium as a byproduct of natural gas extraction.
I thought liquid propane is measured by weight?
It’s rather tough to measure by volume.
Bryan ==> nah….powered by the hot air of the nut-case flying the balloon.
Their heads might be quite large but more vacuous rather than filled with hot air
The hangers-on cometh.
How can you tell a psychiatrist in a madhouse?
He is the one who has keys.
Curious ==> Good one!
How do you spot the craziest one?
Their the Balloonatic
Sounds like a load of hot air.
Kind of like these idiots ?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/11/dutch-government-shut-3000-farms-comply-global-warming-goals/
When freezing in the dark is not enough for your constituents…
At least they don’t need to worry about freezing their Brass off
From the article: “Think about the psychological damage watching and listening to CNN all day might cause.”
The damage is immense. Look at our current dire political situation. CNN, among other radical leftwing media, gave us this.
This is the result of being misled by CNN leftwing propagandists. Too many voters have been brainwashed into voting for the wrong people. Now our economy and society are in danger from the lies told by CNN and other radical leftists.
People cannot govern themselves properly if all they get are lies from the media, and that’s all they are getting now.
It is a well known fact that your brain processes the noises that you are hearing all the time, part of that ‘fight or flee’ instinct. So, it is quite easy to assume that the propaganda from a “news” source playing in the background will influence your thoughts and actions.
One should be quite careful in selecting the noise allowed in the background while performing other activities.
Psych meds might help with watching CNN.
How about an upper tropospheric balloon? But no oxygen or warm clothing.
He can look for the modeled hot spot while he’s there.
Yeah, but Elon Musk is warning not just about climate change….he’s also warning about AI…..sez AI if controlled by a few people could take over the planet….maybe AI could even stop climate change….eh Elon?
AI, lol.
Stole this from the message board ‘signature’ of a Microsoft trouble shooter – “AI: Artificial Intelligence or Automated Idiocy?”
“I’ve got to admit, there is something catchy about the vision of psychiatrists riding balloons around the planet shouting to everyone to wake up about climate change.”
The idea, of course, is a joke. An attention-getter that catches the imagination.
It is a noble goal to have everyone wake up to the facts about the climate. Wake up to the fact that CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas. Every farm and forest uses CO2 to grow plants. Plants are made from the C with the O2 as waste.
To wake up to the fact that the Scientific Method works. This method allows the genius to hit a target no one even saw before and overcome the current consensus. Only experiments count, not theory nor computer projections.
To wake up to the fact that although the method cannot lie, scientists with an agenda can.
Don’t get “woke.” Wake up to reality.
Psychiatrists are their own best patients.
Shrinks getting high – I like it!
Shouldn’t the headline be:
Catastrophic Climate Change causes insanity in Psychiatrists.
No !!
the headline should be:
‘Lack of Catastrophic Climate Change causes insanity in Psychiatrists.’
Er, since when was it the job of a psychiatrist to convince people of anything?
Aren’t they supposed to listen to people’s problems without judgement and prevent mental, emotional and behavioural disorders, not cause them?
Those psychiatrists should focus on the medical oath: “First, do no harm”.
Promoting the delusion that CO2 is dangerous to the people living on the Earth is causing harm.
Psychiatrists first have to embrace reality before they can help others do the same. Otherwise, it is the blind leading the blind and they both fall into the ditch.
Another idiot trying to drum up business for his profession.
“Er, since when was it the job of a psychiatrist to convince people of anything?”
Did he say psychiatrist? Sorry, he meant Propagandist.
Psychiatrists are qualified lunatics
Another one flew over the something-or-other?
If someone really wants to live on a world with no climate change, I suggest that they move to the Moon…
He is sooooo very dim and so innocent, yet so honest/truthful while in absolute denial, that he is actually extremely sweet.
Quite simply: A Child
Self promoting, adventure seeking, nervous & scared while testing itself and trying find a space for itself in this world. Looking to ‘Fly the nest‘ (haha sorry)
I’d venture that 8 or 9 candles will be sufficient for the next birthday cake/party.
Or and let’s be aware of what we’re saying here:
Not physically but mentally = a child.
iow: An adult who is ‘on the spectrum‘ – and is undiagnosed because there are simply sooooo very many out there now. They are becoming the norm.
An’ even if you’ve got ‘just‘ pre-diabetes, you are right up there too.
So, in the contemporary western world, ‘normal’ folks are now outnumbered.
Explains a lot don’t it?
Don’t tell me because you’d be lying: How many here want to emulate this guy?
Have you seen what Balenciaga has done with children?
Here is a little something I saw concerning the person the article claims is the senior stylist at Balenciaga.
Lotta Volkova: The Devil Styles Balenciaga – The American Conservative
Sometimes, very “creative” people are more than a little nuts. Ok, most of the time.
Neurotics build castles in the air.
Psychotics live in them.
Psychiatrists charge the rent.
Could someone calculate how long it would take for the entire population to see one of these revelatory ballon assuming all the trick cyclists in the world had one each and it circulated 24/7 blown at random by the window (and kept airborne by fossil fuels) ?
Several millennia I would guess, but at least it would keep them out of trouble..
“… In 1999, Bertrand made history with the first nonstop balloon flight around the world, topping that in 2016 when he did the same with a solar-powered airplane.”
Uh huh. Big deal. It took Bertrand and his buddy 505 days (14 months) to fly around the world in that airplane, at an average speed of 45 mph.
Nelly Bly’s around-the-world trip in 1889-90 took just 72 days, and a few months later, George Francis Train did it in 67 days.
Thanks for putting that in perspective, Mary. 🙂
and astronaughts can do it in 90 minutes- modern technology and energy is a good thing
“I’ve got to admit, there is something catchy about the vision of psychiatrists riding balloons around the planet shouting to everyone to wake up about climate change.”
The catchy discovery when folks wake up to the balloon stunt is that buoyancy matters. And when buoyancy in the atmosphere is more fully understood, one can lose the fear of non-condensing GHGs. Buoyancy drives convective weather and more generally the conversion of absorbed solar energy into overturning circulation at local to global scale. So watch the balloon up there to grasp why heat energy cannot be accumulated down here to harmful effect on the planet from what non-condensing GHGs do in the atmosphere.
When more folks wake up about climate change with this realization, maybe we can all stop blaming fossil fuels.
I salute you, Mr. Dibbell. You got it right on the head. You are so beautifully
perspicacious. When the Sun’s heat makes it through the atmosphere and reaches the
surface of the earth, and if it’s not immediately reflected back up through the
atmosphere, such as by hitting ice at the surface, it’s going to be mostly absorbed at
that surface interface (whatever the state of matter of that surface), at least for a
small amount of time. From that surface, the now-transduced heat then radiates back,
in the infrared, up towards outer space for several hours thereafter. And some of the
heat also gets subducted below the surface (especially if that surface is of a
liquid). As the remaining heat goes back into the air, the radiative transfer of that
heat from the surface through the air, and therefore through the carbon dioxide in the
air, is extremely slow. And more carbon dioxide in the air would make it even slower.
If that were the only process involved here, the Earth would indeed get very hot from
more carbon dioxide in the air.
But guess what? There’s a parallel process operating in the air, as you so
magnificently pointed out, and it’s called convection — more accurately, it involves
the mass transfer of heat through the atmosphere. That process is much quicker, by
comparison to the radiative transfer mechanism, under many circumstances, in getting
that heat up, up, and away on its return journey to outer space. And that process can
frequently get that heat out from the surface of the earth to outer space in a matter
of a day or less. It is a parallel process to the radiative process, not a serial
one. And, additionally, it takes the heat out of the radiative process as it operates.
And just like a small electrical resistance in parallel to a larger one renders the
larger resistor essentially irrelevant in an electrical circuit, this convective
process (which you correctly analogized to the buoyancy of a balloon) usually makes
quick work (in an atmosphere of 1 atmosphere pressure) of getting that heat very
efficiently back to where it came from. And while the radiative process can be
affected by the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, the convective process cannot,
and since it’s so much faster than the radiative process, it basically makes the
radiative process of heat transfer irrelevant and, for all practical purposes,
non-existent. And yet it is this latter process that all “climate models” focus on.
The only thing I don’t understand is why you emphasized the non-condensing nature
of carbon dioxide as a “greenhouse gas”. In fact, a condensing “greenhouse gas”,
meaning water vapor, only gets the heat up to the upper troposphere, and from thence
into outer space, that much more efficiently than a non-condensing “greenhouse gas”,
since this heat transfer operation also involves the release of the heat of vaporization,
in the form of condensation into water and ice particles, when it reaches the colder
portions of our troposphere. Otherwise, the further heat transfer occurs mainly in
the forms of mixing and conduction up there.
Anyway, as you said: “When more folks wake up about climate change with this
realization [that heat energy cannot be accumulated on Earth’s surface to harmful
effect from what greenhouse gases do in the atmosphere] maybe we can all stop blaming
fossil fuels [and carbon dioxide].”
David Solan
Thank you for your kind words.
I specify the non-condensing GHGs because that is where the attention (i.e. attribution for reported warming) is directed from the U.N. and the regulatory agencies such as the USEPA (CO2, CH4, N2O, etc.).
I should also say that folks seem to readily accept, because water vapor condenses out as precipitation and cannot build up to harmful effect, that human emissions of large amounts of water vapor are of no concern to the climate. But they are being persuaded to believe that a slowly rising concentration of a non-condensing GHG such as CO2 is capable of driving the climate to a bad outcome. So I use that term to emphasize the core claim.
In the linked article the quote I partially extracted here is preceded with :
“Once again, the psychiatric perspective was a key:”
– – – – –
On a completely different topic, Merriam-Webster announced on Monday that their 2022 word of the year is “gaslighting” — or as Merriam-Webster defines it :
Now … what was the ATL article about again ? …
You would think they would be happy to stay focused on their advocacy science practice with gender affirming therapy. I guess they have room for a side effort with more advocacy science.
This is a great idea, as shown in this documentary 🤣
What do these balloons use for fuel?
eedit: Ah, should have read comments first, Bryan A already mentioned this.
Oh, let him get his jollies floating around in a balloon. “ a Swedish psychiatrist: Bertrand Piccard, MD. I had never heard of him.” No one has heard of him. That should have been a clue as to how much of an affect these stunts have on people. Perhaps Kerry, Harry, Trudeau, et al, will join him. Let them all float around. It will be even easier to ignore them.
I was thinking more along the lines of an 88.
We appear to live in a shrinking universe.
Bertrand Piccard’s Solar Plane, May 15th, 2013
Looks like a glider. Not the kind of plane to fly in rough weather. One wonders just how long those propellers actually work in a headwind.
Not ready for commercial travel!
Not a drop of fuel in it. But to make only the panels tons of earth and rock had to be processed by burning tons of coal, not to speak of the acid lakes polluting the landscape.
But it works great for propelling a single passenger/pilot around the globe at an average of 30 mph over 5 months (just fly with the wind and not against it). Just think, if you beef up the plane enough to add a second passenger you could double your crazy for twice the cost and still be totally inefficient
It took him and his buddy 14 months to fly around the world in that plane.
5 months excludes time sitting on the ground trying to make repairs
There was a time when psychiatrists were the brightest pin in the MD box. Not anymore. Managed care reimbursement is rooted in completed procedures, which stripped a great deal of reimbursement from psychiatrists. In 30 years, psychists went from some of the highest paid docs to some of the lowest paid. This is part of the reason there is a shortage of psychiatrists. Now, much psychiatric care is provided by prescribing Master’s RN’s and PA’s.
In the old days, psychiatrists working with patients would not have engaged in flamboyant public behavior due to transference issues with the patients they are working with. It would have been seen as potentially counter-therapeutic. The last thing a psychiatrist wants to do is decompensate a their patients level of functioning by their public behavior.
The actual content of this psychiatrist’s public behavior and motivation isn’t worth commenting on… just silly.