Thursday 17 September 2009

"Doctor, doctor, can't you see I'm burning, burning?"

Failure to agree a new UN climate deal in December will bring a "global health catastrophe", say 18 of the world's professional medical organisations.
Because doctors haven’t got enough to do, I suppose…
Writing in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, they urge doctors to "take a lead" on the climate issue.
This is what doctors put themselves through medical school for?

Or is it the type of doctor who’d really rather not do any of that doctoring stuff, but prefers to sit in a cosy office, ‘administering’ people and things?

I suspect the latter:
The current Lancet and BMJ editorial that accompanies the letter from doctors' organisations argues that climate change strengthens the cases that health and development charities are already championing.

Written by Lord Michael Jay, who chairs the health charity Merlin, and Professor Michael Marmot of UCL, the editorial argues that there are plenty of "win-win solutions" available.

"A low-carbon economy will mean less pollution. A low carbon-diet (especially eating less meat) and more exercise will mean less cancer, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

"Opportunity, surely, not cost."
And would you like a pony with that too?

Seriously, I think someone who obviously rubs his hands with glee at the thought of a regressive society may be in need of the services of one of his colleagues in the head-peeping department...

14 comments:

Dr Melvin T Gray said...

I support the majority of your views but you are very wrong (on this occasion) to assume global warming is not concurrent with matters seriously prejudicial to health.

I usually join you in the big guffaw but I politely suggest a little more research here, Julia.

Anonymous said...

Dr Gray....please do enlighten us on how a phenomenon that doesn't exist, isn't our doing and is yet replete with swathes of snake oil remedies and taxes is somehow damaging to our health.

The only dameg it is doing to my health is raising my blood pressure when reading the blatant bullshit perpetuated by those whose own self-interests are best served by the global warming myth.

Anonymous said...

And causing me to type too fast to pay attention to my spelling

It is, of course, damage not dameg

Quiet_Man said...

@ Dr Melvin,

I'm sorry but the evidence is mounting that anthropogenic global warming is merely a scam promulgated by the environmentalists and taken up by governments as a tax raising boondoggle. The current trend in climate change is that the world is in a cooling cycle and that the panic caused by the warmists over the last few years has cost the economy billions. If you want research try looking at Watts up with that

People are becoming more and more sceptical of warmist propaganda over the last few years as the evidence grows that climate change simply happens and that mankind have little or no effect on it. The Medics should stick to doctoring, not warning us about alligators basking off Sweden.

Oldrightie said...

The hushed person of gender is spot on.
My favourite site is this,

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog
Here is a taster.

"The only problem was—Newsweek knew better. Eve Conant, who interviewed Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking member of the Environment & Public Works Committee, was given all the latest data proving conclusively that it was the proponents of man-made global warming fears that enjoyed a monumental funding advantage over the skeptics (a whopping $50 billion to a paltry $19 million for the skeptics). Newsweek contributing editor Robert J. Samuelson, called the piece “fundamentally misleading” and “highly contrived.”

and,

"Although policymakers hoped climate models would prove to be alarmist, the opposite is true, particularly in the Arctic.”

What is the reality? Well the models are failing miserably, but in the wrong direction. Over the last eight years, the world has cooled in contrast with the forecast rise in all the IPCC scenarios. The Arctic ice extent as of September 10, 2009, climatologically close to the maximum melt date, is 21.7% greater than the minimum in September 2007.

None of the models foresaw the cooling that has taken place the last 7 ½ years."

Dr Melvin T Gray said...

In response to points from Henry and QM, I agree that scams and political meddling have created a new Klondike whilst discrediting original research. 'Snake oil' remedies abound and I have said as much on this blog in relation to the Wind Farm Industry scam. New mathematical models were arriving so fast, there was barely enough time to check them out before somebody had pocketed government millions for a climate preserving garden gnome. Some models and equations were sewn into invisible suits by rogue tailors.

Henry - maybe the 70,000 extra deaths during the 2003 heatwave across Europe were within a couple of standard deviations of the norm and will you have us all wait until there is no disagreement that Malaria is endemic in the UK?

BTW, QM - I am not a medic. Can you be content looking solely to our own interests and gamble that there will be no major health impacts on the poorest Nations?

It all began with a fundamental examination of the planet sustaining an atmosphere and climate alongside high carbon emissions and an exponential rise in deforestation. At what point was there criticality? That was long before the politicians, carpet baggers and harlots started setting up their own camps. I do not know how a host of parasites and hangers-on can be evicted from this established site.

Anonymous said...

"Henry - maybe the 70,000 extra deaths during the 2003 heatwave across Europe were within a couple of standard deviations of the norm and will you have us all wait until there is no disagreement that Malaria is endemic in the UK?"

What proof is there that malaria is likely to become endemic in the UK? Certainly this past summer I haven't even seen a mosquito let alone a malaria carrying one.

It is only in the poorer regions of Africa, Asia and the Pacific Rim that it is endemic and only becuase the use of DDT has been outlawed.

Anonymous said...

Please let me know Henry, the moment you recall one of your better ideas.
Minnie

JuliaM said...

"..you are very wrong (on this occasion) to assume global warming is not concurrent with matters seriously prejudicial to health."

I think our climate is changing (unsurprisingly, as it's changed throught the millions of years this little planet has been here, and will carry on changing until the Sun goes nova), and we should do what we can to adapt to it.

I don't think that this is either down to us, or within our ability - yet - to resolve.

And the motives of the people who are pushing that viewpoint aren't to be trusted.

"What proof is there that malaria is likely to become endemic in the UK? Certainly this past summer I haven't even seen a mosquito.."

Oddly enough, I was thinking that a few days ago, and we have a pond. Last year they were as common as always, this year, hardly one.

Flies, which we hardly had any of last year, have been abundant this year.


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Mummy x said...

'head-peeping department'

Love it, phrase of the day for sure.

*chuckles*

Mummy x

Anonymous said...

Our Sun will enter a red giant phase but will not go nova. Don't give up the day job, Julia!

JuliaM said...

"Our Sun will enter a red giant phase but will not go nova. "

And the difference for the people still on it (assuming we haven't exterminated each other/colonised the stars) will be....?

Thought so.

Anonymous said...

The point unduly laboured, sigh, is that your Science is no better than your French. As we say to the novice lab assistant about to grab the jar of conc nitric - leave it alone!

JuliaM said...

I'm told my French is pretty good.

But best to draw a discreet veil over that one... :D