The Australian Medical Association is a powerful union here, and the AMA President, Brian Owler, is an outspoken advocate of the need for more action to change the climate, calling it “intergenerational theft” if we don’t do something. (Apparently we care for our kids by spending billions of their dollars now on schemes to fix the weather. If that’s not stealing, what is? )
Apparently the AMA are surveying their members to prepare for their big political climate statement. Christopher Monckton has the questions (and the correct answers) below. My message is that the climate models are wrong, and that thousands of scientists, including most engineers and geologists and even half of meteorologists are skeptical of the exaggerated forecasts. Carbon dioxide has a small effect which is magnified in models with guesses about humidity and clouds that we know are wrong. Australian doctors have a great reputation that will be tarnished if they are seen as using their trusted position to score unscientific and political points.
Though if the AMA did come out as “Doctors for the Planet” raging against carbon, I look forward to John Cook’s announcement that their opinion is irrelevant because they have no expertise in climate science.
— Jo
——————————————————————————————————
Another me-too climate statement by a non-climate body
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.[1] 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[3]), 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)[5], 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 –
- By 2020, CO2 in the air would be 411.987 parts per million by volume, compared with 412 ppmv if no action were taken.
- Global warming forestalled by 2020 would be 0.00007 C°: i.e. 1/14,000 C°.
- 0.00007 C° is 1/700 of the threshold below which modern instruments and methods cannot detect a global temperature change at all.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- That cost is equivalent to almost 60% of global GDP to 2020.
- 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.
- It is 83 times the minimum welfare-loss estimate of just 0.7% of GDP.
- 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 –
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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[3]):
…
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)[2] 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
[1^] ARGO (2015) Bibliography of papers related to the network of ARGO temperature-salinity floats, http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Bibliography.html
[2^] 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
[3^] 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
[4^] 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
[5^] 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
Any person who is so arrogant as to think than Man can change the climate – at will!! – is automatically disqualified from the argument. And in Mr Owler’s case I would guess that his pension is at risk if he were not to support his ‘master’s’ ideals.
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Truthfully, I am not worried about the opinion of one (or more) medical doctors (or as we used to call them in the army “pe**er checkers”); since they can’t even bother to follow their own advice about washing hands in hospitals full of sick and injured people. http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Doctors+among+worst+offenders+poor+hand+hygiene+report/7170832/story.html
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I think the activists have overplayed their hand by trying to get medical professionals to support their political cause. The average person on the street is not always as gullible as imagined, is more skeptical than previous generations about medical opinion, and many really will wonder wtf doctors should be saying about global warming anyway.
As far as the medical profession goes, all they get out of this is a serious case of brand dilution.
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Doctors should be more concerned about things within their field of expertise; maybe issues such as diseases, trauma, injuries, mental wellbeing etc.
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=> The thing about activists of politically Left leaning nature, is that they don’t know when to stop. They will always chant “their work is never done“. When the public rejects them or no longer cares about the Left’s narratives, activists will go on to do more nonsensical things to try to attract attention or retain public support. They call this “raising awareness” or when questioned of their poor behaviour: “at least it has got people talking“. This includes behaviours like throwing as much crap against a wall and hoping something sticks.
But this particular case is different. Here, we have a registered trade union (Australian Medical Association) cheering for an ALP-Greens promoted cause (Climate Change). And if you don’t think the AMA is in bed with the ALP, have a look at this…
From AMA’s own webpage!
=> https://ama.com.au/nationalconference/social-events
Look carefully at the wording! => No media will present in the room to report on the evening so don’t miss out!
Why don’t they want the public to know that they support Gillard? What is she actually going to talk about?
Considering Gillard couldn’t lead her own party, nor a country of 23 million citizens during her time as Prime Minister, what actual value will she offer to AMA members paying $135 for the night? (Besides pulling the gender card as a political tool to attack a Conservative white man who pointed out her own hypocrisy. Funny how she’s mysteriously silent about Radical Islam and what those ISIS nuts do to women!)
Common sense: If you want to be successful, wouldn’t you want to learn from someone who is actually successful? (A demonstrated record of competence in the real world).
Gillard is doing what Al Gore and Bill Clinton does. Ex-politicians earning their money through “speaking engagements”.
The AMA’s primary role is advocacy. Its splashed all over their webpage! Just look!
When you run that through the anti-BS Bingo translator, you get: “We’re a Trade Union“.
AMA is NOT an organisation that regulates or certify doctors. That’s the responsibility of Medical Board of Australia and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA).
A doctor or a medical student must register and be certified by the Medical Board of Australia and AHPRA. They do NOT have to be with the AMA.
Its one thing for the AMA to question a Govt health policy in the name of their paying members. It is another to support a political narrative that has NOTHING to do with the organisation’s primary focus. (Trying to associate with Climate Change.)
Again, look at the way they intentionally butcher the English language to push their advocacy! In this case, its Intergenerational Theft…throwing away today’s money and leaving future generations to pick up the tab! (Ironically, this is what Gillard Govt did!)
Note how these advocacy organisations lack logic, common sense, and infinite wisdom…
=> The AMA claim not supporting their narrative (Climate Change) is intergenerational theft.
=> But they support the narrative that is pushed by the political side (ALP-Greens alliance) that causes intergenerational theft to a Nation!
=> To add insult to injury for its paying members, they hold a paying social event where the guest speaker used to be the leader who’s govt helped create intergenerational theft!
…And they don’t want the media there to show the obvious link! A trade union financially helps a former ALP PM! …On the paying member’s dime, of course!
Side Note 1:
For $hits and Giggles, go onto Google and search: peak representative …Observe the results. Notice a pattern? Those words bring up all sorts of advocacy organisations!
Side Note 2:
When it comes to Climate Change, the line of the day is…
LOL! Someone has to make a song out of that and put a parody up on Youtube!
Side Note 3:
I watched last week’s The Bolt Report for the first time. I’m a little disappointed by one thing. When Bolt interviewed Sharri Markson (media editor for The Australian). She made a comment that she had no problem with news media pushing an agenda. (Bolt disagreed with her…And so do I).
Its that kind of thinking that results in Climate Change alarmism being pushed to the public. (The news media deciding what stories to tell to the public)…Instead of telling a whole story in an objective way and letting the public to decide for themselves; some in the media industry think its perfectly OK to steer the public to a particular direction! Whether by intentional spin or leaving important details out.
…And that explains why they are surprised that the public react in complete opposite to what they’ve anticipated and pushed out!
(See the recent UK election results. Take note the before and after behaviour of the UK mainstream media).
All this confirms to me that Journalism itself used to be an objective exercise in informing the public. In its modern mutation, its now acceptable in being subjective in order to push an agenda. ie: “All for a good cause”. (And as I’ve mentioned in the past, some even have romantic associations with the political class!)
Did anyone tell them they are abusing their power/position and they are destroying their own credibility if they continue this path?
(This should be very important for Miss Markson as she is a media editor for a News Limited paper. She does not have the luxury of taxpayer’s money like the ABC does.)
The only countermeasure to all the above is to observe and pay attention to behaviours of organisations and people. Words sprouted to the public don’t mean much these days. ie: “You have my word” doesn’t mean anything any more…Its what people do that is more important. Actions really do speak louder than words! (Despite being a cliche, its becoming more and more important in the 21st century.)
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The tyranny of those who view themselves as morally superior is never sated.
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My brother is a registered MD, a specialist anesthetist, surgeon and genealogist.
Email exchange over the last couple of days:
From me:
“Don’t know whether you have received the survey that the article below refers to as yet?
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/australian-medical-association-survey-on-climate-change/
Piece by Lord Monkton is very pertinent.
Interested to know your thoughts on WTF medical science has got to do with climate science?
His reply:
“Actually sweet FA – mob of unscientific beard-stroking FW’s. I resigned about 35 years ago!” 🙂
Gotta smile – cheers,
40
Will the Labor Lawyers be next?
111
They’ve been there a long time now
Preparations for class actions against coal miners and deniers-in-general are well under way
Unhappily, I’m only half-kidding
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Ian
In the short term Labor Lawyers are going to be too busy in damage control over the TURC revelations.
Perhaps even an actual agenda & policy re-focusing on the rights of the people the purport to represent instead of the
political gravy train/ conveyor belt may cause them to re – assess AGW & its real costs as well ( Here is hoping anyway)
00
Oh it’s worse than that. I don’t see how our Doctors For The Planet can possibly speak at all on the prognosis for the climate as that would be violating doctor-patient confidentiality.
390
Very good Andrew, …”Doctors for the Planet…would be violating doctor-patient confidentially.”
Again clever and devastating to the nonsense “Doctors for the Planet” as a doctor’s obligation is to his patients.
100
Time to get a new president of AMA, one who cares about medicine and treating patients and not someone raging against the world to try and solve his inner raging.
361
Yep.
That president should instead form a heavy metal band to take out his frustrations musically.
The doctor could call his band….
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE THAT GOES PING.
130
There were not too many things I agreed with Bob Hawke.
However, he did state that the AMA was the strongest union in Australia – and I do agree with that.
60
Viscount Monkton continues to present factual evidence of temperature measurements of the atmosphere and the oceans and points out that indeed there hasn’t been any warming of significance and yet levels of carbon dioxide are rising, hence no correlation. But the politics are such that the media and various interest groups, in this case the AMA, continue with their political campaigning. The parallels of King Canute not stopping the tides and the AGW industry not stopping climate change are relevant since both are natural events and out of the reach of humanity and their legislatures. It’s a pity one does not see these graphs published in the press from time to time instead of the usual dire prediction which turns out to be untrue and as a consequence we build very expensive unused desalination plants.
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Some young people are a wake up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytzTMqs8XKA
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Jo. Please feature this ⤴ . Get that video some airtime (or column inches or pageviews or whatever). No hurry. Perhaps you can use it as an introductory hook for some “speaking truth to power” story. Or, next time you get a newspaper spot or a radio interview, mention this youtube clip of David Davies MP in the UK. By any contrivance and any medium.
Sorry if this comes across as too imperative but events like this are as rare as hen’s teeth.
101
Last line “There is a difference between healthy skepticism and denial.” should be spread far and wide, excellent stuff.
80
Reality check: 1C ‘warming’ every 430 years is NOT warming. It’s a statistical irrelevance.
There is NO ‘Ocean warming’ worth a [snip].
[Your trick was unnoticed, for a while. But don’t try to be too clever with the spelling. There are plenty of acceptable alternatives, you could have used.] Fly
173
I will not let any doctor treat me if they believe in CAGW or AGW, I would rather be treated by a witch doctor.
Regards
Climate Heretic
331
So doctors can now analyse,
All the climate events in the skies,
Know how to cure aches,
Or diagnose quakes,
Or cool the Earth’s heat should it rise.
351
Are you the same Ruairi I met at the Patrick Michaels event at Brisbane last year.
If not, you seem to have the same wit as the Ruairi I met.
30
Ruairi’s limericks are not written by Ruairi, but by another person with the same name.
90
Well, that certainly clears it up…I think.
50
No,it’s definitely not me as I have not yet set foot in the Southern Hemisphere.
40
While perfecting Limerick style,
Ruairi can’t step even a mile
beyond his green fields.
So wanderlust yields.
His home’s in the Emerald Isle.
71
I’ve been as far south as I dare,
Without singeing my locks of fair hair,
To Morocco’s hot sand,
Reached by sea and by land,
Which to green fields could never compare.
61
Ruari has firmly rejected
The sessile tales I confected.
His passport’s no dud,
Nor stick-in-the-mud.
Apologies, I stand corrected.
21
This is just another example of AGW jihad. The warmist movement has infiltrated many of the countries institutions that influence public opinion such as universities , schools ,parliament, unions, medical profession, scientific institutions, media,government bodies ,churches etc. This is an insidious evil attempt to takeover the minds and thoughts of the public and impose harsh measures to destroy economic growth as we know it. It makes me appreciative of underground fighters like this web site.
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They don’t need to infiltrate any institutions. This is the old boy network in play.
What is likely to have happened, is that an old University mate would have approached Brian Owler, at some function or other, and after the pleasantries were out of the way, asked him what the position of The Australian Medical Association was, in regard to Climate Change. Brian Owler would have naturally replied, that the Association had no position.
Whereupon this old university mate would have looked shocked, and said that all of the other professional bodies had formed an opinion and published their findings, and given the risks to health (giving examples), surely it was beholding on the Association, and Brian Owler, in particular, to canvas its members, and publish the results.
Now, of course, I wasn’t present at this conversation, and it may not have happened at all. But it is the way that lobbying is done, especially by the environmentalists. It is called an Appeal to Ego.
91
I wonder how the AMA would react if the Institute of physics were to survey its member oceanographers on prescribing guidline for statins? just asking.
430
Priceless.
81
We all recall the sophistic analogy regularly trotted out by the CAGW crowd.
The analogy goes something like . . “If 97% of doctors said you had cancer, why would you listen to your mechanic who said you didn’t”
Welcome to Paris . . where the AMA is statistically indistinguishable from the NRMA.
131
Hehe. Nice.
Following NRMA’s example, presumably we’ll be seeing TV advertisements featuring State-level rugby players complaining their climate has changed.
OH MY GOD. I was only joking, but when I did a Youtube search IT’S ALREADY REAL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBxEklIxucg
We live in such crazy times that parody has become obsolete.
110
Isn’t it apparent that a grand mobilisation is underway? It’s all hands to the oars for Paris.
Not, after all, a fascinating study in timing that the AMA should be seen to ‘come out’ now. Primed among others by the UN WHO, whose climate-related policies appear to be driven by the circular relationship between the UN peddlers of social and economic re-design (UNEP) and their attendant court jesters, the epidemiologists, aka. the risk-mongers. These number-centered medics can pull any risk out of a hat upon demand, with a tap of their computational wand and the exclamation of ‘hey presto!
In their publication the AMA leadership pontificates the expected politicised climate mantra :
Factually incorrect as we all recognise….and the following by this nonsensical clanger…
More nonsense. Since when does ‘climate change’ have health effects that ‘include increased frequency of extreme weather events’…?
Has anthropomorphising the climate become a new psychiatric disorder that requires listing in the DSM IV ?
One really has to wonder who not only wrote this piece for the AMA but who wrote the loaded survey questions? They should front up and be held accountable. Unions likely subject such public utterances to ‘kollectiv’ ‘approval’ in the form of the requisite appointed committee prior but I’ll wager they go no where near the wider membership.
Finally, I have yet to hear any ‘doctor’ speak of ‘kid’s in the public arena. Doctors speak of ‘children’, ‘new-born’, ‘adolescent’ etc. You will not see the idiomatic, flippant and non-specific reference to ‘kids’ in any medical text book associated with paediatrics. It is stunning that a medical professional would use this term in a formal publication.
Gird your loins, any day now we’ll have a climate proclamation from the Australian Veterinary Association who have already signalled their position:
Animals and natural disasters
It could get profoundly confusing when talking about robbing our ‘kids’ of their future.
191
Manfred,
“Isn’t it apparent that a grand mobilisation is underway? It’s all hands to the oars for Paris.”
No.
Just another grubby, publicity hound trying to springboard into politics on the back of a populist agenda.
231
JB, likely that the personal agenda is currently well served by the meme of the moment.
The meme is definitely ramping up all about. From the MSM, to the UNEP invest/divest crowd; from the Papal ecclesiastical lot to local & regional councils; from a number of ludicrous papers that should never have got publication, to the EPA launched draconian new assault.
You’ve now even got the Daily Telegraph prattling a line that embraces two obligatory Green icons guaranteed to tweak the heart strings – Polar bears and dolphins, only now one is devouring the other in a Machiavellian twist of environment gone mad, the Polar bears now eating dolphins
…. because of ‘klimate change’,
And then we have the linking the 4 yr California drought to ‘klimate change’, and perchance a shred of doubt still persisted, then reassure yourself that The Huffington Post has your back, as they peddle, Klimate change helped ISIS.
I think that there is a clear ramping up of climate catastrophe and I think the orchestrated focus is to generate as much street cred and associational legitimacy as possible for the Paris jet-fest to the Moulin Rouge, snails and frogs legs extravaganza this November.
After all, this is little less than a scantily clad UN endeavour to change the entire economic model as described by UNFCCC Christiana Figueres statement of February 2015:
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AFL Press release;
Today it was announced by Mr Kick Straighter, Chairman of the AFL Commission, that the AFL is surveying its players and members to ascertain if the AFL should demand an immediate ban on all vaccination programs.
Mr Kick Straighter, a strong supporter of vaccination bans said that although vaccination programs had been in use as long as he could remember, a very small percentage of children suffered some mild adverse effects from vaccinations.
He also believed that some elite League footballers long term health may also be at risk from recent vaccinations.
When Mr Kick Straighter was questioned on the AFL’s expertise in medical vaccinations he admitted that they only had very recent and limited vaccination experience and did not have that expertise of the medical profession but as responsible citizen and the leader of a major Australian institution he believed that the evidence was overwhelming on the long term dangers of vaccination programs.
Therefore he had initiated the survey to ascertain and reinforce the message that vaccination programs must cease immediately due to the possible long term dangers to children and athletes.
[ end press release ]
[ sarc/]
Are you listening Dr.Brian Owler?
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I hate the thought of those great-grandkids scooting through the Brisbane snow in their thorium-mobiles and giggling about our sustainability efforts with stuff they haven’t wanted for a century. Patronising little so-and-so’s!
I suppose they’ll have a right to resent us for breaking the piggy-bank to erect millions of those weird wind-turbine towers instead of making more hilarious cult comedies like Tomorrowland.
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Although many doctors, it seems, have latte left or “doctors’ wives” views on all sorts of social issues, I strongly suspect that these are a vocal minority. Meanwhile medicos who hold to more traditional values are quietly getting on with caring for their patients and collectively contributing to the welfare of humanity as they always have.
It would be good if a few “old-fashioned” but high-profile doctors could find the courage to speak up and say: “No, medicine is a science-based profession and I don’t support climate alarmism, which is not supported by the evidence.” No doubt there would be attempts to shout them down, humiliate and silence them, supported by the usual elements in the mainstream media. It is very sad that Western society has reached the point where any attempt to challenge the prevailing green-left ethos is so often met with contempt and fierce derision. Free speech indeed, as long as the “deviants” are put in the stocks and pelted with tomatoes!
Maybe what is needed is a support group for conservative-minded doctors, similar to Patricia Heaton’s group for Hollywood actors who don’t agree with the entirety of the left-liberal agenda. Apparently such actors are treated as pariahs and generally “bad people”, ironically as believers in a philosophy that no longer dare speak its name. Patricia can get way with it because she is a “bankable” star who is also clearly a good and likeable person.
It is possible, but very difficult, to change an ill-informed “consensus”. A recent case in point is the recent MSM change of heart towards childhood vaccination, where rational medical voices were previously given no more weight, and often less weight, than rabid anti-vaxxer views.The tipping point seems to have arrived when a few prominent politicians on the left, i.e. the ones most journos identify with, started to speak up in favour of vaccination. Somehow climate change needs to be extricated as a pillar of the echo chamber the chattering classes reside in.
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As a paid up member of the AMA, I can honestly say, that I have received nothing from the AMA regarding a survey on climate change. I am not aware of any of my colleagues having received a survey either. Maybe it is only being sent to those esteemed leader trusts will answer correctly.
That said, I’m not surprised, our esteemed current president is prone to personal flights of fancy. I can report that no one I know has a good word to say about him. The general view is Brian Owler represents Brian Owler, the AMA is just a vehicle for his own promotion. He clearly has his eyes on a political future. Whether the ALP or Greens is not clear.
Most doctors I know are sceptics, I can honestly say I know only one true believer from within my circle of colleagues.
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Oh Doctor, you’re in trouble!
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This all about Owler,nothing else.The mans grandstanding is becoming tiresome
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In my brief sojourn as an investment advisor/ stockbroker, I learned that the medical profession were the biggest suckers for get-rich-quick-schemes without any substance.
Well, today’s ‘climate science’ has little or no substance, so I guess that’s why the AMA is so keen in being suckered into the alarmist cult.
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Watts is running the story and reading through the comments it appears that Owler intends going into politics, which explains just about everything.
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I used to be a member of the AMA. Each statement from the current president reinforces why I’m no longer a member. He’s a disgrace to the profession,and clearly ignorant of the basic principles of science.
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Do not go gentle with that foresight,
Doctors should spurn and rave at carbon today,
Rage, rage against the dying of the cult.
Though sly men at their end know that we were right,
Because their words had formed no warming they
Do not go gentle with that foresight.
Good men, they first ask why, lamenting the slights,
Their frail deeds might have stopped a green wave,
Rage, rage against the dying of the cult.
Wild men who watched and saw the sun’s dim light,
And learnt, too late, that others had sway,
Do not go gentle with that foresight.
Grave men, near death, with an ego full of right,
Blind eyes could blaze like models and be green,
Rage, rage against the dying of the cult.
And you, the others, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your false tears, I hope.
Do not go gentle with that foresight.
Rage, rage against the dying of the cult.
Apologies to Dylan Thomas.
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‘Wage, wage war against
The lying and the fright’
H/t kim at Climate Etc.
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Its a political manoeuvre by a cretin in the ranks. Remember last year Owler oversaw the production of a position statement by the AMA regarding wind farm noise. In the first sentence he stated that wind generators were generally regarded as economical and efficient. Totally out of his depth and totally untrue. When I challenged him to a debate on this he obfuscated and straw man argued. Then ran away. I resigned my membership on the spot so unfortunately I will not get to contribute my 2 bobs worth on this load of junk, within the AMA. But there are several free debate medical newspapers each week that will no doubt see Owler put in his box. (Australian Doctor, Medical Observer) which are real by three times as many doctors as there members of the AMA in total. The man is a disgrace.
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That’s interesting Ted,
I have also resigned my membership of the AMA in recent weeks in protest over the actions of the leadership on the climate change agenda.
Bushdoc by comparison is still a member but he/she has not yet been sent in the survey.
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Unfortunately, there will be Doctors, because they either don’t believe CAGW is a problem or they are just not interested, who will not bother to fill in the survey. But you can bet all the “believers” will.
Stand by for the results showing “97% of Australian Doctors think something should be done about Climate Change”.
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And of course Dr Owler has plenty of time after treating patients to tweet about his real passion.
Brian Owler
@BrianOwler
President AMA @amapresident Sydney paediatric and adult neurosurgeon and public health campaigner.
@brianowler Pres AMA: If we don’t put the policies in place now to control climate change we do the next generation a disservice.
Getting plenty of comments.
@sunriseoz @BrianOwler This clown needs to stop pushing his political views as AMA leader! CC has nothing to do with medicine.
PM always welcome to come to my theatre: What brain surgeons can teach politicians @FinancialReview @latingle ”
.@amapresident @BrianOwler has responded to David Leyonhjelm’s call for a debate on gun laws #sydneysiege #auspol
And he has already published his expert opinion on climate change on (not) our ABC of course:
“As the world continues to warm, there will be significant and sometimes devastating impacts of climate change — particularly for human health.”
“As the climate warms, and we experience more extreme weather events, we will see the spread of diseases, disrupted supplies of food and water, and threats to livelihoods and security.”
“Climate change will dramatically alter the patterns and rate of spread of diseases, rainfall distribution, availability of drinking water, and drought. International research shows that the incidence of conditions such as malaria, diarrhoea, and cardio-respiratory problems is likely to rise.”
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Reading the comments it reinforces ones view that proponents of AGW are immature ignorant twits.I wish I could be nicer…..
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I wonder what the AMA would say if they followed through on this and only had all the hospitals in the Country connected just to Renewable power only.
Operational hours would be like this.
Wind Power Capacity Factor yearly average 30%, hence an average of 7 hours and 12 minutes per day.
Solar PV Capacity Factor yearly average 17%, hence an average of 4 hours and five minutes per day.
Concentrating Solar Power Capacity Factor yearly average 27%, hence 6 hours and 30 minutes per day.
The average power consumption for a hospital requires that it has a dedicated 24 hour availability of 4MW, and in the Capital cities those larger hospitals would be more than double that average.
More than half the power consumption in any hospital is from air conditioning.
During the recent Cyclone Marcia event here in Rockhampton, all power was lost in the city at around 11AM on the Friday. On Saturday morning, early, from around 7AM onwards, and a number of times, virtually every ten minutes or so, the local ABC was broadcasting a very urgent call for delivery of Diesel fuel to the local large Base Hospital so they could keep running their backup generators, which automatically cut in via an UPS, whenever grid power goes down, the same with virtually every hospital.
They MUST have 24/7/365 power ALWAYS available, ALWAYS.
The average large hospital consumes around the same electrical power as 5,000 average homes.
The AMA can believe whatever they like to believe about Climate Change/Global Warming, but until they are aware of the consequences of that belief, then it’s all just expedient rhetoric.
Tony.
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Says it all.
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Well said Tony.
Have you been able to get this published anywhere?
And may I quote you please?
Cheers,
Dave B
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Well said once again Tony.
I would dearly love to confront AMA President, Brian Owler with this fundamental energy supply argument.
One can only come to conclusion that either he has no concept of the mechanics of base load energy supply to our grid system;
Or,that he has some political motif for advocating the advancement of the totally unreliable and part time nature of renewable energy.
I suspect that the latter is the case.
Geoffrey Williams
Sydney
00
AMA lost my membership the day they put that creep Brendan Nelson in as president.
And I’ve never seen a good reason to rejoin since.
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This is an interesting survey and kinda reminds me of one I did recently.
I surveyed 100 women asking each what shampoo they preferred to use in the shower.
Strangely, 97% of those surveyed responded with ‘how the hell did you get in here’.
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They were totally wrong about the cause of stomach ulcers, and that is their field. Now they are experts on climate science??????????
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The survey is a waste of time. The AMA should have learned a lesson by now not to engage in this sort of nonsense.
They seem to have forgotten that it was not really that many years ago when the entire global medical profession refused to accept the true cause of peptic ulcers as discovered by Dr Barry Marshall and Dr Robin Warren. For the medical profession, it was a classic case of a consensus that was totally wrong.
As Marshall and Warren collected their Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the entire global medical profession collected egg on its face.
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Let me appeal to the self interest of the medical profession and to the Hippocratic oath. MDs take note!
1. Remember that the billions of dollars wasted on renewable energy is in part stolen from health budgets and NOT going to me invested in medical technology, delaying the discovery of cures for many important diseases.
2. The yields of food we see today are in part dependent on the co2 partial pressure. If we’re to succeed in reducing CO2 EVEN MODERATELY a loss in food production of about 1% will occur for each 2ppm reduction in CO2. In preindustrial times the world population was under 2 billon, now it’s 7 billion. Would any sane doctor really advocate reducing food production to a level adequate for under 2 billion people by reducing CO2 when the actual population is 7 billion? Doctors should be advocating for more CO2.
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I’ll repeat what I said on WUWT.
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.)
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So Jo’s not the only one to confused SST and OHC. Why am I not surprised.
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I shall forthwith present a loaded survey on vaccinations to my professional engineering association and throw the weight of that organization into the debate as a bona fide (and respected!) participant.
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That map seems familiar; was your Heartland Conference remark that the Dark Continent’s interior consumes less electricity than Dubbo New South Wales facetious, or should we take it as seriously as Mark Steyn’s view of global warming ?
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“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.”
Unfortunately this totally incorrect statement, to an alarmist, spoils the otherwise excellent article.
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Stick to recommending and prescribing your statins boys and girls of the AMA as you’ll probably have more chance of getting the science right.
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A likely explanation for Dr Owler wanting the AMA to take action on climate change is a combination of two already suggested, namely that he was approached through the old boy network, and that he thought it would advance his career.
But note also that action on climate change has been advocated for some time by the British Medical Association (BMA) through its mouthpiece the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal). See http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g5945
In October 2014 the BMA wanted the WHO to declare climate change to be a “public health emergency”. The BMA and the BMJ had already joined others in setting up the Climate and Health Council, to advocate for action on climate change. See http://www.climateandhealth.org/
As a matter of fact the AMA, in spite of having a fairly politically diverse membership, has always aped the BMA. The AMA itself was only established in 1962, and it was formed from the Australian branch of the BMA, which had been the peak body representing doctors in Australia from way back in the nineteenth century. The links with the BMA remain very strong, and it is not surprising to find the AMA following BMA policy after a suitable delay of a year or so, simply because the BMA has always had influence here.
Doctors collectively often like to think they are on the side of cutting edge science, and they will inevitably gravitate to supporting the opinions of bodies they think are authoritative, such the BMA, the Royal Society (which also advocates action on climate change) and, significantly, the Royal Society of Medicine (ditto – see https://www.rsm.ac.uk/events/events-listing/2014-2015/sections/catastrophes-conflict-forum/ccf01-climate-change,-conflict-and-instability.aspx)
However it is to be hoped that there will be enough independent thinkers in the AMA to be an effective voice of dissent in the organisation on this issue.
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“fix the weather”
Not so many years ago , if your Doctor had proposed that “fixing the weather” was on his/her list of prescriptions to improve your health , there would have been those of us who would think that perhaps he/she was referring to a movie or something.
So, in current times, when the AMA Union (ensemble of Doctors) reveal that they are seriously considering the need for
“more action to change the climate”
It is perhaps time to revert to the local “medicine man” for future healthcare appointments.
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Médecins sans raison ?
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Steady on, chaps! The issue here is not that doctors cannot have opinions or indeed express them individually or collectively since climate science’s degradation has made it a huge danger we all face.To say that doctors should be silent is to repeat the enemy abusive position of argument from authority. If Dr Owler was on the right side, would you object? We have science backgrounds and are as reasonably capable of assessing these arguments as any other person. Also there are specific medical problems here to investigate and debate, for example infrasound, public health issues such as winter deaths, and general matters such as the prostitution and corruption of science.
The issue here is the politicization of these richly funded and largely useless unions which have been taken over by the libleft establishment like every other lever in the great signal box of western society….that’s why the train is hurtling down the sideline to the ‘Danger…broken bridge over a big scary canyon’ sign.
Doctors who disagree with this nonsense should of course complain…. Go on! Give him hell boys!…. then either organize and try and regain control, probably a lost cause, or resign and invest their subscriptions in something more useful….a couple of cases of claret and a Steynonline gift certificate does it for me. I left the BMA over 30 years ago as it clearly was not representing me and I never joined the CMA. Nothing lost.
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