Doctors are at it again trying to scare people about “climate change”. But all around the world, in every study in every city humans die more from the cold than they do from the heat (and by six to 20 times more). That’s thousands of lives and it happens every single year. Don’t these doctors know anything?
Attributable fraction of deaths: Heat, cold and temperature variability together resulted in 42,414 deaths during the study period, accounting for about 6.0% of all deaths. Most of attributable deaths were due to cold (61.4%), and noticeably, contribution from temperature variability [TV] (28.0%) was greater than that from heat (10.6%). Cheng et al.
Break my heart, if “climate change” is real the only thing the docs have to worry about is whether they’ll earn less money in winter.
Here’s the headline:
Health system needs to be protected from climate change: doctors
Here’s the real news: The health system needs to be protected from climate-change-doctors. We can’t afford to have medico’s who don’t understand the scientific process, who think “models” provide real evidence, or who will use their positions of trust to falsely scare people for the sake of their own financial gain or political and religious infatuation. We can’t afford to have doctors who don’t understand what the error bars mean on rare events or that correlation is not causation. Who would put their life in the hands of gullible fools who follow groupthink or who get their medical knowledge from watching the ABC?
At the very least, we expect these docs would do a basic competent literature search on the topics they profess to lecture us on. Even a freshman doctor straight out of med school should know deaths are higher in winter.
That said, there are many skeptical doctors around. Many of my top supporters are GP’s and Specialists.
What incompetent doctors are saying in the media:
“With heatwaves more people will die and get sick from things like respiratory illnesses, strokes and things like that, as well as dehydration.”
Higher temperatures also provide vectors for disease, especially mosquito-bourne illnesses, with the insects travelling further south than usual.
That was on top of more frequent natural disasters putting a strain on the health system, he said.
“With heatwaves more people will die and get sick from things like respiratory illnesses, strokes and things like that, as well as dehydration.”
Shame we didn’t have more competent journalists to ask them real questions.
It’s not the extremes that pose the biggest risk, it’s “moderate cold”:
Dang statistics tell a different story.
Note the big killer “moderate cold” | Click to enlarge
Heatwave deaths in Australia are trending down
…
Posts on health and mortality:
- Forget extreme temperatures: Nothing kills as many people as moderate cold
- Despite record heat, six times as many people die of cold in Australia not heat
- 7,000 excess winter deaths in Australia and 1,500 in New Zealand each year
- Last winter 9,000 more British pensioners died than usual — how many were due to high heating costs?
- Deadly winter kills 20,000 more British than usual — if only CO2 caused more warming
- Airconditioners save 20,000 lives in USA each year
- As it got hotter in Spain, less people died. Thank air conditioning and electricity.
- Evidence suggests global warming is good for our health
- Cold times means more death, war, rebellion, drought and flood in China
- Global warming saves lives in Stockholm — but bad assumptions feed scary headlines
The benefits we can derive,
From warming, helps keep us alive,
While our true foe is cold,
Killing both young and old,
Who with warming would otherwise thrive.
– Ruairi
REFERENCES
Achebak H, Devolder D, Ballester J (2018) Heat-related mortality trends under recent climate warming in Spain: A 36-year observational study. PLoS Med 15(7): e1002617.
Antonio Gasparrini et al. (2015) Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study. The Lancet, May 2015 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62114-0. Full PDF.
Cheng et al (2019) Impacts of heat, cold, and temperature variability on mortality in Australia, 2000–2009, Science of The Total Environment,Volume 651, Part 2, 15 February 2019, Pages 2558-2565, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.186
Whoa! Wait. What?
Feb 12, 2019: “The global review comes hard on the heels of research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences USA that suggests a potent link between intensifying heat waves and stunning declines in the abundance of arthropods.”
https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-killing-off-earths-little-creatures-109719
I, for one welcome our CO2-declination defying, disease carrying mosquito overlords with song …
THE DOORS – The Mosquito
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB9tb2pv5Z4
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The people of Sweden also die from moderately cold weather, an unexpected chill or cold air outbreak will have that effect.
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It seems not!
Actually I was involved in a consultation with an oncologist (cancer doctor) today, with a family member. I thought he was straight forward, honest, sympathetic, and gave some hope (which was appreciated).
The problem comes when doctors express opinions beyond their training. Which happens far too often, unfortunately. I resigned from the AMA because I thought their stance on Climate Change was wrong, and immoral. I donate my subscription to anti climate change casues these days.
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I thought the AMA were more a “union” for Drs, not the actual controlling body?
80
Perhaps he was indicating that it was possible to continue to practice medicine without belonging to a trade union (no need for scare quotes – that’s exactly what the AMA is: AFAIK the doctors’ union is not a “no ticket, no start” union like the lawyers’ union though).
Call figs figs: these professional bodies are trades unions for the top end of town. The AMA is an incubator for conservative politics just as surely as the ACTU is for Labor.
21
AMA a conservative union? No no no. The AMA depends on Big Gov rules and subsidies and behaves like every vested interest that has jobs and money on the line. The big difference between them and the CFMEU is that the AMA pretends to act on behalf of patients sometimes.
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EA (Engineers Australia) is also basically a political group and run by warmists.
This is the main reason I am VERY suspicious about the push to have Engineers in Australia registered. On paper it seems like a grand idea that protects the professional reputations of both personal and projects but in practices it is EA voting themselves into a more powerful body.
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True. THE AMA is a type of union for doctors. That is why I could resign.
The regulator is called the AHPRA (Australian Health Professionals Regulating Authority), previoulsy it was the Medical Board in each state.
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I disagree with all of these understandings of AMA and unions.
The principle
functionvalue of a union is wages and benefits for the rank and file. The AMA does none of this to my knowledge for doctors.10
You had better look again Mark. The AMA intervenes strongly on behalf of State and Federal employed doctors to improve wages and working conditions.
They also advocate for increases in the Medicare rebates for all private medical interventions. They go so far as to highlight the policies of the major parties at election time, and constantly brief the press on health cost issues, thereby inserting themselves into politics.
The AMA maintains a list of fees which are far above the Medicare rebate, thereby encouraging doctors not to bulk bill. They also negotiate discounts for members on a range of services and products.
I think all that counts as benefits for rank and file members.
And I agree, with all that. I was a member for 30 years.
I just could not stomach wasting public money on “Fighting Climate Change”.
40
Peter, thank you. I see your point.
Though “Professional” and salaried employees are usually exempt in most union contracts and bargaining. AMA sounds more like a lobby or PAC than a union but you did say “type of union”.
10
I am a doctor and a specialist in infectious disease. I can confirm that being a doctor does not make one expert in ecology, environmental policy or political policy. A recent lecture pointed out that while there has been some modest “global warming” of late, and in spite of proclamations of expansion by doctors and others, malaria incidence is falling. The rise and fall of malaria has far more to do with radical environmentalists who pushed for DDT bans which caused the deaths of millions of African children. Reinstating malaria control with DDT has reversed the upward trend.
Similarly the very real increase in tick borne Lyme disease in the northeast US and adjacent Canadian regions happened in an area that has seen 30 years of cooling, not warming according to NASA/NOAA. The rise is due to land use changes and reduced hunting so that cleared Forrest are now returning and deer populations exploiting – both require environmental conditions for Lyme persistence and transmission.
And yes we see excess deaths every winter – more the colder it gets – due to infectious such as influenza and pneumonia and due to hypothermia. Warmth is a blessing. Doctors are no smarter or honest than many others when it comes to belief in catastrophic environmental degradation and often speak loudly without any understanding of the facts.
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I understand Peter C. (# 3) very well. When the paperwork I have to fill out to see a new doctor these days spends time asking me if I wear my seat belt, how much and when I drink and now some group advocates having doctors ask patients if they have a gun, I think they need to reevaluate their relationship with their profession. They master a subject as complicated as medicine is today and in the process they forget what their job is. And it’s not politics, much less political correctness.
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Roy H.,
Our medical office is required to ask questions of the type you mention. {I’m in the USA.}
In one test, the nurse will read 3 unrelated words. Then, 10 minutes later, you have to say them. Another is to draw a circle with the hands of a clock, showing, say 20 minutes to 10. Young folks may not have such a timepiece!
About guns, seat belts, recent falls and such – – – they want to know where to intervene to save “the system” money.
Next week we are to have circulation measured on thighs, calf, and each big toe. This is in the name of early intervention.
Point is: Don’t blame doctors for asking such questions.
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John,
I don’t blame doctors for asking such questions, not at all. I know that it’s forced on you or at least pressure is put on you to do it. But for instance, about alcohol, if I present no symptoms of alcohol abuse or if you would prefer over use, then what and when I take a drink isn’t a medical issue and it’s none of the doctor’s business. Having a gun is not a medical issue, neither is whether I wear my seat belt or not. And for a large percentage of the population the federal governments eating guidelines might as well be the instructions to build an outhouse.
I know damned well that the aim is to save money. If I thought for a minute that I could believe it was out of a genuine interest in my welfare I would happily talk to the doctor about such things. When you depend on Medicare you’ll quickly notice that if you need some attachment to a walker so you can rest a forearm cast in it and avoid using your hand when you shouldn’t use it, Medicare pays only for the cheapest device available – junk. And when you buy the cheapest you get exactly what you pay for.
I’ve watched medical insurance suddenly morph into health insurance. Does it insure that you stay healthy? No but that never bothered anyone. When I saw that happen I asked myself a few questions like, why would they do that and who would benefit? I appear to have been right in my suspicion because insurers, without knowing anything about me or my medical status except what they got to be able to pay the bill, began marketing all sorts of programs to keep me “healthy”, began trying to put someone as far away as clear across the continent between me and my doctor to try to get me to take the cheaper drug they would rather pay for. Never mind that it does not work for me.
And because I was married 31 years to a childhood onset type 1 diabetic I got quite an education about what works and what does not and who can handle tough cases and who cannot.
Insurers are the only real beneficiaries of such things almost always.
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Question since you seem to be in a position to know. What percentage of all the stay healthy ideas out there now is even worth reading?
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And maybe I should ask this. What gives anyone the right to intervene in someone else’s life? Close family members might have that right. But the fact that an insurance company wants to save money does not confer that right by any stretch of imagination I can make.
Frankly, if I was confronted by surprise with questions and testing as you describe, I would get up and leave. Now if my doctor was to talk to me about my condition and I could ask questions, I might voluntarily go through those tests. A little later this year my neurologist will put me through a rigorous evaluation. But I go to him just for that reason, to let him find out what’s happening with me that I may not see.
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The real problem is to figure out where the responsibility line gets drawn between doctor and patient then leave each one squarely on his side of that line.
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A few years ago during an annual check, I was asked by a very competent nurse if I felt safe at home. I looked her in the eye and said sternly “not while Obama is in office!”.
There were no other problems or stupid questions after that.
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Sounds like the beginning of a psych eval. Good for you.
10
I have been caring for an elderly lung cancer patient (non smoker always) since middle of 2018, when she first realised that a carer was needed during her chemo therapy and that the outcome might not be good she contacted the palliative care people, one of the first questions was who is your carer now and does the home have any guns inside.
Thankfully they have not been needed and the chemo therapy has “better than contained” the cancer and now the patient is returning home and will be checked by scans every couple of months.
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Much better to have the guns inside and pointing out, than outside pointing in.
40
When it’s obvious that the intent is to know where to go to confiscate the guns, be prepared for guns outside pointed at you. Now you have a question to answer, what will I do?
I’m not going to advise others but I think a constitutional right trumps society’s fear and the only people who have any rights are those who will defend them. The constitution will not get up and stand between you and someone come to pick up your guns. We in America fought a very costly war of revolution to protect our rights back in the 1770s. What will this generation do?
It’s a question each person will need to answer at some point.
00
I think it only fair to ask the Doctor questions in turn. Such as
– When did they last have a drink
– when did they last do drugs
– do they believe every thing on TV or do they check for themselves
– are they currently in a good mood…..
I am sure the list could get quite extensive seeing it is our health that is at stake.
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Ask away Paul.
I will answer all your questions at length at $180/hour.
40
Owning a gun is totally legal. At least in the US. But they ask that question as if you’re some kind of nutcase if you respond affirmatively. Insane. Honestly, it should be illegal to ask that question just like it’s illegal to ask the sexual preference of a patient.
50
Eric, I’ve imagined that your answer to that question will be recorded in the “special” section of your file no matter what the answer is.
Best choices involve deceit (say none and on your way home stop at the gun shop home buy two) or crazy talk. Try asking the ask-er: I dunno what are you packing?
On a side note I was in for a hearing test a while back and I have tinnitus. The screening form I was given to fill out asked 30% questions about whether the ringing in my ears was making me angry or violent. I was neither before I read the questions.
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When the bottom line is written I think we’ll find out 2 things, that society is very afraid and that politicians are more than willing to pander to that fear to get a vote.
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Too many policies are written on noble intentions without concern for what policies actually do. Climate change policies are essentially regressive taxes dressed up as a noble cause. It’s debatable that many climate change policies will ever have a perceptible effect on the global weather but there are immediate effect on energy prices, which hit the poor hardest, that reduces disposable income and often results in lower wages and loss of hourly wage jobs. It is well established that poverty is associated with poor health, both physical and mental. Perhaps the doctors should first insist that their political policies first do no harm.
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Excellent summary Sean.
50
Anyone who thinks that policy is ever developed with “noble intentions” really does mark themselves out as a bit of a naïf.
Ask yourself “What sort of person is attracted to political life?” and examine the question empirically: Downer, Turnbull, Rudd, Gillard, Obeid, Dasyari, Dutton… the answer as to what motivates policy should hit you with full force… their hierarchy goes “self; party; cronies; donors; family; …;…; the demos” in that order.
We peons are last on the list of considerations, and anyone who believes otherwise is too naive to be entrusted with a vote.
30
Its worth noting that in groups like ISIS, there are many like Drs, engineers etc who have been signed up.
Its proof that education isn’t a protection against radicalization.
This may also explain why many peak bodies for many different professional groups have abandoned actual responsibility, and embraced foolishness…..
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More often than not, radicalization is the result of acrimonious rhetoric repeated endlessly by ‘trusted’ people like Imam’s, politicians, climate ‘scientists’ and a captive media. Goebbels’s had it right about how to make a gullible population accept what isn’t in their best interest. When you add scary consequences from non compliance (i.e. prison or destroying the world) and wrap the lies in a cloak of false benevolence (the greater good or saving the world), education doesn’t stand a chance.
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Good point that basic, thorough education of community members is a better way to go than having top down micro management of our lives by government.
Society is being weighed down by increased complexity which should be left in the hands of experts to ponder.
Being overly “busy” may lead to anxiety but not produce any benefit to individuals.
It’s governments job to help create strong individuals and provide occasional support within reason but there are limits on what governments can and should do.
KK
KK
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G’day K K,
I sort of agree with you about experts, except that that label has been widely misused in current usage. So called experts have lead us into the “climate change” mess, and unreliable power, so I am loathe to rely on anyone who is so called. Particularly when they get into a huddle and give us words from on high, and don’t accept questions.
But do I have a solution? The closest I can get is the example Peter Ridd has just successfully demonstrated: open discussion and precise application of the principles of science and logical argument. And bravery to stand up against inadequate research.
Can that be achieved? i can only hope.
Cheers
Dave B
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Totally agree David.
Experts are no better than the people who are supervising or managing them.
Unless the manager is responsible and accountable for the accuracy of expert opinion all you have is someone in a circular loop of “expertise” that is inevitably doomed to go off the rails.
Look at this modern world.
KK.
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” Health system needs to be protected from climate change: doctors”
Translation:
‘There is a bunch of government money sloshing around, and we need to make sure we get our share no matter what stupidity
that requires us to pretend to.’
If believers had to register & agree to an audited life that would reflect their beliefs, the church of climate change wold be empty.
If all you have to do to get paid is sing the hymn, voices will raise to the sky. & exhale carbon dioxide & make things worse, but we won’t go there. Let’s end with absurdity; why are cow farts bad but human farts OK? Ban beans.
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” Health system needs to be protected from
climate change:doctors”120
I knew a doctor who was driven out of a shopping complex for offering actual medical advice and under-prescribing. The climate industry is used to dealing with awkward people like that.
But God knows how Big Green will compete with Pfizer and Roche in the junket stakes. Maybe offer doctors big deductions on solar installations? AMA cash-backs and organic fire retardants with every Tesla bought?
Ah, the challenges of science communication.
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My doctor is a climate skeptic, and I know one or two psychology practitioners who hold similar positions, in conflict with the stated positions of their respective professional organisations. The Australian Psychological Society and the College of General Practitioners actively promote climate alarmism. It’s the usual story. The loonies get themselves into a position to manipulate the organisation, while the rank and file are too busy to intervene, or they just keep quiet in case of reprisals.
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This is worth a follow-up.
The folks who are leading an organization WANT to. Their sanity & judgement is seldom questioned on the way to the top. And you have pinpointed the “why” very clearly. Profession or goal hardly matters. Public vs Private doesn’t either, much, except that the terms of following the holy grail are a little different. The terms of the grail quest in any organization are, of course, the rules of fundraising.
Organizations of workers are great in that respect, as we start with a presumption of dues, and the ability of hard working members to pay them.
If I’m a widget-fiddler, I have an affinity with my fellow widget-fiddlers. We are certain to have common needs and issues. We’ll form an organization….and the organization will need to do stuff. Regrettably, and an essay for another time, this will likely be lobbying the government to get off our damn backs.
While the most successful widget-fiddlers feel the need most acutely, they are the least likely to have time to volunteer. WHen they look at those who can volunteer, they are often the least successful among their peers; the decision is almost always reached to create a board of figureheads, and hire a “professional administrator”. This person will be, almost by definition, a committed collectivist.
And sooner that one would believe, the organization is flogging all sorts of thing, some directly antithetical to the needs of the membership. I like the idea of the (US) labor leader; supporting open borders (bring in lots of lower wage workers), medicare for all (never mind that gold plated health benefits are a hard won result of the advent of unions), and other “progressive causes”.
As a parlor game, lets all name positions that organizations take to the mal-interest of their members.
This is usually because organizations evolve to have an administrative class that is distinct from the membership, who are still hunched over their workbenches fiddling widgets, wonder what went wrong. They stop paying dues and going to meetings, but the money and earned social credibility of their group continues to pollute society.
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THIS GUY GETS IT.
It’s really not that difficult a concept to grasp, and yet not one person in a hundred considers asking the question –
I spent a lot of my academic life thinking hard about expectations formation, and it’s absolutely clear that most adults have incredibly naïve mechanisms for forming their expectations.
As to expectations, the right questions to ask when confronted with a climate ‘expert’ are as follows –
① what sort of kiddie should we expect to enrol in a course that purports to be about climate “science”?
② given the answer to ①, what sort of people will form the core of self-identified climate ‘experts’?
I contend that the answer to ① is approximately the same as the answer “What sort of person joins a religious order?”… i.e., “People who genuinely believe the underlying story, with little or no curiosity as to its known flaws.“. Non-dissenters.
And the answer to ② is approximately the same as the answer to “What sort of person becomes a bishop, cardinal or Pope?”… i.e., a person from the answer to ① who also has megalomaniacal levels of the Will to Power (sometimes, but not always, accompanied by a ruthless dedication to The Cause).
If you get your expectations formation mechanism right, you’re never surprised by any policy. Not even the NBN, or the NDIS, or Gonski, or energy policy.
There is no such thing as failed policy: the people for whom the funds are intended, always get their money… and that is the actual aim of policy.
20
Crusaders create crusades, which are wars, which are often destructive.
Why so many organizations with a sizeable percentage of skeptical members so strongly endorse alarmism is a good research topic. Instead we get research assuming (then concluding) that skepticism is a pathology. That is where the money is.
50
Agreed.
AMA at it again yesterday:
The New Daily 15 April 2019
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2019/04/15/australia-health-system-climate-change/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning%20News%20-%2020190415
“We need to have scalable arrangements which can deal with the full range of challenges from the routine to the totally unexpected using standardised policies and procedures.”
The warning follows the release of a landmark report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate in October, which found that some of the most dire consequences of global warming will occur earlier than predicted, with time running out to avoid the most catastrophic effects.
Following the report’s release, Australian Medical Association president Dr Tony Bartone urged the government not to ignore the implications of climate change for human health.
Shame on you, AMA, blowing your climate trumpet yet again.
I can’t wait for your “scalable arrangements” for “totally unexpected” events.
Please take a moment to think it through before going public with such alarmist nonsense.
100
What bothers me, and it should bother everyone else too, is that its a short leap from professional bodies drinking ” the cause” kool aid, to then getting an official stance that decrees all climate sceptics are actually ” insane” and need to be locked up, for thier own safety , of course.
Lessons from history should be screaming at sane, right minded people right now.
“Arbeit Mach Frie”
Lest we forget the lessond from history….
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Indeed, that skepticism is a mental malfunction has already been claimed by a number of studies, possibly a large number. Curing us is the obvious next step. (Sarc of course) this is threatening stuff.
40
The appalling thing is that is nothing like what the IPCC said, just how it has been blown in the press. The Issue was whether the standard target of 2 degrees of warming (1 degree having already happened) was sufficient. The IPCC said that 1.5 degrees was better since some damages would be avoided. (But not all because the alarmists think any warming is bad and we are already being damaged.) They also pointed out that their models say that only drastic measures can hold the warming to 1.5 degrees (that is 0.5 degrees more from now on). I
This has been warped by the radicals and their press into drastic measures are needed to avoid catastrophy. But there is nothing catastrophic about the damages at 2 degrees, they are just greater than at 1.5 degrees.
This was really just an internal UN struggle over what the Paris Accord target should be. It has got completely out of hand.
30
The “magical” 2° C target was proposed by an economist(!) during one of the interminable CoPs:
“Oh, just make it 2 degrees.”
No research.
No consideration.
No discussion.
Just: Yeah that sounds good. Two degrees it is.
Yes, it was as arbitrary — and stupid —- as that.
Notice how once set, it’s now cast in (quick set) concrete?
Two degrees of warming or cooling is so low, it can barely be felt. Suddenly feel a bit cool/warm? Put a jersey on or take it off. That was about 2 degrees of temperature change. Human beings are sneaky and much more clever than the climate and the IPCC: they regulate their body temperatures with clothing. Why should we care about a mere smear 1.5 or 2 degrees C? It’s nothing — not when temperature changes by ten, or fifteen degrees each day …we just fix it with an amazing invention: clothing.
Yesterday: max T = 23°C
min T = 8°C and that’s normal …
30
I agree. I am a specialist Anaesthetist. I dropped out of the AMA when it adopted the alarmist approach to climate ‘science’. Unfortunately Medicine suffers the same problem as other institutions when some of it’s members use their position to pursue a personal political agenda.
I became dismayed when too many of my colleagues, like sheep, accepted the ‘orthodoxy’ on climate change without scientific evidence. We are supposed to be a profession that prides itself on evidence based medicine. There is no way such sloppy non-reproducible work and incompetent statistical analysis would make it anywhere near a medical journal, let alone be considered settled science.
As MIT’s Richard Lindzen pointed out, the best and brightest don’t go into the climate sciences. I am beginning to wonder how many of my colleagues got into medicine. Perhaps it’s because we have moved away from entry based on a high level of understanding and proficiency in the hard sciences and into the touchy-feely complementary medicine world of patient-doctor ‘partnerships’.
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Thanks for speaking up Bernie. Indeed one of my greatest support bases is from doctors, so you are not alone. I suspect GP’s and specialists are very attuned to the problems with predictions in complex systems, and luckily for me, they are generous supporters. There would be many like you still left in the AMA.
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From the top graph, TV kills as many as does the cold. Why should TV kill people? Could Jo or any of the doctors answer that one? Is it the ABC biased News comment and reporting that does it or the poisonous left-wing attitude of senior ABC people such as Virginia Trioli and Tony Jones?
00
Are you sure about that?
Doctors are people. Medicine is a business. There is no reason why they or it would be collectively immune from the contagion that has infected so many other “scientists” and “professionals” and “industries”.
There is no shortage of conventional wisdom in medicine that in due course, or even week-to-week in some cases, turns out to be utterly false.
80
I recall not that long ago The Lancet lamenting that 50% of science was ( parphrasing ) – stuff that doesnt pass muster as proper research….
30
Short answer Terry and Steve is yes, I am sure.
Although through most of history the practice of medicine has not been science based e.g.leeching, the 20th and 21st century Med schools have entrenched in Doctors that the scientific method of evaluating treatment is essential. That many cancers are now curable, e.g. childhood leukaemia, has been because of rigorous research and statistical standards such as the double blind controlled trial. In fact cancer treatment, as most other treatments are, in reality, ongoing research works in progress. Most importantly, we have to always consider that the cure may be worse than the disease.
One of the biggest threats to healthcare has been that many complementary or alternative medical practices that have little or no basis in science are becoming mainstream. The Anti vaxxers being one that immediately springs to mind. On even a more basic level the billion dollar market for vitamins and supplements, that are unnecessary with a normal balanced diet, divert resources away from proven beneficial treatments.
Likewise with climate science and energy policy, we are now making decisions that will be futile at best and harmful at worse. I still shake my head in disbelief at the decision of Germany to cease nuclear power and replace it with brown coal generation.
30
Former chief editors of two of the most prestigious medical journals (the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet) would disagree vehemently – as would John Ioannides, whose 2005 paper helped spark what is now broadly known as the replication crisis.
Ioannides (2005) Why Most Published Research Findings Are False, PLOS Medicine 2(8): e124
Angell, M (2009) Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption, New York Review of Books, Jan 15 2009
Key excerpt:
Horton, R (2015) What is medicine’s 5 sigma?, The Lancet, Vol 385 (April 11, 2015) p1380
Key excerpt:
The full Horton article – freely available at the link – goes significantly further than the piece I’ve excerpted.
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Point taken, I agree we should be as skeptical about medical research as climate change research. The big difference is that the Dr Horton et al can make these comments and not be ostracised nor have their careers ruined for taking a contrarian view. Being trained to recognise the limitations of research and critically evaluate the results and conclusions has been an important part of my training. Unlike climate scientists, I can’t bring to mind any competent clinicians who would put their hand on their heart and proclaim that the science is settled.
Look what happened to Professor Ridd when he tried to hold his colleagues to account.
This is all of course moot and probably falls into the Tu Quoque category of logical fallacies. The point the Jo was making is that the evidence both statistically and historically is that fewer people get sick and die from warmth than from cold. Our hospitals typically fill up from infectious and respiratory illnesses in winter, in many cases stopping elective surgery due to what we call ‘bed block’. (I practiced as an Intensive Care Specialist for over ten years). It seems that some of my colleagues have jumped on the “everything will be worse from climate change” bandwagon.
20
Don’t get me wrong – I was certainly not trying to pretend that climate “science” produces output that meets any sensible definition of the scientific method.
Both bio-medical/pharma research and climate “science” expose the flaws that inhere in authoritarian structures: correct-line ideology; control by self-selected cliques; institutional corruption; extensive self-hagiography and propaganda; and merciless hounding of dissidents (now always called “deniers“).
That’s why it should come as no surprise that medical error is the third-leading cause of death in the US. People who think they’re too smart to be wrong, and who actively demonise anyone who questions their genius, are ill-suited to life-and-death decisions.
I think there’s persuasive evidence that the climate “science” community developed their “walk back claims and shift goalposts” strategy by copying the medical fraternity.
The modern medical fraternity is not that different from the people who sent Semmelweiss mad (and just after his death, lauded Lister for saying exactly the same thing). They insist that they are never wrong, even after the data shows that they are holding a 2-7 off-suit.
They will defend an obviously-wrong position for decades, and will respond to accumulating evidence of error walking back rather than saying “OK it’s clear we’re wrong on this… let’s do some proper science and see whether we can get it right.”.
Best example: dietary advice. Keys vs Yudkin (dietary fat vs sugar).
Keys’ research was profoundly flawed, to say the very least.
Keys had the political backing of the US government, so he had the backing of the AMA (US version), and Yudkin “lost”, and so did humanity.
Then the entire global medical fraternity fell in behind and spent 3 decades promulgating dietary recommendations that were actively hostile to health.
And as the evidence accumulated that Keys was wrong, the world’s medical cabal tried moving the goal posts first…
① Cardiovascular disease and obesity is caused by dietary fat (Keys);
② [Evidence that ① is wrong accumulates] Actually it’s dietary saturated fat;
③ [Evidence that ② is wrong accumulates] it’s dietary cholesterol (eggs bad!);
④ [Evidence that ③ is wrong accumulates] it’s dietary LDL cholesterol;
⑤ [Evidence that ④ is wrong accumulates] … it’s dietary small-LDL cholesterol.
⑥ (at some point in the distant future) Yudkin was right: fat is largely irrelevant, it’s excess sugar (and smoking).
Compare this to the goalpost shifting that has taken place in the global-warming/climate-change/climate-catastrophe shibboleth.
Same approach: they’re never wrong – they just need to refine their conclusions (until they converge on the correct answer over a generation later, as their original conclusion is quietly jettisoned).
And of course the list doesn’t end there for the sawbones.
Vioxx… another doozy.
An aspirin a day: result – men dying from kidney failure at much higher rates than they would have died from CVD. (The walk-back is underway: now it’s “baby” aspirin… until that is shown to be just as bad, 10,000 deaths down the track).
Statins for all men over 50 – another doozy: a 10-year NNT of ~500 to prevent a CVD incident (not a death) in people who have no history of CVD… and a significant increase in risk of liver damage. Interesting to note that the people for whom a statin has actual therapeutic benefit are more likely to suffer liver damage because they’re more likely to have existing NAFLD.
And at the peak-charlatanry end of the spectrum – the psychobabble/medicine interface… SSRIs and other psychotropics for anyone who has a bad day, and DSM V where anyone who denies the merits of psychobabble has ODD and is a nutter.
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The screwed nanny state:
Radio warnings on hot days:
“Drink plenty of water”
“Stay out of the sun”
“Checked on the elderly”
“The sky is falling” -OK not that.
And in cold of winter:
–nothing–
:
The graph “Deaths per decade from heatwaves”
1930’s very hot, “Central USA Dust-bowl” -Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath”
1970’s (a negative temperature gradient)Oh no, we are heading into an Ice-age.
Now -Oh no, we are all going to be dead in 12 years from global warming.
:
Just a side note:
The graph showing world wide deaths.
Canada has a lower (%AF) death rate for moderate cold than Australia.
Having once been in Canada in a very cold winter, I was never cold.
With double glazed windows, furnace in the basement running 24/7, everything heated and suitable clothing.
God help them if they have an energy crisis.
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Jack, “ And in cold of winter: –nothing–”
Some places now warn folks not to bring charcoal grills into the residence.
Seems many folks know nothing about combustion and its products.
Still, they are allowed to vote.
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John
It does make you have second thoughts about Democracy.
They seem to like to use the lowest common denominator as an excuse to tell us what to think and do.
Maybe a deliberate dumbing down of the populous?
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What matters is not external temperature — but the indoor climate and Australians don’t have any respect for cold weather. The only reason we bother with insulation at all is because of the heat.
I’ve been in a Canberra room that was 11C inside, and that was May (not yet winter). When I used to rent houses in Canberra (without thermometers) I don’t know how cold it was, but I know I could breathe fog indoors in winter.
A Swedish PhD friend said he wanted to go back to Sweden so he could get warm.
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My Canadian friend, who I first met on the boarder of NT & QLD near the gulf of Carpentaria.
Said she had never been so cold as a night she had spent in a a house in a Melbourne winter.
And she had worked in Yellow Knife, Canada.
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I knew a Canadian lady who thought Sydney was too harsh a place to live in winter.
For God’s sake, what has all this progress and technology been for if the frail must dread winter at 34 degrees latitude close to the ocean?
When I want to express my inner hippie I buy hemp and linen clothing, because they make perfect sense. And there is a Panasonic air conditioner on the wall of this little office where I’m sitting…because it makes perfect sense too.
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Well mosomoso
I guess we are geared for heat, they are geared for cold.
I went from a summer in Sydney to a winter in Canada.
At the time, I had thought Miranda Fair was a big mall.
The mall at Edmonton had a roller coaster and a wave pool!
There were Canadians laying around the ‘beach’ in the middle of their winter!
It was a long time ago, but I did admire their mastery of a quite harsh climate.
:
PS: Hemp is a great fiber, to bad DuPont bad mouthed it.
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Jack
“Geared for the cold”.
I once attended a conference in Calgary in February. Plenty of snow, ice and cold.
And the “ladies of the night” were still out on their street corners.
40
A beach in Edmonton in winter sounds as crazy as a ski slope in Dubai in a Gulf summer! People love it though. We watched them while we had lunch at a place that rejoices in a name like The Cheesecake Factory. We were in summerish gear and the people inside were all wrapped up in full winter clothing!
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Traditionally in Australia we heated just the living room at night in Winter
And left the rest of the house to adjust to the natural temperature.
It’s only been in the last 20 years that I have noticed a change
towards heating the entire house with air conditioners.
And the huge rise in power bills has stuffed that up completely.
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We were never so cold in winter as in Australia! In the mid-eighties we were in a small flimsy place in a SE suburb of Melbourne. It had one tiny electric heater in the main room and we obtained an oil-filled radiator for the kitchen area to survive. More recently we rented a place in Buxton while we rebuilt here and that too was flimsy. It had a woodstove of an appallingly poor design, it chewed up large quantities of wood to very poor effect and we felt unbelievably cold there. The same amount, or less, does a wonderful job with our Metal Dynamics stove. It’s all-singing, all-dancing…heating, cooking, hot-water and some central heating. The house is we built is much more insulated.
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Jack
And the car heaters really work
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Many doctors now sadly succumb,
Maybe to increase their income,
To the climate alarm,
That can cause our health harm,
Fearing warmth more than cold which is dumb.
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I love this headline, really!
“Health system needs to be protected from climate change: doctors”
Only problem with it is the colon. Remove it and it says it correctly. Leave it in, and the doctors most likely will try to put their heads in it.
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That’s just a natural side effect of aging. (badup-tssssh)
20
Ouch!
10
Re hot weather and mosquitos
“Could climate change cause infertility?”
“but this new study sheds light on how spermatogenesis in insects is hampered at extreme temperatures.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/16/could-climate-change-cause-infertility/
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So climate change will have an upside after all.
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“climate change will have an upside after all.”
The natural warming out of the COLDEST period in 10,000 years, certainly has
As has the mostly natural climb in atmospheric CO2 levels.
Continued warming would be in the areas that are coldest now, so continued warming will also be a massive benefit.
Great to see you finally coming to your senses, pfutz.
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I note that 4 people (count of red thumbs at 11:56 am) do not think that climate change has an upside. That is also good news
[Email coming your way Peter. Please check. — Jo]
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no, pfutz, they saw through your mindless child-like attempt of at trolling.
30
5 now
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wow, counting to 5.. no wonder you are please with yourself. !
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Here’s a challenge for you pFitz:
Given your eight fingers and two thumbs (I’m assuming you have a full set … )
what is the largest number you can count up to using them?
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Physicians pride themselves on applying evidence based remedies. They are always looking for the best means for technology to provide the evidence needed to make a sound diagnosis. They are inclined to scorn the non/weak evidence based medical practitioners like chiropractors.
A good physician will be a CAGW skeptic; it is in their training to be skeptical until the evidence is convincing.
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What is the death rate in Australia annually from medical errors, incorrect prescriptions and infections picked up in hospital? How does it compare to deaths caused by heat?
Should the doctors look to the plank in their own eye, rather than the mote on the climate’s eye?
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In the US, medical error is the third-largest cause of death –
nobody has presented a convincing argument that quality control in the medical profession in Australia is different enough for that statistic to be inapplicable to our industry.
Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in the U.S.
Key excerpt:
Actual BMJ paper (fulltext): Makary, M.A., & D Martin, “Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US” BMJ 2016; 353 :i2139
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I think you’d have made your case without the silly trending down graph. Obviously a whole set of factors contribute to better health outcomes over the last 100 years. It is like those fake stories about natural disasters causing more deaths in the past. The fake part is not the facts about the deaths but the implication that it meant that the natural disaster was more severe in the past rather than all the advances that have occurred over time so that disasters have less impact.
34
As one who regards uninterpreted statistics as bunk, I have to say there is substance in what you say about numbers from natural disasters. However you fail to mention the lack of communications and reportage and the much thinner population in, for example, the 1896 heat disaster. That’s fakery on the other side, right?
Statistics are bunk but we need them. They need to be unbunked as much as possible. The 1851 fires in Vic have no equal in terms of area but we need to consider that aboriginal burning practices were on the wane when those fires occurred but that there was likely much more forest crown than now. We have descriptions of the event which lead us to conclude that climatic conditions were dire, but to say they were more dire than those in 1939 or 2009 is a stretch. This does not justify stretching in the other direction.
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I agree moso a bunch of numbers on a graph followed by an assertion has no place in debate.
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“bunch of numbers on a graph followed by an assertion has no place in debate”
WOW, geegee makes a statement that basically DESTROYS all of so-called “climate science”.
Perhaps that is why they don’t want any debate. 😉
The Mannian hockey stick bites the dust,
The Gissian temperature fabrication bites the dust,
Trenberthian anti-science bites the dust…..
All courtesy of a skeleton leaf.
WELL DONE geegee. !! 🙂
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You never write anything that doesn’t cause me to mentally to insert an evil muhahaha at the end. Go on readers, I bet you can’t read AGs posts without thinking it now.
01
[Snip]
20
[Snip]
00
FACTS are an anathema to you geegee !!
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Please.
Do not mention enemas on this part of the thread.
Things are at a delicate turning point.
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… then don’t just sit there, go and take care of it! 🙂
10
Metaphorically speaking.
00
Impaction is easy fixed.
IPCCCCC experts recommend colonic irrigation.
First step is to apply for a water license from the MIA, then it’s up to you.
Then hopefully down.
I noticed earlier that an 18C infringement notice was given regarding name calling but that no notices were given to the target of that comment for blog clogging.
The two problems, blog clogging and impaction, do actually share a common theme of preventing normal function.
KK
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For GA at 19 above.
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I’m surprised that there was not a link to wind farms, or rooftop solar.
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No, we had to wait for you to do just that, eh!
Tony.
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I was thinking of the Donald
03
“I was thinking of the Donald”
Sweet dreams…..
Now do some research on the effects of infrasound on the human body.
Trump is not far from the truth.
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VIC pulsing is extremely dangerous to humans, but all that matters is that politicians are not affected.
They live far away.
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VLF pulsing.
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oops pfutz is WRONG AGAIN…
“
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Good stuff Andy. Got a reference for that quote?
20
This item was from Portugal and many years ago I found that the only countries mentioning this issue were those in the iron curtain.
Never mentioned in western research where there are lots of lawyers and laws against employers damaging the health of workers.
Heavy haulage by road and rail are prime examples of where VLF PULSING can damage health.
Prefer the term pulsing over “noise” because noise regulations have been used to obscure damage being done to residents near wind farms.
Wind farm pulsing is dangerous to humans.
KK
20
No reason to include wind and solar.. they are niche bit-players only.
(Even though they are more harmful to the planet than coal and CO2 will ever be.)
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More than 3,000 of the Capital Wind Farm capacity to match Liddell Power Station, sort of match.
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Would medical “misadventure” kill more than either hot or cold? I think so in developed countries at least. Earlier today I heard that 40,000 Americans die in car accidents each year. That’s not good. 🙁
Caused me to look at Aus stats, Our death toll today is 30% of 1970’s toll. I lived through those terrible years – acceptance of alcohol and dangerous cars were a heady mix.
20