How Did It Come to This?

Medical "Researchers" Plumb New Lows

There is a scene in the movie trilogy, Lord of the Rings where Theoden, the venerable king of Rohan has taken refuge in Helm's Deep with the remnants of his army, awaiting the onslaught of the forces of Isengard. As he and his people face annihilation, he wonders out loud, "How did it come to this?"

It seems that the longer the liberal-academic-media complex holds society in its thrall, the more ignorant and foolish academics become. How did it come to this?

Recently The Lancet carried a piece on Global Warming. Now The Lancet used to be a pretty prestigious medical journal, often at the forefront of medical research. This particular article was based on a report by medical researchers from the University College of London. These Wormtongues (to continue with Tolkien motifs) for the liberal-academic-media complex were at pains to tell us that global warming constitutes the biggest threat to human health in this century. They want their august voices to be added to the siren calls to reduce carbon emissions.

A major new report from doctors at University College, London, and medical journal The Lancet claims that climate change “is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” Their solution means permanent recession, more famine and more disease.

Killer heatwaves, insect-borne “tropical” diseases, flooding and hurricanes will affect billions over the next 100 years as global temperatures soar, they say. With this report published last Thursday, doctors are adding their powerful voice to calls for deep cuts in carbon emissions to stabilize global temperatures.

The "scientists" are predicting a widespread outbreak of malaria as a result of rising temperatures.

Yes. Hot climates kill people, as do cold climates. But how has it come to pass that academics such as these are so ignorant of the history of their own profession? How has so much knowledge been lost or forgotten? How can they be so stupid? We find ourselves shaking our heads along with Theoden.

Paul Reiter, an expert on insect-borne diseases and contributor to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said “there is no evidence that climate has played any role” in malaria. Reiter points out that malaria was endemic in Britain until the second half of the 19th century, when improved agricultural practices, drainage and housing caused a spontaneous decline of the disease because mosquitoes had fewer opportunities to bite people . . .

Malaria used to be a problem in Britain. Economic development, access to more capital, better houses, and better farming practices got rid of it as a problem. Threatening us all with plagues because temperatures are supposed to rise is nothing more than alarmist poppycock. Yet these people are serious--and they are taken seriously by the liberal-academic-media complex. They are little more than snake oil hucksters standing on a bully pulpit.

The report also claims global warming will lead to more deaths from heatwaves as the sick and elderly struggle with high temperatures. But Bill Keatinge, an expert on human physiology at London University, has shown that deaths do increase in the first few days of a heatwave but most of the victims were likely to die shortly anyway. The data show that average mortality actually decreases during the later stages of heatwaves.

Moreover, humans have developed a range of ways of coping with high temperatures, from adaptation to siestas to air conditioning. Ask the Tuareg nomads of North Africa.

In fact, cold weather is far more harmful because of the increased risk of respiratory infections, heart attacks and strokes. Britain, for example, with a temperate climate, has only 1,000 heat-related deaths every year, compared with 20,000 cold-related.

Whaaat! Global warming is likely to result in better health. How embarrassing.

But when we get to the real vectors of killing diseases, the intellectual larceny of the doctors becomes more manifest. They studiously ignore the link between economic growth and better health outcomes. Apparently, that's just filthy lucre, beneath the dignity of higher mortals like the good doctors to consider. They also ignore the link between restricting carbon emissions and the permanent global recession that would result. You can almost see the twitching nostrils as they turn away from the malodour of such an inconvenient truth.

But truth it be.

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions, however, would be very bad for human health.

According to calculations by Lombard Street Research in the UK, any global treaty that would stabilize the climate at today’s temperatures would cost a total of ￡8 trillion (US$12.4 trillion) — 45 percent of the world’s current annual economic output, causing permanent economic depression.

Economic growth is an absolute pre-requisite for improved health. One study has shown that if economic growth in the developing world had been a mere 1.5 percent higher in the 1980s, at least 500,000 child deaths could have been prevented.

This is because much of the disease burden in developing countries is a direct result of poverty. Diarrhea, chest infections from burning wood and dung indoors, water-borne infections and malnutrition are the biggest killers of children, killing millions regardless of any changes in the climate.

How could so-called educated people, trained to think within the scientific method, have become so ignorant of the causes of disease and the link with poverty? Ah, but writing about such realities probably will not get you published in Lancet. Not getting published is career limiting, after all. One has to give the liberal-academic-media complex what it wants if one is to get another notch on the CV.

Britain eliminated malaria as a side-effect of increasing prosperity: glass windows, separate barns for cattle and better land management, depriving the mosquito of feeding and breeding opportunities. It is no coincidence that malaria is currently confined to the poorest parts of the world, because they are the least able to afford such improvements.

The doctors’ call for cutting carbon emissions would be a betrayal of the sick in the world’s poorest regions, because it would undermine the one mechanism — economic growth — that allows people to move beyond the primitive living conditions that encourage disease.

Prosperity also removes the doctors’ apocalyptic vision of social turmoil and mass migration as millions flee flood or drought: growth allows adaptation and protection. If doctors are concerned about the effect of climate on health, they should not advocate hobbling the global economy and preventing the poor from getting richer.

The astonishment remains. How could such educated and trained professional scientists be so wilfully dumb? All they have done is defamed a noble and vitally important profession. They, and Lancet, have demonstrated that the medical profession is rapidly devolving back to a form of blood-letting as the universal cure for human distempers.

How could it have come to this? There are no doubt many reasons and causes. But one thing we are very sure of: such wilful ignorance is evidence of a Divine curse. Athens is being given up to live under the curse of its own lies.