Bishop Hill Physician, heal thyself
Apr 6, 2011 Climate: other Greens Sometimes you have to wonder about the shamelessness of people at the top of the civil service:
Doctors must take a leading role in highlighting the dangers of climate change, which will lead to conflict, disease and ill-health, and threatens global security, according to a stark warning from an unusual alliance of physicians and military leaders.
Writing in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday, a group of military and medical experts, including two rear admirals and two professors of health, sent out an urgent message to governments around the world. "Climate change poses an immediate and grave threat, driving ill-health and increasing the risk of conflict, such that each feeds upon the other," said the authors...
The authors are as follows:
- Lionel Jarvis is surgeon rear admiral at the UK's Ministry of Defence, has two homes and four children and enjoys skiing, riding and sailing.
- Hugh Montgomery, is a professor of human health at UCL, has written a book about climate change for chilidren and, erm, climbs in the Alps, Himalayas, and Andes and holds a Cat X skydiving qualification.
- Neil Morisetti, is a rear admiral and is the "climate and security envoy for the UK" as well as being a graduate of UEA. He seems to divide his time between London and his farm in Dorset.
- Ian Gilmore is professor at the Royal Liverpool hospital.
Reader Comments (57)
If there is an eternal quest for the ideal niche of experthood, that has least testability, and gets the most kudos and power. Then we can stop now, we've found it. The modern AGW environmentalism movement has succesfully created it ;)
Perhaps they should listen to what Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, has to say about the climate change scam, and the agenda of the diverse groups who are pushing it.
Physicians, heal thyselves.
(more idiots on the gravy train).
Next time that I feel under the weather, pun intended, I think upon visiting the doctor I will request a second opinion from the UKMO just to make the point clear to my GP of how I would view his opinion upon climate change.
A huge surprise having the neo prohibitionist shill Dr Gilmore misunderstanding the role of medical doctors in society yet again.
Rum, Bum and Wacky Backy
Sir Ian Gilmore list his recreations as golf and travel.
Perhaps he would be interested in these;
http://www.ecogolf.com/activek/content.asp?s=&catid=6
http://www.ecotourdirectory.com/
Sick Note to employer.
Mr Smith is currently unfit for work as he is suffering from a severe bout of CGW.
I'm kind of struggling to see how your average GP will bring up the subject of "climate change" during a 15 minute consultation concerning athletes foot/depression/earache/strange rashes.
Dr Gilmore is well known as an anti alcohol zealot and the promoter of the shameless safe level of alcohol statistics that were eventiually admitted to have been made up on no scientific basis whatsoever. Sounds just the person to be promoting AGW
This sort of bluster seems very out of date now.
I wonder why there is no comments section on this article !!!!
Navy boys. Always warming each other's globes.
Gilmore is our own Paul Erlich, his rants about alcohol are legendary and his "safe" levels are also legendry, in the Sir Arthur Mallory sense. He's just another one of those people who believe they have the right to make the populace at large behave in the way they see fit. Although, from a friend of mine, he was no stranger to copious amounts of alcohol himself in his youth.
Yes, the "immediate and grave" threat that comes from average temperatures increasing by 0.01 degrees a year (assuming the IPCC are right). I expect the A&E departments of our hospitals are on full standby right now, with extra staff and beds at the ready, just waiting for the hordes of global warming victims to come pouring in any second now.
Whoever dreamed up this idiotic idea should hear my GP's derisive snort when global warming or any form of climate science is mentioned. The pharmacist I regularly visit is even more scornful of CAGW - they both remember the global cooling fiasco of the '70s, too, promoted by the same tiny group of Post-Modern alarmists.
Come in Doug, take a seat, how can I help?
Well Doctor, I've this constant feeling that CAGW is the biggest scam in the history of the world.
You're delusional dear boy - probably brought on by global warming - go out and buy a Toyota Prius!
Yet a lot of the doctors I've come across drive carbon belching big cars (even up to V8's) and live in huge houses....
Some of them even have swimming pools....
Not the best role models surely?
Please sir, please don’t cut the military budget we’ll need all the personnel we can muster keeping the scavenging migrating hordes in check. Oh please sir please.
And most of them get away with impersonating people with doctorates, i.e. trained scientists.
Their immodesty pollutes debate to the point where doctorate holders are perceived by the public as the charlatans - typically 'oh, it's just an academic title, so you're not a *Proper Doctor*'.
The Germans have the right idea. Medic = Arzt, person with Phd = Doktor - no confusion/grade inflation there. Put them back in their (albeit ludicrously overpaid) box.
@SayNoToFearmongers - that's what my Dad said to me when I qualified in medicine "well you're not a proper doctor as you haven't got a PhD" Still I have enough scientific knowledge to spot a pseudo scientific scam when I see one - such as man made global warming. Quite what this has to do with the medical profession is beyond me. Do remember however that the BMJ is the house journal for the doctor's trade union the BMA and is generally pretty left wing in outlook over everything
Apparently in this post-modern era we not only have polymaths, but also polydocs and polytars.
It puts that recent jibe at Delingpole about expertise, by Sir Paul Nurse, into perspective: he probably really does believe he is all-knowing.
SNTF - I have no problem with MBBSs being referred to as Dr. It's a courtesy title and a long standing and recognised tradition. However in Oz there is increasing doctor creep. It's as if every bloke and his dog grant themselves the pre-nominal "Dr" irrespective of academic qualifications. Dentists, vets, naturopaths, chiropracters to name few.
I was sent to a chiropracter recently with a frozen shoulder. Painted on her window was Dr Patricia X BChP followed by an expansive series of letters which presumaly had something to do with professional associations. When my turn came her assistant announced, "Dr X will see you now Mr B". I shuffled in wondering why I bothered studying theoretical physics for all those years.
GrantB PhD
This is raw propaganda. Shameful stuff.
Speaking as a medical Doctor some of these names are very familiar. And the comments above are accurate.
GrantB
Theoretical physics is for thickie Mc Thickies...
What is disturbing about the endless bleating call for 'action on climate change' is that nothing proposed is going to make any difference.
Speaking first for the UK, renewables and energy rationing and all the rest of it will fractionally reduce the UK's ~2% contribution to annual CO2 emissions. This will make exactly no difference to global levels, which will continue to rise rapidly as China, and then India and other BRIC nations industrialise.
Even concerted action by Europe and the US (which seems vanishingly improbable) will not be sufficient to reduce global emissions far or fast enough to avoid some degree of climate change (we assume the IPCC to be about right for the sake of general argument like this).
So, what point is there in co-opting the nation's GPs to nag at us about climate change? What are they supposed to say, to whom and under what circumstances?
And what possible effect will it have on 'tackling climate change'?
"I'm sorry Mr X but your child is dead. Still, look on the bright side: that's one less carbon emitter buggering up the biosphere."
I also know a couple of medics, and I shall be inquiring what they make of all this. Not much, I suspect.
I'm guessing that the response will be along the lines of "FFS I'm a GP. WTF am I supposed to say to to people? It's bad enough trying to explain why antibiotics won't cure a cold.I'm not doing it unless I get paid more."
This is way beyond crazy now. The disease has crossed continents:
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/04/04/edsa0404.htm
More green snouts in the trough.
GrantB:
"I was sent to a chiropracter recently with a frozen shoulder."
If your chiropracter has a frozen shoulder maybe she should go and see a chiropracter? ;-)
I love the smell of hypocrisy first thing in the morning!!
Mailman
Dr Gilmore is well known as an anti alcohol zealot
And as an antismoking zealot as well, naturally.
Matthu your remark about crossing continents reminds me of the BBC programme of that name, which the continuity announcers always seem to elide into "Cross Incontinence" which about sums up the activities of these ignorant and opinionated stooges.
What does a 'surgeon rear admiral' operate on?
Skydiving must be the most wanton carbon emitting activity of all.
Take off....climb to 10,000 ft.........jump out......land.......take off again.......repeat indefinitely.
I thought my powerboat was bad - but at least I end up somewhere different from where I started out
Not the first time the BMJ has editorialised about CAGW.
Primum non nocere (first do no harm) - refer to Matt Ridely post above.
The energy policies introduced to prevent a non- problem will surely account for more morbidity and mortality in 3rd world, and for that matter 1st world, countries.
Sadly,many of my medical friends and colleagues refuse to engage with the daft energy strategies being followed by so many governments.
Dropping 'physics' as an A level requirement to study medicine was a major error, IMHO.
...assistant announced, "Dr X will see you now Mr B". I shuffled in wondering why I bothered studying theoretical physics for all those years.
GrantB PhD
Come on Grant - everyone knows you're not a real doctor.
Martin A, PhD
This deserves investigation by another medical speciality, psychiatry, in case these doctors actually want this to be true: "Climate change poses an immediate and grave threat, driving ill-health and increasing the risk of conflict, such that each feeds upon the other," in order, perhaps, to develop an heroic self-image for themselves. It achieves the reverse for me, since my opinion of them is inevitably going to be diminished by such fatuous prose. But, as the Great Bard of Avon once wrote:
'Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?'
It would indeed be nice to help these anxious doctors.
But where to begin?
With real climate data perhaps?
‘climate change’ here presumed as being not in the scientific sense ‘as a banal and sometimes troublesome fact of nature since the planet began’, but rather in the political one ‘as an imminent and major danger due to, and controllable by, humans’
Prof Sir Ian Gilmore was the last President of The Royal College of Physicians, a post which usually brings with it a knighthhood. His area of expertise is liver disease. Why do these Presidents of learned Societies feel they have to spout forth about 'climate change' when really it's not their subject at all?
Grant B above,
You omitted psychopaths from your list. (as in Climate Scientist psychopaths).
"Grant B above,
You omitted psychopaths from your list. (as in Climate Scientist psychopaths)."
Apr 6, 2011 at 7:18 PM | RETEPHSLAW
That is such an extreme comment, and interesting that you abuse groups of people by questioning their mental health.
Taken in conjunction with many of your other comments, I have concerns for your own mental wellbeing.
If this is not something you've yet looked into, I suggest you talk to a doctor, or if you're not ready, perhaps a family member who will be honest with you. They've probably being trying to broach it for a long time, but don't know how to.
This is wonderful news! A clear and unarguable post from Andrew Montford displaying his willingness to make ad hominem attacks on people if he doesn't like what they say.
Not only that, but a wonderful list of people who have commented here and manifestly failed to point out how remiss he has been. I'll certainly be coming back to this page again and again in the future, when any of the commentors above squark 'ad hominem' when I point out how bats flawed people like Pilmer and Spencer actually are.
Really, really pleased to have seen this post and the comments - a great triumph for my little campaign to get some of you to realise how hypocritical most of you actually are.
Zed, you need to bone up on what an ad hominem argument is. The question at issue is whether the authors are hypocrites.
ZBD -
I wish I could write with such mathematical precision. Are you a Climate Scientist?
This was in the news way back in 2009, and it's just resurfaced again:
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2009/11/barking-madness-in-uk-gps-should-offer-climate-change-advice/
[Snip - venting]
The quality of AGW propaganda is really declining.
ZDB could have written better propaganda than this 'medical study'.
Then again, perhaps not.
ZBD
"a great triumph for my little campaign bla bla bla....."
You are one sad twat.
matthu - you wrote in part on Apr 6, 2011 at 1:39 PM |
"Patients are sicker or developing new conditions as a result of changes in the weather".
That rings bells with me.
Back in the 1940's when I was quite young and spritely, I was hardly ever sick.
In those days the level of CO2 in the air was quite low.
Now the CO2 level is much higher.
It's all comes from the evil industrial factories and electric generators.
And I'm an old man and in indifferent health.
It must be all due to CO2!
QED as we used to say in maths classes.
Climate science is so much easier than the other types of science.
For every problem, either real or imagined that might or might not happen in the future,
There's the same answer:
It must be due to CO2.
Enought said.