Bishop Hill Oh Godlee
Oct 2, 2014 Climate: WG2 Climate: WG3 Fiona Godlee has an editorial in the British Medical Journal on the subject of climate change (£, but free trial is available). It begins with a defence of the journal's climate campaigner position and moves on to discuss some of the science. For example:
The IPCC reports that it is highly likely that global warming is causing climate change, characterised by more frequent and intense temperature extremes, heavier rainfall events, and other extreme weather events.
Which is odd, because the evidence for rainfall having become heavier is limited to say the least: the IPCC summary for policymakers says that there are likely (not highly likely) that there are more land areas with increases than decreases and expresses only medium confidence (more likely than not) that there is a human influence. Given the almost total failure of GCMs in the area of precipitation, even this is probably overstating the case. I'm sure I don't need to rehearse the case regarding, for example, hurricanes for the benefit of readers here.
We move on to a similarly interesting position on emissions scenarios, with Godlee claiming that RCP8.5 represents "business as usual". This is, not to put too fine a point on it, incorrect. As Matt Ridley pointed out a few months ago, RCP8.5 involves 12 billion people burning ten times as much coal as today. The idea that this represents a plausible future almost defies belief. And even if you accept the absurd assumptions of RCP8.5, factoring in the recent observational evidence on climate sensitivity gets you only a couple of degrees of warming by the end of the century, rather than the 4 degrees ("in some parts of the northern continents temperatures ...more than 10°C"!!) touted by Godlee.
And if her grasp of the science was not shaky enough, here are her conclusions:
WHO has shown important leadership on climate change but has stopped short of declaring a global public health emergency. This may be understandable with Ebola raging. But it is what WHO should now do. Deaths from Ebola infection, tragic and frightening though they are, will pale into insignificance when compared with the mayhem we can expect for our children and grandchildren if the world does nothing to check its carbon emissions. And action is needed now.
Everybody involved in the climate debate accepts that major features of the climate system are not captured by the climate models - recent claims that the unpredicted pause in surface temperature rise was caused by deep-ocean heat transport are a case in point. Yet Dr Godlee wants to declare a public health emergency based on the output of these same computer models, inevitably diverting resources away from pressing real problems. This is beyond absurd.
The question is, is it moral?
Reader Comments (62)
Any British climate scientist ready to raise to the challenge and correct the BMJ?
If only Fiona had penned it for the Daily Mail, we'd been bombarded of corrections by now!!!
"First do no harm" (by diverting resources away from where they're really needed).
(Not part of the Hipocratic oath as I've just found out).
18 years' no lower atmosphere warming is entirely consistent with 1.2 K no-feedback CO2 climate sensitivity offset by negative feedback to near zero. The 1980s and 1990s warming above ENSO is explicable by a different mechanism.
//
Competing interests: At the request of WHO I acted as moderator at its first conference on health and climate in Geneva, 27-29 August 2014.
//
Dear Ms Godlee
Thank you for declaring your competing interest.
Please can you tell us what independent research you have done to check and verify the views of climate science as presented by the IPCC and WHO prior to writing your editorial demanding immediate action?
Thank you
Why do you assume that a medical journal is better informed than anyone else? Doctors have no particular training in climate and therefore this should be treated as written by someone who exclusively reads the Guardian and watches the BBC news.
Can we now expect climate scientists to opine on medical conditions, and be taken seriously enough to influence healthcare provisions?
Would medical doctors accept their diagnoses?
I'm just dying to use this comment:
"18 years without warming".
The pause is now old enough to drink, drive, smoke, vote, have sex, become an MP and there's many who still deny she exists.
The BMJ climate science source here:
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The science of anthropogenic climate change: what every doctor should know
David McCoy and Brian Hoskins explain what we know about climate change and why we need to follow the precautionary principle
Climate change poses a serious threat to social wellbeing and human health. However, there is still considerable misunderstanding and misinformation about global warming and its relation to human activity and climate change. Doctors and health professionals, because of their professional mandate and scientific training, have a potentially important role in ensuring that climate change is properly understood by policy makers and the general public. In light of this, The BMJ asked David McCoy and Brian Hoskins to summarise the key points from a report published by scientific working group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the physical aspects of the climate system and climate change.
David McCoy, senior clinical lecturer1, Brian Hoskins, professor2
Author affiliations
1Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Queen Mary University London, London, UK
2Grantham Institute for Climate Change, Imperial College London, London, UK
BMJ 2014; 349 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g5178 (Published 09 September 2014)
Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g5178
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g5178?ijkey=6a10679f08bd56962e752b8e0be5c73d485cd7c0&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha
//
Let us give this writer the benefit of the doubt, and presume that she is not some eco-fanatic in deepish cover. In many ways this makes her position even more unsettling. It reveals a distressingly low level of knowledge, insight, and thought about climate variation in general, and the IPCC materials in particular. The distress is made worse by the coupling of this ignorance with emotive off-the-shelf alarmism about mayhem for our grandchildren.
If Ebola "pales into insignificance when compared with the mayhem we can expect for our children and grandchildren if the world does nothing to check its carbon emissions."
Then, by her logic, we should be doing nothing to combat it.
The £125 million pledged by the UK would be much better spent on the likes of Fiona Godlee going to Liberia and "raising the conciousness of the people about the dangers of climate change".
At the bottom of the BMJ article is the footer:
A rather poignant demonstration that "peer review" very often means little more than editing poor grammer. If the "peer reviewers" had checked the references they should have picked up on the points concerning mis-quoting of the IPCC that BH notes.
Godlee is either stupid or lying.
Based on the fact she favourably references Christiana Figueres, Desmond Tutu (a YouTube video no less!!), Suzanne Goldenberg in The Grauniad and, The Lancet (Iraq blood libel anyone?) I suspect the former rather than the latter.
Shocking that our public life is now so intellectually enfeebled that someone as ill-informed as this can be Editor-in-Chief of the BMJ. And, what is even worse, they can be proud to display such ignorance and ill-timing – climbing on to bandwagon just as it is rolling towards a cliff.
Well done!
This is a good example of how a little knowledge can be dangerous.
Is it moral?
According to the book "The ill years", in the 1690s, something like a quarter of the Scottish population died in a period which was colder (there was snow all year on the Cairngorms) and there's evidence from Nordic countries of it being much wetter.
If population estimates are correct, that is around 250,000 people, making it the single biggest disaster in all Scottish history.
Now these are simple facts - cold is a real killer and even today there are around 23,000 extra deaths in the winter months in the UK each year. In contrast, only once has there been sufficient deaths in the summer to detect statistically and the number was 2300 (2003) in the UK (not Scotland).
Fuel poverty is known to be a major contributor to winter deaths. So, in a country like Scotland, where we have a history of major disasters from cold, where cold is still a major killer and where there's been a huge problem of fuel poverty due to the higher heating costs here....
how can it possibly be moral to increase fuel bills to fund ineffective schemes to reduce global warming at a time that there's been no global warming for 18 years?
The simple answer is that there is no one bit of morality behind this scam. It is purely and simply a money grabbing exercise by all concerned.
The majority of the medical profession are conditioned to respond to received wisdom because their training largely consists of doing what experts tell them to do because that way they can practice medicine safely. Some medics do research, but most don't, and therefore do not have the training or capability in this field that the honorary/purloined title of 'doctor' is clearly intended to convey. In this respect they have no more capability of making an expert judgement on climate change and its impacts than *any* other profession.
I wonder if Fiona Godlee should have declared her involvement with ECIU as a competing interest.
http://eciu.net/about/advisory-board
Bish - You need a fair sized charabanc for that lot! Looks like safe hands at the wheel though... full speed ahead!!
"Global warming may have slowed – but climate change has not, warns Richard Black."
Read more at http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Tackle-climate-change-issue-hot-handle/story-22892548-detail/story.html#zXBIHY1w6QHiTQKA.99
Richard Black is director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (eciu.net) and a former BBC Science and Environment Correspondent
Read more at http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Tackle-climate-change-issue-hot-handle/story-22892548-detail/story.html#KA6cgqYddYBQYpmT.99
So that's where Richard Black went! As well as getting money from the European Climate Foundation and the Grantham Climate team, I see they also get money from Tellus Mater who proudly announce they are
Is it possible Godlee received an order, rather than a commission, for this naked propaganda?
These big hedge fund guys are buying up the world and doing a poor job of running it.
@ thinking scientist 9:53 AM
"A rather poignant demonstration that "peer review" very often means little more than editing poor grammer. ...."
Oh dear.
Joe Public
I assumed it was sarcastic!
From the DM:
Someone should tell her that (so-called) 'GHG emissions' may have been rising but that there has been no increase in AGW for 18 years.With a logical mind like hers I'd hate to have her as my GP - she'd probably recommend a leg amputation for an in-growing toe-nail. Or, to put in her own context, I should have my leg amputated now in case my grand children suffer an in-growing toe-nail.
So here is another establishment organisation that has gone way beyond its remit to try and further the "project" of CAGW alarmism. Most thinking people who read the BMJ will find this most bizarre. As others have noted her call to "action" will condemn many to live in fuel poverty.
@ MikeHaseler 9:59 AM
" .....- cold is a real killer and even today there are around 23,000 extra deaths in the winter months in the UK each year........
Fuel poverty is known to be a major contributor to winter deaths. So, in a country like Scotland ....."
Major disasters are rare, irregular events.
Most policy is determined by residents of the relatively warm London/South-east area.
Few there realise the true impact of the annual difference between 'Scottish' weather, and, home-counties weather.
Degree Days account for the effect of weather on energy consumption, and therefore cost; and the data is available for all the regions of the UK.
For example - for 2012, Aberdeen had 2,753 Heating Degree Days (15.5 deg C); Westminster had 1,801.
That means Aberdeen residents had to spend ~50% more than London residents, on space heating.
Explanation of Degree Days here: http://www.carbontrust.com/resources/guides/energy-efficiency/degree-days
Actual Degree Day data for your area here: http://194.217.244.58/SEO/CompoundReport.aspx
Godlee arrives late but arrives screaming. Funny thing.
Oct 2, 2014 at 9:18 AM | omnologos
+1
Fully understand your point.
Godlee states, 'The IPCC reports that it is highly likely that global warming is causing climate change...'. At least she has cleared up the question of what this made-up phenomenon is called. The cause is global warming, the effect is climate change. Glad that one is settled.
Now hush everybody, let climate science speak. We’ve been told recently that climate science has been remiss in not conveying the uncertainties to the wider world but now they know that there is a problem, they’ll be eager to correct false impressions in other fields. Just hush a moment… any second now… wait for it…
Hmmm, it’s almost as if the claims of uncertainty and better communication are just ass covering.
I do hope that her irresponsible editorial is challenged in detail and that she then does the decent thing and resigns.
Everyone knows that alarmist blogs collect every item of scaremongering speculation including the output of falsified climate models and then regurgitate it together with a call to arms.
One does not expect such propaganda in the BMJ editorial.
Energy and Climate INTELLIGENCE Unit - the definition of an oxymoron.
The advisory board is a veritable rouge's gallery with many names and faces familiar to regular readers here.
Wiki. reveals Dr Godlee's long time involvement in environmental issues.
The abandonment of A level physics as a requirement for medical school entry was very sad. It is very challenging to teach medical students and junior doctors respiratory and cardiovascular physiology without them having a basic knowledge of 'gas laws' , partial pressures and even the composition of the atmosphere. There are several young medics in my family (35 - 40 yrs.) all very bright but I am amazed at the holes in their knowledge base which would have been general knowledge some years ago. I graduated in 1971 so I'm not so old.
TinyCO2: "Hmmm, it’s almost as if the claims of uncertainty and better communication are just ass covering."
What they mean by "better communication" is really a call for "people to stop looking at the facts like 18 years of no warming and start listening to their political rhetoric about 'saving the planet'".
Or to be quite cynical - they want to know how to stop other people communicating information and facts which contradict them and how to force the public back to the old system when they controlled the media: where we had no choice but to listen to them (on one of the few TV channels controlled by their bum chums in the BBC).
Rogues' gallery - but they should have red faces. Silly me :-)
"... global warming is causing climate change ..."
And there I was, thinking Climate Change is causing Global Warming!
Nial
The Hippocratic oath hasn't been formally taken by doctors for years. I'm not sure why, but it's interesting to speculate!
SNTF:
It might also be impossible to practice if you doubted much of what you had been taught or read to "keep up with it."
It would be interesting to read the thoughts of a medical doctor on whether there is anything to this.
Hiatus is the 18 year old bastard child of climate science ... with many potential fathers.
Derek on Oct 2, 2014 at 11:32 AM
"So here is another establishment organisation that has gone way beyond its remit ...."
It's all for a common purpose.
This is not correct.
If you don't like doctors, you are entitled. But that is a different thing.
Doctors are practitioners, empiricists and natural sceptics. The first couple of sentences of the BMJ editorial makes this evident. Most of medical research has become a factory assembly-line with mouse models on the conveyor belt, a lot of method but little science. Do we strip the PhDs who labour in their labs of their titles? Being a doctor means to ignore seductive theories, keep an eye on the patient and keep trying things. There are lots of physicians who try to both 'work in the lab and the clinic'. I consistently hear stories on how they are not good, and I have reason to believe them. I've seen researchers talk about clinical matters. It quickly becomes evident why so much research is conducted and so little useful comes of it.
Health-related climate claims relate mainly to public health, which is within the expertise of practicing physicians to evaluate.
The Daily Mail covers the story in characteristic style.
Fury as top medical journal joins the green bandwagon: Think-tank slams BMJ's 'alarmist' global warming claims
... In a bizarre move, the journal has set aside 11 pages of this week’s issue to warn doctors of the dire consequences of global warming – without any obvious relevance to medicine.
jfergson
I essentially agree with SNTF and the threat of medico-legal action or even criminal prosecution keeps everyone on the straight and narrow, probably overall for the better.
Much published medical research can be heavily criticised on many grounds, design, numbers etc and abstracts which is what most people read often exaggerate the findings.
Retired consultant anaesthetist/ ICU graduated 1971
I wonder if Fiona is still prescribing bleeding, electroconvulsive therapy, trepanning, mercury, bismuth, and/or antimony compounds? (For the masses, of course)
It had happened almost before the man himself had passed on.....
Doctor - 'I've come to take your temperature'
Patient -'That's no thermometer'
Doctor - 'Correct. We dont use thermometers any more. This is a computer. with a model in it'
Trainee doctors 'wooooooooo oo'
Patient - 'You will never get that under my tongue'
Doctor -'who said anything about your tongue?'
The medical profession :Hubris on a stick
'The moment she saw the badly typed, poorly worded paper, Angela Woodruff knew it was a fake. It left 386,000 pounds to Dr. Shipman.
"My mother was a meticulously tidy person," she later told the Shipman trial, 'the thought of her signing a document which is so badly typed didn't make any sense. The signature looked strange, it looked too big. The concept of Mum signing a document leaving everything to her doctor was unbelievable.'
Shipman thought he was the smartest criminal on earth because he had survived police and GMC investigations. In fact he was almost certainly the dumbest and definitely the most arrogant.
The publication this bit of drivel is published in looks to be one of the booming crop of faux science journals that promote climate hype.
It is worth to be reprinted in the National Post: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/30/is-it-volcano-season-from-japan-to-iceland-scientists-probe-the-reasons-why-there-are-so-many-eruptions-lately/
Repost of a comment I made about Godlee in 2012:-
It is appalling that these once respected journals are now apparently in the hands of anti scientific, namecalling ideologues.
Jan 28, 2012 at 12:53 PM johanna
Both the Lancet and the BMJ have been in the hands of left wing activists for some time.
Lancet editor Richard Horton was prominent in the "Stop the War" movement - here's the Socialist Worker's video of him ranting about "anglo-american imperialism" alongside George Galloway at a rally in 2006.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9788
Fiona Godlee of the BMJ also makes no secret of her politics. As well as presiding over climate change conferences:-
http://climatechange.bmj.com/
she runs her own green activist group from the BMJ offices:-
http://www.climateandhealth.org/the_council.html
She also makes no secret of her political leanings in her tweets - where she confesses to being aroused by "Gordon Brown's animal magnetism.
She has been on BBC news all morning today - trying to sabotage the coalition NHS reforms.
Basically these people are trade unionists.
Jan 31, 2012 at 9:47 AM | Unregistered CommenterFoxgoose
"The Hippocratic oath hasn't been formally taken by doctors for years. I'm not sure why, but it's interesting to speculate!" --jamesp
My father said his class never took any Hippocratic "Oath." He graduated as an MD in about 1924. I'm not sure doctors ever really took such an oath.
I qualified in medicine in 1974. There was never any Hippocratic oath to take at that time but we had the option to sign some declaration of Geneva or some such. The intentions and aims were very similar.
I find the timing of the BMJ piece odd. Interestingly, yesterday I mentioned to a public health consultant friend (they tend to be a bit left) that there had been no warming for 18 years. He was initially dismissive then shocked. He totally dismissed the notion that CO2 and temperature could have a logarithmic relationship. (I am not too sure how well established that is.)
Retired consultant in respiratory medicine + A level physics!!
I agree with Foxgoose. Godlee and the BMJ's approach brings disrepute to medicine.