Did Catherine duck?
Mar 24, 2015
Bishop Hill in Climate: WG2

Today's New Scientist article by Catherine Brahic on the subject of climate change and healthcare is a bit odd. Under a headline about "the rising threat of climate change", Brahic begins by describing the single-degree rise in temperatures since the 1960s....

Average UK temperatures have been rising by about 0.25 °C a decade since the 1960s

...although skipping over the fall in the average since the end of the last century. She then elides straight into the obligatory, uncaveated scaremongering about what GCMs say is going to happen in the future before moving swiftly on to "death rates go up in heatwaves" and the obligatory failure to mention what happens to cold-related deaths.

And that's just the first paragraph.

Strangely though, the rest of the article is not about climate change at all, focusing on issues like pollution and the need to give early warnings of high pollen levels. It's almost as if the headline came from a different article.

It's a bit odd really. It's almost as if someone told her "you need to write about climate-related healthcare scares" but she realised that there were few that actually held water.

Did she just duck the assignment?

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