The BMJ, once a preeminent journal of medicine, which is to say, doctors talking to other doctors about which cure works for which disease, and which doesn’t, has taken up an entire issue on a subject on which every one of its writers, and every one of its readers, are ignorant.
The picture is from the site’s homepage from a couple of days ago, and may have changed by the time you read this.
The BMJ is a journal for Experts in the managerial class, and whatever any large groups of Experts are discussing, such as “climate change”, ensures that all Experts, regardless of their discipline, will also discuss.
The analogy—and it is an exact one—is how propagandists in the media tell people what to think about the “news”. Once one of the propagandists begins talking about a subject, they all do, and use nearly identical language. The current events in the Levant is reminder enough.
The audiences of the propagandists, which is to say the great mass of people, also discuss, usually with as much earnestness, whatever they are told to discuss. The people also dutifully pick up signals from Experts. The analogy is exact because propagandists are themselves the communications Experts of the managerial class.
The flow is one direction. Experts do not take direction, or correction, from the masses. That the masses hold any non-approved opinion on any subject in which Experts take an interest—which is increasingly all of them—is proof enough, to Experts, that the people are wrong. Because the people disagree. Yes, the tired old Appeal to Experts fallacy.
The managerial class is insular. They go to to same schools, have the same “degrees”, they marry each other, they hire each other, they sup at the same restaurants, they live in the same places. And because Diversity is always a weakness, those who are different are seen as the enemy. We, you and I, dear reader, are the enemy. The increasing intolerance of Experts (of us) is nothing more than the old friend-enemy distinction with a New York Times byline. Which also explains why “conservatives” who mingle with Experts become Experts themselves.
So. What specifically does have “climate change” have to do with medicine? Nothing. At all. A few tenths of a degree warming in some artificial global average over a few decades is not going to cause any change in health in anybody. So you’d guess this special issue would be a thin one indeed.
The one thing about Experts that we must never forget, for it perfectly describes our predicament in this managerial regime, is that Experts can always find reasons to apply their expertise. Even in situations entirely foreign to them.
Like doctors and “climate change”.
Proof? This title of this paper in the special issue: “The climate emergency could be the ultimate health opportunity, says WHO’s Maria Neira”.
“Climate change is one of the biggest public health areas. I don’t see any aspect where climate change will not have an undermining capacity,” [Maria Neira, MPH] says. “I know that this sounds a little bit provocative, but climate change could be the ultimate opportunity for public health.”
See what I mean? Neira, an Expert with a Masters of Public Health, cannot envision any area which will not require her services. Amazing.
Another: “Climate emergency: Treat Earth as an ancestor, not a commodity”. There is no “climate emergency.” This paper doesn’t even have a medicine tie-in. It’s entirely religious. And this paper is the “Editor’s Choice”. Which may be because its author is Editor-in-Chief Kamran Abbasi.
Does the Earth belong to animals or plants, land or sea? Arrogantly, humanity has presumed the Earth to be its own. A particular world view has bent the Earth to our whims, imposing an imagined superiority over environments and other species—and other, less privileged, humans.
To “fix” this, he would impose his will on all of humanity.
To pick another, wily nilly: “How climate change is affecting child development”. It isn’t and couldn’t. Yet:
Rahul Rao, a student from Hyderabad, India, has had severe allergies and eczema since he was born.
No other demons being available, author Kavitha Yarlagadda blamed “climate change” for the allergies. Because he, she, or it, has discovered India can be hot and muggy.
One more? Why not: “To tackle the climate crisis, we need to transform systems according to ancestral original instructions”.
My ancestors would beat idiots making claims like this in the public square to discourage this kind of idiot exuberance in others. So the idea is a sound one.
This author, Rhys Jones, opens his paper by calling New Zealand “Aotearoa”. “[C]ontemporary M?ori language”, you see. At which point I stopped reading.
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"A few tenths of a degree warming in some artificial global average over a few decades is not going to cause any change in health in anybody"
I really just can't believe the world we are in. This simple statement is obviously true. How can it be contested? The temperature from year to year varies more than this. If next year is a degree warmer than it was this year on average, are they saying I'll be stepping over corpses in the street on the way to work? Are they? What are they saying? It's not even wrong, it's just incoherent.
And actually, for anyone who knows anything about measurement and statistics or whatever, we don't even need to get to here - the word "artificial" has already stopped the game. The noise and error bars on any metric that is intended to represent global temperature is clearly and obviously larger than this few tenths of a degree.
This weekend was unusually warm in the UK, and I said it was unusual to get these temperatures and we were lucky, as we were outside - and the guy I was talking to said "something was wrong", immediately assuming I was referring to "climate change". The fact we'd had the worst July and August in living memory is, apparently, not relevant. People are in a trance. The apocalypse really is so different to what I always imagined it would be.
Ancestral original instructions: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.