By Dr John Happs
It was both surprising and alarming to learn that a group called “Doctors for the Environment, Australia” were actually calling for members of the public to contact their local Member of Parliament and deliver the message:
“To protect the health of the Australian people I call on you as my elected representative to ban all new coal, oil and gas projects.”
This silly appeal is also promoted by some members of the American Medical Association who foolishly claim:
“Extreme heat, powerful storms and floods, year-round wildfires, droughts, and other climate-related events are caused by “fossil fuel combustion, which is said to be the “primary driver of climate-change.”
The AMA argues that we should be:
“transitioning away from hydrocarbon fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas, and toward renewable energy and energy efficiency.”
Now one might think that medicine would be driven by objective scientific reasoning and that our medical schools would accept only the best and brightest of student applicants, yet the message these groups of medical practitioners want us to spread, exposes their absolute ignorance of the chemistry of hydrocarbon resources and our total dependence on them.
“Doctors for the Environment, Australia” appear to have no idea about how coal, gas and oil have lifted millions out of poverty and enabled us to achieve the high standard of living we have today, along with all the tools and medications that the medical industry relies upon. In fact, there is precious little in the medical world that isn’t dependent on the coal, oil and gas deposits that “Doctors for the Environment, Australia” want to ban.
Continue reading: https://papundits.wordpress.com/2024/10/18/dont-they-teach-any-chemistry-in-medical-schools/
Dear members of the Saltbush Club,
If you continue to push fossil fuels, you will end up wealthy, and dead by your own hand.
The temperature is rising exponentially, not linearly. This implies that the consequences of global warming are going to be felt much sooner than predicted. Positive feedback mechanisms always result in an exponential increase. It’s just the way that physics works.
Some of the feedback mechanisms involved are:-
1) Warmer air holds more water vapor than cold air. Water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas.
2) Shrinkage of the World’s ice masses decreases the albedo of the planet resulting in less heat being reflected back out into space.
3) As the arctic regions thaw, they release both CO2 and methane, both of which are greenhouse gasses.
Each of these processes is exacerbated by heat, hence the positive feedback (vicious circle).
By continuing to pump both CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, the doubling time of the temperature rise gets shorter. (The circle gets even more vicious.)
Rising average temperatures imply that extremes such as heat waves will become more widespread, last longer, and have higher maximum temperatures. As the European experience in recent years has shown, heat waves can be deadly. They are even more so as the maximum temperature reached exceeds that of the human body by a larger amount.
To make matters worse, at temperatures between 50-60C, many air-conditioners will simply give up the ghost, leaving you to die while regretting that you were so short sighted.
This is not the only problem. Animals and plants have no air-conditioners, so they will feel the full effects. That implies crop and livestock deaths on an unprecedented scale.
That in turn implies food shortages and starvation on a large scale, even in developed nations. The result is societal collapse. How well do you think you will be able to manage without
1) people to produce food for you?
2) No waste disposal?
3) No electricity because no spare parts are being made or shipped, and centralized power plants have broken down?
We live in an interconnected World, with a fragile society.
You have been warned.