Friday, May 29, 2020


Media Champions Fake ‘Climate’ Death Certificates

Five college employees in Australia published a letter in the medical journal Lancet demanding medical doctors list climate factors like heat more often as a person’s cause of death. The authors observed that death certificates don’t reflect as many climate-caused deaths as their models and predictions suggested, so medical doctors should begin listing heat and other climate factors on the death certificates of people who died from other reasons. And Lancet published the letter. And the media are promoting the effort.

“Climate change is a concern to many people. But if the effect of extreme temperatures is not recorded, its full impact can never be understood. Death certification needs to be modernised, indirect causes should be reported, with all death certification prompting for external factors contributing to death, and these death data must be coupled with large-scale environmental datasets so that impact assessments can be done,” the authors argue.

A story in Science Alert uncritically discusses the Lancet editorial, while misrepresenting scientific evidence. “People around the world are already dying from the climate crisis, and yet all too often, official death records do not reflect the impact of these large-scale environmental catastrophes,” the Science Alert article claims.

Death certificates in Australia and elsewhere do actually have a section for pre-existing conditions and other factors. Doctors, however, rarely find evidence of external weather or climate conditions causing or contributing to a person’s death.

Data from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as scientific bodies in Australia, the United States, and elsewhere, indicate extreme events including droughts, floods, hurricanes, and wildfires have neither become more common nor more severe during the recent period of modestly warming temperatures.

Also, the actual research that has been done on climate and premature mortality indicates it is cold, not heat, that causes more death. Indeed, a study published in the Lancet in 2015, researchers examined health data from 384 locations in 13 countries, accounting for more than 74 million deaths—a huge sample size from which to draw sound conclusions—and found cold weather, directly or indirectly, killed 1,700 percent more people than hot weather. No, that is not a typo – 1,700 percent more people die from cold temperatures than warm or hot temperatures.

Well heck, if people aren’t dying as often from climate change as you say they are, then just change the death certificates.

SOURCE




Media Warns of Cassava Crisis as Production Keeps Setting Records

At the top of Google News searches this morning for “climate change” is an article suggesting climate change imperils cassava crops in Africa and tropical regions by boosting diseases and pests that threaten cassava. Buried in the article, “Impact of Climate Change on Pests and Diseases of Cassava Crop,” is a lack of any evidence of worsening diseases and pests. To the contrary, objective data show rapidly rising cassava production as the world warms. Indeed, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports global cassava production is enjoying long-term growth, with the past 10 years providing the 10 years with the highest ever cassava production.

Cassava is a starchy crop that is a staple food for 800 million people worldwide, including 500 million in Africa alone. Cassava is one of the most important crop in tropical regions. Cassava thrives in high heat, and can tolerate varying rainfall prevalence.

Buried in the manufactured concern about cassava production, the article acknowledges, “cassava is a crop which will likely be highly resilient to future climate change stressors.”

Rising cassava production should surprise nobody. Data from the market data firm Tridge shows cassava production has grown consistently since at least 1997, when world cassava production was 161.75 million tons. By 2016, production topped 277.1 million tons.

Data from FAO expand on Tridge’s findings. According to FAO, total cassava production has grown significantly faster than the area devoted to production, illustrating large increases in yields per acre as well as total production.

The report provides no evidence diseases or pests worsening as the climate warms. Even if that were the case, the bountiful increases in cassava production are clearly much greater than any incidental increase in pests or disease, as shown in the overall crop data.

So, when you see today’s Climate Scare of the Day raising concern about cassava production, feel free to enjoy a guilt-free partaking of your favorite tropical foods

SOURCE




Not Guilty! Jurist Legal News Prosecutes False Case Against Climate, Hunger

Jurist Legal News is doing its best Michael Avenatti impression, prosecuting false claims that climate change is causing hunger and malnutrition.

In a May 14 article, “The Link Between Climate Change and Human Health,” Indian law students Sakshi Agarwal and Aniket Sachan quote speculative World Health Organization (WHO) predictions as proof that climate change is causing starvation and malnutrition. That is the same WHO, by the way, that reassured us that Chinese officials found no evidence of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19, that wearing face masks makes you more likely to acquire COVID-19, and praised massive government efforts to “socialize the economy.”

“The World Health Organization (WHO) back in 2018 said that climate change will cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050 due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat exhaustion,” the Jurist Legal News article reported.

Of course, predictions are not proof, or even evidence. They are merely predictions. Let’s take a look at what scientific evidence shows.

History shows colder periods of time are linked to famine and malnutrition as crops fail, as during the little ice age. By contrast, hunger and malnutrition both decline sharply during relatively warm periods.

Indeed, food production, rather than declining as the climate has modestly warmed, has increased dramatically in recent decades. This is thoroughly documented in Climate at a Glance: Crop Production, as well as in a video-archived panel discussion alongside the United Nations Civil Society Conference in August 2019.

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels, shows how modern agriculture, built upon and entirely dependent upon fossil fuels, is allowing farmers to produce more food than ever on less and less land. In addition, as detailed by CO2Science.org, the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere over the past century, along with modest warming, have resulted in crop yields setting records nearly every year. The two factors combined have resulted in the largest decline in hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and starvation in human history.

Forty-four percent of the world’s population lived in absolute poverty in 1981 – 40 years of global warming ago. Since then, the share of people living in such poverty fell below 10 percent in 2015. And although 700 million people worldwide still suffer from persistent hunger, the United Nations reports the number of hungry people has declined by two billion since 1990 – 30 years of global warming ago.

Hunger and malnutrition, like a changing climate, have always been with us. The evidence, however, shows the only climate change consistently linked to increases in hunger, malnutrition, and premature mortality is a cooling climate.

SOURCE





A Queensland university that unlawfully sacked a professor for criticising colleagues for their research on the impact of global warming on the Great Barrier Reef is back in court

James Cook University is appealing the Brisbane Federal Circuit Court's finding that it contravened the Fair Work Act when it dismissed Peter Vincent Ridd in 2018.

Judge Salvatore Vasta made 28 findings in April 2019 against the university, which censured Prof Ridd for remarks against a coral researcher, the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

The university was later ordered to pay Prof Ridd more than $1.2m for lost income, lost future income and other costs.

Before sacking the geophysicist, the university alleged Prof Ridd had violated its code of conduct during an August 2017 interview on Sky News when he remarked some of the university's research could "no longer be trusted".

It also alleged Prof Ridd wrote of a researcher in an email to a student: "It is not like he has any clue about the weather. He will give the normal doom science about the (Great Barrier Reef)".

Judge Vasta found the university's actions, including the dismissal, were unlawful.

"Incredibly, the university has not understood the whole concept of intellectual freedom," he wrote in his findings.

"In reality, intellectual freedom is the cornerstone of this core mission of all institutions of higher learning."

Freedom of expression and the interpretation of the university's code of conduct were the focus of the appeal submissions on Tuesday.

The university's lawyer, Bret Walker SC, said the university was responsible for enforcing standards of behaviour to protect intellectual freedom and the code of conduct.

Mr Walker said staff had the right to intellectual freedom and the right to express certain views but not bully, harass or intimidate others.

"Freedom .... is not without limit, restriction or standard," he told the court.

The two-day hearing continues.

SOURCE 

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