Canadian doctor clinically diagnoses patient as suffering from 'climate change'
People have it drummed into them these days that any bad weather is a result of climate change. But weather is intrinsically variable asnd none of the dupes think to check history for other instances of similar bad weather. The statistics would surprise them. There is a long history of weather catastrophes. Tony Heller has documented a lot of it
When a patient in her 70s came into the emergency department at Kootenay Lake Hospital in Nelson, B.C., Dr. Kyle Merritt had no idea hundreds of people were dying of heat across the province.
It was late June, and British Columbia was consumed under a heat wave that would soon go down as both the hottest and deadliest in Canadian history.
The head of the hospital’s emergency department, Merritt could see the aggravated toll the extreme heat took on patients battling multiple health problems at once, often with little money.
“She has diabetes. She has some heart failure. … She lives in a trailer, no air conditioning,” says Merritt of the senior patient. “All of her health problems have all been worsened. And she's really struggling to stay hydrated.”
As the mercury climbed, more patients arrived and pressure on the hospital mounted. Merritt and his colleagues tried to make sense of a surge in heat illness most had only seen in medical school. “We were having to figure out how do we cool someone in the emergency department,” says the doctor. “People are running out to the Dollar Store to buy spray bottles.”
Merritt remembers hitting a tipping point, the extreme heat an opening salvo in another summer of crisis. He started contacting other doctors and nurses, in Prince George, Kamloops, Vancouver and Victoria.
The response was immediate. Roughly 40 doctors and nurses at the small hospital — all busy trying to manage a pandemic and their regular professional lives — came together under the banner Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health.
“I was worried about the summer that was coming,” says Merritt of the rising number of health-care workers desperate to talk about how climate change is affecting their patients’ health. “I was really quite amazed at how many people have decided to jump in.”
Just as doctors and nurses started to make sense of the record heat, it cleared — only to be replaced by a blanket of wildfire smoke.
Climate change enters the ER
Like so many summers in recent memory, this summer, Nelson’s air turned the colour of pea soup, leading to a spike in patients suffering respiratory problems.
B.C.’s Interior suffers some of the greatest fallout from air pollution in the country.
Between 2013 and 2018, the 10 census divisions in the country with the greatest exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) were all in B.C.’s Interior, according to a 2021 Health Canada analysis of the impacts of air pollution on human health.
Of those, half the census divisions — including Central Kootenay, where Nelson is located — were among the top 10 slices of the country with the highest per capita rates of premature death.
“A lot of people in the Kootenays sort of thought that this would be a good place to hide out while the rest of the world falls apart. But it's, of course, hitting us here, just like it's hitting many places, and we're really seeing the impacts,” says Merritt.
******************************************
Climate concerns deleted from infrastructure bill
Late Friday night the House, with the help of 13 Republicans, passed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. As it turns out, though, it's missing a key provision when it comes to climate.
As Tanya Snyder wrote for POLITICO on Saturday, the final version "falls far short of Biden's original vision, which promised to dramatically reduce the climate impacts of transportation, the single largest source of pollution. In the end, the final product was the victim of the bipartisan focus it took to get the bill done and is an example of the razor thin governing majority Democrats must navigate."
She went on the write that even with what's in the infrastructure and reconciliation spending bills "do not approach how Biden promised to move the nation toward carbon neutrality and zero emission vehicles soon after he took office."
Snyder also addresses Amtrak, which was trending over Twitter on Saturday. In a subheading of "Amtrak supercharged," she quotes an expert who warns not to get too excited:
But Sean Jeans-Gail, vice president for the Rail Passengers Association, a passenger rail advocacy group, said while welcome, it won't be enough to create a true transformation in the country's passenger rail system.
The bill could enable Amtrak to boost its frequency and reliability across its network, but Jeans-Gail said it won't be enough to start "launching something from nothing," like new service corridors. He noted that much of the money could be eaten up with basic maintenance needs like track upgrades, upholstery of train cars and station ventilation. It will also fund studies and corridor identification exercises that will then need even more funding to carry out, he said.
“I think a lot of what we’re going to fund [with the infrastructure package] is environmental review, route analysis, coming up with a national concrete plan and doing design work and start constructing the corridors," Jeans-Gail said. "And there needs to be that next package to bring home a lot of that planning work, a lot of that environmental work, a lot of that design work.”
He noted that given "these goals that we still have to decarbonize the transportation sector and to get as many people on to mass transit as possible ... we’d hoped for more.”
Typical big government bureaucracy is also perhaps best summed up in this one paragraph:
Despite the large figures, it could take months or even years to start seeing shovels in the ground, as regulators eager to avoid comparisons to former President Barack Obama's stimulus program focus on good projects rather than immediate projects. The current labor shortage, compounding longtime workforce issues in the construction trades, could also slow down the pace of building and make projects more expensive, experts warn.
This is an administration that is laser focused on addressing what it calls the "climate crisis." It is so inherently devoted to climate and climate only that Climate Czar John Kerry has admittedly dismissed addressing China's human rights abuses and acts of genocide so that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be more open to a discussion where they'll pretend they're going to try harder to reduce emissions.
During a meeting with Chinese counterparts in April, Kerry had said it was "very important" for the two countries to "try to keep those other things away."
He make even worse remarks more recently during an interview with Bloomberg in September. When asked why there's a priority for climate change over addressing the human rights abuses caused by the slave labor inflicted on Uyghurs, Kerry casually responded that "life is always full of tough choices."
For how preoccupied each and every part of the administration is with climate, Biden hasn't been able to secure many successes on this issue as of late. Sure, Xi Jinping attended Biden's virtual climate summit in April.
When it comes to the recent climate action summit in Glasgow, during which Biden apologized for how former President Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Accords, China's the Global Times, published an opinion piece by Ai Jun, who wrote that "Biden’s apology in Glasgow shows hypocrisy, powerlessness of US politicians."
More recently, and closer to home, a climate provision was reported to be likely to be taken out of the Build Back Better reconciliation spending bill due to Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-WV) opposition.
***********************************************
Biden admin considering shutting down another pipeline, drawing criticism and dire warnings as winter nears
The Biden administration is reportedly weighing the potential market consequences of shutting down an oil pipeline in Michigan, drawing criticism from opponents. Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Biden's energy secretary, predicted Sunday that heating prices will rise this winter regardless of the Biden administration's decision on the pipeline. "Yeah, this is going to happen. It will be more expensive this year than last year," Granholm told CNN.
The administration has yet to decide on what to do with Line 5 and officials were gathering information only to present a clear picture of the situation, according to sources who spoke to Politico.
Line 5 is part of a network that moves crude oil and other petroleum products from western Canada, transporting about 540,000 barrels per day. Petroleum is taken from the pipeline in Escanaba, Michigan.
Jason Hayes, the director of environmental policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, blasted the Biden administration for its energy policies, telling Fox News that their work on Line 5 is "just one more example of being divorced from reality."
"They're planning to power an industrial nation like the United States on solar panels and wind turbines," Hayes said, while noting that even the solar panels and wind turbines require "oil, natural gas, nuclear and even coal" to be produced.
Hayes presented a dire picture of what shutting Line 5 could mean if people are unable to get natural gas or the electricity it provides as the nation heads into winter.
"I hope it doesn't end like this, but where I see it going is unfortunately the same thing that happened in February in Texas: People freezing in their homes," he said, adding, "Most of the time when it's extremely cold or there's a real bad polar vortex situation, typically it's pretty cloudy and there's not a lot of wind."
Explaining he has trouble understanding why some Western leaders seem unable to grasp the importance of reliable, affordable energy and electricity for everyday citizens, Hayes said, "It seems like the only nations that understand that we require reliable, affordable dispatchable energy is China and Russia. And they're the only ones that are producing energy and they're more than happy to hold that energy hostage for the rest of the world."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-considering-shutting-down-michigan-pipeline
*******************************************Cyclones Downs, Corals Up – Except in Glasgow
Written by Jennifer Marohasy in Australia
It is impossible to reconcile the official statistics and what is under-the-water with the media reporting – including the reporting from Glasgow. There are meant to be more cyclones and less coral, but we have quite the reverse according to the official statistics. It is also making no sense that those who purport to care so much about the Great Barrier Reef still haven’t visited it. Then there are those who have visited it once, and then there are those who have visited it but never actually got in the water. Some of them are in Glasgow.
It was not for nothing that former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull – he apparently visited Magnetic Island some years ago but never got in the water – approved a A$443 million grant to the tiny Great Barrier Reef Foundation. As far as I can tell it is paid out in little bits to all those in proximity who are prepared to lament how the corals are dying. I’ve meet so many who have received something, and so the useful idiots are paid off by the special people now in Glasgow.
On the eve of Glasgow, the same foundation put out comment:
Insufficient global action on climate change is taking a serious toll on the health of our Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs around the world. The facts are clear – coral reefs and their communities are on the front line. We know current climate change commitments don’t go far enough to protect them and we know this is the critical decade in which to act with urgency. Next month’s UN Climate Change Conference – COP26 – will be a pivotal moment in the global response to climate change.
On Tuesday 13th October 2020, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology put out a media release ‘Tropical Cyclone seasonal outlook for The Coral Sea’ in which it was acknowledged that, and I quote: "Recent decades have seen a decline in the number of tropical cyclones in our region."
Bureau climatologist, Greg Browning, went on to explain that this summer is likely to buck that trend, and that: "On average Australia sees 9 to 11 tropical cyclones each year, with 4 crossing the coast."
Cyclones can be devastating to coral reefs. Huge waves pound relentlessly smashing branching and fan corals. Sponges and squirts are upended. Massive Porites can be lifted and thrown metres – sometimes beyond the reef proper and onto the beach.
Given the Great Barrier Reef, as one ecosystem comprising nearly 3,000 individual reefs stretching for more than 2,000 kilometres, cyclone damaged areas can almost always be found somewhere. A coral reef that is mature and spectacular today, may be smashed by a cyclone tomorrow. So, I’m always in a hurry to visit my next reef particularly given all the modelling suggesting an inevitable increase in the number of cyclones and an inevitable decline in coral cover.
Yet!
The 2020–21 Australian region cyclone season was another ‘below average’ season, producing a total of just 8 tropical cyclones with just 3 of these categorised as severe. So since records began it is a case of less cyclones and less severe cyclones which must be good for the corals.
The Bureau has not updated this chart since the 2016/2017 season. The trend continues a downward trajectory with just 8 tropical cyclones last season (2020/2021) with 3 categorised as severe.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/climatology/trends.shtml
Perhaps not surprisingly we are also seeing an increase in coral cover, and this is exactly what the latest report from the Australian Institute of Marine Science concludes. According to their Long-Term Monitoring Program (LTMP) based on surveys of 127 reefs conducted between August 2020 and April 2021, and I quote: "In 2021, widespread recovery was underway, largely due to increases in fast growing Acropora corals.Survey reefs experienced low levels of acute stressors over the past 12 months with no prolonged high temperatures or major cyclones. Numbers of outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish on survey reefs have generally decreased; however, there remain ongoing outbreaks on some reefs in the Southern GBR.
On the Northern GBR, region-wide hard coral cover was moderate and had continued to increase to 27% from the most recent low point in 2017.
On the Central GBR region-wide hard coral cover was moderate and had increased to 26% in 2021.
Region-wide hard coral cover on reefs in the Southern GBR was high and had increased to 39% in 2021."
More information at https://www.aims.gov.au/reef-monitoring/gbr-condition-summary-2020-2021
Meanwhile former US President Barack Obama – who has never ever actually visited the Great Barrier Reef – confirmed he will attend the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow. He is apparently meeting young climate change activists and highlighting their work around the world. I’m wondering when he will bring them to see the corals. The closest he has got, so far, is to Brisbane back in November 2014. He gave a speech at my old university lamenting the parlous state of the corals and claiming he wanted to take his daughters to see the corals before they were all gone.
But. We are still waiting. As far as I can tell, like Malcolm Turnbull, Barack Obama frightens the children about that which they have never actually seen or experienced with his own eyes – and with opinion that often does not even accord with the available statistics.
Former US President Bill Clinton hasn’t made it to Glasgow, but he did visit the Great Barrier Reef back in November 1996. He apparently spent a short hour snorkelling at a reef off Port Douglas.
If I didn’t know something about the scientific method, greenhouse gases, the Great Barrier Reef, and that foundation, I would be inclined to believe there was a crisis – and that there really was something I should do about it. As it is, I know that coral bleaching occurs as part of a natural cycle that will repeat irrespective of any agreements made in Glasgow. I also know as fact that there has been no increase in the incidence of cyclones and that coral cover is good and improving. It is also fact that coral reefs would benefit if there was rising sea levels because they could keep growing-up and also that they grow faster as sea temperatures increase.
Did you know that there are arguably more colourful corals and even better coral cover in waters just a few degrees warmers? The warmer waters are just to the north of Australia around New Guinea and Indonesia.
https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/cyclones-downs-corals-up-except-in-glasgow
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
*****************************************
Jim Hansen and his twin
No comments:
Post a Comment