Here are some quotes from the piece, which you evidently and puzzlingly think supports not taking global warming as a threat seriously:
Johns Hopkins epidemiologist D. A. Henderson... says [the worries] are based on "a lot of simplistic thinking, which seems to ignore the fact that as climate changes, man changes as well."
I don't find that reassuring, Neocon. I find it simplistic, smug and complacent.
But the following thought by Anthony McMichael of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine does not seem simplistic to me. It seems a statement of the obvious:
"What it [projecting possible though not certain scenarios] does is [make us] aware we're tinkering with
fundamentals, and there could be a range of consequences for human health.
Yes-- a range of consequences that some scientists feel entirely sanguine about the power of their greatness to manage just fine; and some don't. But all agree that there could be a range of consequences for human health.
The author of the article writes:
The current controversy has been building for at least 6 years, since climatologists began agreeing that the planet's temperature is rising (although they still do not agree on
the cause of the warming to date, or on how much warmer the planet will get).
So the planet's temperature is definitely rising, we can apparently agree on that much.
...the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)... included a chapter on public health impacts in an update of its landmark 1990 assessment. The public health chapter... concluded that "climate change is likely to have wide-ranging and mostly adverse impacts on human health, with significant loss of life."
And the answer of an epidemiologist who speaks for you and Terrence, Neocon, addressing the minor fact that people are dying of heat stroke in increasing numbers?
"Well, good heavens, people adapt."
(I just love that.)
Another think-good-thoughts epidemiologist speaks:
... Wilson and his colleagues point out that no one knows just how patterns of temperature and rainfall will change in a warmer world, or how these changes will affect the biology of diseases and their vectors.
So your side admits that no one knows how these changes that they agree are coming will affect the biology of diseases or their vectors. NO ONE KNOWS, your side admits. But not to worry. Because, they say,
... there are variations in public health practices and lifestyles, which can easily outweigh any change in disease biology.
Oh, GOOD! I was worried there for a minute! But your guys are promising, yes, promising, that "variations in health practices and lifestyles can easily outweigh any change in disease biology.
"
They don't say that they may be able to. They say they can outweigh any change in disease biology!
What arrogance. It's f@cking outrageous.
By the way. When the "Well, good heavens, people adapt" guy was talking about adapting, he was citing some real hot places like Arizona where people adapt by AIR CONDITIONING. In the houses and their cars and everywhere they go. And in increasing numbers of open civic shelters where the elderly or weak can be warehoused until it's safe for them in their hot homes again. Shall we talk about second and third world countries? The poor in our country? How are they going to get access to all this miraculous medicine and technology that's going to make it all better when the changes come?
I like what Duane Gubler, your spokesperson, Neo, says to be reassuring about the possibility of a dengue fever epidemic spreading into the U.S.--
"We have good housing, air conditioning, and screens that keep the mosquitoes outside, and we have television that
keeps us inside," says Gubler.
Yes, we do. The fortunate ones of us do, I mean.
Duane goes on to elucidate the obvious: "All of these decrease the probability that humans will be bitten by these mosquitoes."
That's true. That's protected us in the past from dengue fever epidemics. Harvard physician Paul Epstein, and Anthony McMichael of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, agree with Good Heavens Gubler. But they go on to say,
Gubler and others are "mixing up the present with the future... What we're saying is if climatic changes do occur, given what we think we know about the influences of changing temperature and humidity on the distribution and biological behavior of mosquitoes, vectors, and infectious organisms, it's a perfectly reasonable prediction that there will be change in the potential transmissibility of these things."
That's a BIG risk. The window screens and TV's and air conditioning that satisfy Gubler's risk-tolerance just don't make it for mine.
Here's a final remark by your main spokesperson, Gubler. Note the bolded sentence:
"We should definitely do what we can" to
reverse global warming, he says, "but we should also be thinking about directing resources toward public health measures to prevent the spread of disease--immunization, mosquito control, improved water systems, waste management
systems. The most cost-effective way to mitigate the effect of climate change on infectious disease is to rebuild our public health infrastructure and implement better
disease-prevention strategies."
Well, I can't disagree with too much, there. Did you notice the bold part. YOUR main guy in this piece says, "We should definitely do what we can to reverse global warming."
I don't disagree, and assume you don't, either. So we both agree that we should DEFINITELY do WHAT WE CAN to reverse global warming.
I like all the stuff your guy says about rebuilding our public health structure, too! I'm even willing to pay more taxes to do that? Are you, Neocon? What about you, Terrence?
Of course it doesn't help the unlucky ones in the third world, does it-- our fancy infrastructure. Even though you and I will both be willing to pay more taxes to build it.
Oh well, can't have everything.
But I hope you will join me in trying. Let's do what your article suggests-- Let's definitely do what we can to reverse global warming, okay?
And tax the bejesus out of ourselves for improving our first world infrastructure, too.
Okay?
And of course I"ll be willing to pay additional taxes to assist those unfortunates we will see from our air conditioned TV rooms who don't live here where we will have air conditioned so many more buildings, and vaccinated so many more citizens with so many more vaccines, and... well you know, all that good stuff your guy suggests.
And of course you will also be willing to contribute to ameliorate third world suffering, I know.
Neocon, you have posted an article proposing that we must do all we can to reverse global warming, and also build up our health infrastructure. I'm glad we agree on that. We can worry about the details later. |
