Oh! Rampant consumerism is causing climate change and obesity and we are all going to die horribly and climate skeptics are acting just like tobacco companies to obstruct anyone trying to fix it. Thats it!
Over 300 Australian doctors published (another) open letter (which you probably can't read because its not open in the sense that you don't have to pay to see it) in the Medical Journal of Australia, explaining the above position. According to the climate doctor in-crowd:
“We are now seeing the emergence of health risks caused by excesses in market driven consumerism (including the consumption of energy dense processed foods), energy subsidised exertion-free living, an over-arching pre-occupation with gross domestic product and ... population growth."
According to a Herald Sun Article (which you actually can read):
“As health professionals, we urge Australian politicians (and the public) to recognise the overlap in the underlying cause of two great health threats that our population now faces,'' the experts wrote.
''... the rise of obesity and its life-threatening disease consequences and the great threats to health from global climate change.
I also particularly like that they didn't hold back from not-so-subtly lumping climate skeptics in with tobacco companies, which they described as an example of:
“the well financed, doubt-fostering opposition of vested interests'"
There they go with that "well financed" crap again. Or maybe Im doing this skeptic thing wrong, and I really needed to go to tobacco giant Philip Morris for funding (after all, what could be more Australian than Philip Morris? They own Kraft, which owns Vegemite.)
The many and varied authors of the abysmal piece of catastrophising excresence that parodies an open missive, also didn't hold back from blaming impending, hypothetical climate woe on a growing population. Clearly they don't read my blog, or they'd know that our actual birth rate is below replacement value, and the only reason our population is increasing is immigration. Sure, its something to bear in mind, but lets face it, Australia hasn't exactly thrown open the gates Corey-style and said "house party, and you're all invited".
What I would like to know, is where in the rolling, bucolic hills of their imaginations did this group representative of one of the highest earning professions in the country, not see the blatent hypocrisy of a political stance that smacks of socialism? Seriously, some of these people have stethoscopes that are worth more than my car (I'm not kidding, although mind you, some people have electric tea kettles that are worth more than my car). Especially considering that its actually POOR people in this country who are more likely to be obese. (If you don't believe me, I invite you to conduct your own literature review. Or alternatively you could go to your local McDonalds.)
I realise that I have strayed far into unexplored victriolic territory today, but I am on the wrong end of too many early mornings, sick kids, cranky husbands and chlorhexidine hand-rub, and it was a given that the next person(s) who messed with me were gonna get torn a new one. Much to an entire teaching hospital's continued relief, it turned out to be a bunch of histrionic, hypocritical alarmist doctors that irked me first, and in a virtual sense.
Sadly, I know some of the people who put their name to this, and all I can do is shake my head in a rueful, slightly sad kind of way, and say: "Y'all are gonna be REAL embarassed about this some day, and the internet (and a certain under paid and overworked blogger) never forgets..."
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