Artist more confused than hermaphrodite polar bear

In my internet ramblings I somehow found the Cape Farewell mob, who appear to sell carbon credits to suckers and then use the proceeds (and donations, of course) to take artists and "scientists" on "expeditions" to such ecologically perishable places as the arctic and the Andes. Presumably for purposes of inspiration. They looked kind of familiar, then I worked out they are the people who took intrepid freeloader Alex Hartley to the arctic, where he immediately "discovered" a lump of rock, christened it "Nowhere Island" and then promptly stole it.

From their trips to the arctic they produced a travelling expedition called "The art and climate change exhibition", which has the rather odd inclusion of a painting called "Hermaphrodite Polar Bear":



A few things immediately leap to mind, one of which is exactly how he managed to gain that unique perspective of a polar bears nether regions, and the other is how pseudohermaphroditism in polar bears has a relation to climate change? Last time I checked we were all getting freaked out by endocrine disruptors condensing over the poles then concentrating up the food chain. We can't decide on exactly which endocrine disrupting chemical pollutant is the big nasty (it depends on whats trendy in the research community at a given time)and don't exactly have comparative data going back very far, but no matter! Either way I'm pretty sure that only the truly die-hard hysterics have somehow tried to pin this on climate change.

See what happens when you invite artists to comment on science? Give me Damien Hirst, any day. If you could just ignore the ginormously obscene pricetags for a second, you could at least be impressed by the fact he managed to get a whole tiger shark into a perspex tank.

Bite me, Bears

Today I discovered that coffee and cake tastes EXTRA good if you walked out of a talk on climate change alarmist crap to go and get it. Excuse me for getting my cranky on here, but I honestly cannot sit through another grassroots handy-cam clip of medical students dressed up in polar bear suits doing cute stuff in a bid to save the world. ("Oh, look, Captain Planet is giving the polar bear a digital rectal exam before diagnosing it with a broken heart from habitat loss.")

They wanted me to get excited about an execrable piece of hooey, Code Green: A climate Emergency. The organisation that is supposed to represent me (ME!) as a medical student has released a policy on climate that says, among other things:

The Climate Code Green Advocacy Campaign hopes to demonstrate that climate change and health are inseparable, and that it is impossible to advocate for better health without simultaneously advocating for meaningful action on climate change.

There are already way too many minutes of my life I am never getting back that were taken up by my classmates (and occasional faculty members who should know better) making sure I feel suitably outraged by climate change. Oh, I feel outraged, alright. But not for the reasons they want.

Somewhere between mistaking a pregnant woman's butt for her vagina (hey, it happens) and learning how to wear a stethoscope without feeling like a total retard, the medical profession seems to buy into their own superiority complex. (Like you guys never noticed).
When did learning how to lance an abscess suddenly bestow not only a moral superiority, but a moral imperative? There is nothing doctors feel they dont have a right to comment on.

This is somewhat wierd in a profession so obsessed with "credentialling". When was the last time a general practitioner was allowed to direct his surgeon colleagues on the finer points of kidney transplants? When, for that matter, was a medical student allowed to direct anybody on the finer points of anything? We're barely qualified to breathe, and on some rotations (e.g. private obstetric wards), even that is sometimes discouraged.

Mention gobal warming, though, and all of a sudden half my classmates suddenly have a moral duty to save the world from my profligate use of ducted heating. Good for you guys, mind if I step out while you watch your video?

Damn, but I enjoyed that cake.