https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/21/were-all-getting-sick-of-the-lectures-on-climate-change/
By JULIE BURCHILL
In theory, people being more political sounds great. Less dreary conversations about the weather and the ‘footie’, and more water-coolers surrounded with colleagues fizzing with enthusiasm about democracy and its pleasures. But the actual practice of this presupposes that we will all be open-minded and curious and – unless we are extremely learned about something – that the opinion of all citizens shall be equal. Above all, it fails to observe that pontificating about something you’re not an expert in – just because you have a more elevated station than the people you’re preaching to – totally negates this democratic dream. It simply sets the stage for a silly symphony of busybodies.
This came to mind on reading that the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has this week issued new guidance instructing doctors, as ‘trusted members of the community’, to lecture their poor patients about the dangers of climate change. This is troubling enough given the average duration of a face-to-face appointment with a GP in England – when you finally get one – is just 10 minutes. Furthermore, this 11-page document also suggests that doctors should cause even more anxiety to patients by ‘working from home’ and cutting backs on tests and prescriptions – in the name of saving the planet, of course.
So basically doctors are being advised by the RCP to do less of the things doctors have historically been required to do, while amping up the scolding about an area they have no training in. It also urges doctors, after scaring their patients with talk of burning rivers and the like, to keep an eye out for the poor creatures showing signs of ‘eco-distress’ – that is, anxiety and depression allegedly caused by climate change. I would venture that if this condition exists in any great numbers, it’s caused not by climate change itself but by people banging on about climate change, alongside the other anxieties that stem from not being able to get a GP appointment, a medical test or a prescription.
We’re not quite at the stage of those crazy Canucks. In 2021, a doctor in British Columbia actually diagnosed a woman with ‘climate change’ – thought to be a world first – after she reported having breathing problems following a hot summer featuring a slew of forest fires. How many years at medical school did it take to come to this razor-sharp conclusion?
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Dr Kyle Merritt opined:
‘She has diabetes. She has some heart failure… She lives in a trailer, no air conditioning. All of her health problems have all been worsened. And she’s really struggling to stay hydrated.’
I’m sure we’ll get to where Canada is eventually, though. When a society is as single-minded about scaring itself as the Kool-Aid-quaffing Canadians have been for some time, there’s no telling what rabbit holes we’ll race each other to the bottom of. It’s telling that the RCP document showcases such condescending gems from the World Health Organisation as ‘don’t debate the science’ and ‘talk about the health benefits of climate action’. I wonder what health benefits the people inside the ambulances blocked by Just Stop Oil over the past few years have gained from climate-change action?
