Category: Media

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Bad Science Media Science Rules

Amazongate : Jonathan Leake Retracts

Another chapter in the ongoing saga of the exhausting struggle to educate the mainstream media journalists to check their Climate Change stories thoroughly before publishing.

You may have heard of “Amazongate” – the Amazon would seem to be capable of withstanding more frequent drought caused by Global Warming – according to one interpretation of an isolated piece of research.

However, if you believed that take on things, you’d be very much mistaken in doing so. And the person you’re most likely to be able to have believed on this story would be Jonathan Leake, writing in The Sunday Times.

An article that he wrote, published on 31 January 2010 has been retracted after a submission to the Press Complaints Commission by Dr Simon Lewis. The link to the original article has been removed from the Times Online website :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009705.ece
“UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim”

Searching for this article title using Google produces thousands of pages that refer to the original publication :-

https://www.google.co.uk/search

The retraction is apparently published here, but I have no access to it, because it requires subscription, which I will not register for, so I do not know what it says :-

https://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/article196428.ece

Continue reading “Amazongate : Jonathan Leake Retracts”
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Big Picture China Syndrome Climate Change Media Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Public Relations Science Rules Screaming Panic Social Change

Sceptic Backlash : Questions Answered

Last Wednesday’s “Sceptic Backlash” meeting ended with a lively Question and Answer session. Here it is as I recorded it :-

https://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting

Q. (from Christian Hunt, a plant in the audience from Greenpeace)

– You say it’s just the journalists who are the sceptics. What happens if another Government comes in and scepticism gets political footholds ? [ reference to Conservative Party Climate Change sceptics ]

A. (Phil Thornhill, Campaign against Climate Change)

– People shy away from the problem if they can’t find solutions. We propose a million Climate jobs – there are lots of ways of dealing with the crisis. That’s the kind of thing we should be emphasising.

Q. Andrew Neill interviewed Caroline Lucas and asked her about the Phil Jones interview with the BBC where he said there had been no “statistically significant” warming in the last 15 years. Has there been no statistically significant warming or not ? Why wouldn’t Caroline Lucas, head of the Green Party, say “you’re wrong” ?

A. (Phil)

– I wrote her a rather long e-mail. You can’t really debate Science in the popular Media. Most people don’t understand.

– The tip for answering this kind of question is – in 15 years, it’s hard to spot a trend against the background noise. It’s a difficult thing to explain.

– It’ a clear case of how once you start debating the Science it gets twisted. She should have said “this is a typical case of the misrepresentation of Science”.

A. (Ben Stewart, Greenpeace Media)

– She was fine to say “I’ll take a pass on that”.

Continue reading “Sceptic Backlash : Questions Answered”
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Climate Change Media

Our Great Leader, Phil

[ Left to Right : Phil Thornhill (Campaign against Climate Change), Dr David Adam (The Guardian) ]

I bet you all thought I was going to talk about Professor Phil Jones, who has been completely and utterly exonerated this week :-

https://www.desmogblog.com/second-expert-panel-shows-climategate-was-sham

https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/phil_jones_vindicated_some_mor.php

But, no. I’m going to report on what Phil Thornhill said on Wednesday at the “Sceptic Backlash” meeting.

Continue reading “Our Great Leader, Phil”

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Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Divide & Rule Media Non-Science Public Relations Social Change

The Guardian : Trumped by a Stuffed Toucan

[ Left to Right : Dr David Adam (The Guardian), Ben Stewart (Greenpeace), Tooki the Toucan operated by George Marshall (ClimateDenial.org) and Marina from Campaign against Climate Change]

On Wednesday evening, at the “Sceptic Backlash” public event, hosted by the Campaign against Climate Change, communications researcher George Marshall introduced the meeting to an unusual commentator on Climate Change…

https://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting

https://www.joabbess.com/2010/04/15/ben-stewart-greenpeace-stalking/

https://www.joabbess.com/2010/04/15/david-adam-liberal-pacifier/

Here is a transcript of what George Marshall said (as I have it) :-

– I do a lot of work around Climate Change communications and information.

– Climate Change is a large and technical issue. No one has the time to get totally on top of it. Even within the Science the specialists only look at their specialist areas.

– The average Media “punter” (somebody looking for information) is looking for a shortcut – their “ask” is “just tell me what’s going on”.

– Most people ask “Dave” down the pub (public house, bar). Friends and acquaintances in bars are the most important people in your social network, no doubt.

– And Dave says he saw this thing on telly (television)…

– The average person is just looking for a source of information that has some kind of authority…

Continue reading “The Guardian : Trumped by a Stuffed Toucan”

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Climate Change Media

David Adam : Liberal Pacifier

Dr David Adam, Environmental correspondent at The Guardian newspaper, the “home” of the political Left and Liberal in the United Kingdom, was disappointingly pacifying at the “Sceptic Backlash” event in London yesterday evening.

“Please don’t over-estimate the damage being done by Climategate”, he urged the audience, comparing the sceptic bug-bear to the Bush-and-Cheney narrative about dangerous terrorism which used to get people so worked up, (riled enough, remember ?, to sacrifice their youth and their entire Economy to the new American project of killing innocent women, children and men in the Middle East. Such a good decade for Big Business !)

I read that David Adam used to write about scientific research in Nature magazine before he became Science, and then Environment correspondent at The Guardian.

Funnily enough, I seem to recall meeting somebody who could well have been David Adam in First Class on the Eurostar train service from London to Brussels some time in the late 1990’s. If it was David Adam, his declared profession had nothing to do with journalism, or even chemical engineering (which David Adam studied). I can’t be sure. I don’t always remember faces from more than ten years ago, especially people I have only met once, but his expressions and mannerisms when I saw him yesterday triggered the same reactions in my mind. How strange…but anyway…

I was incensed. Outraged. Deflated, by David Adam’s liberal dismissiveness of the power of Climate Change scepticism, to divide a nation, to cause countless arguments – classic divide-and-rule tactics.

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Climate Change Media

Ben Stewart : Greenpeace Stalking

[ CORRECTION FROM JOABBESS.COM IN BOLD ]

Mr Ben Stewart, Head of Media at Greenpeace UK, may have no hair, but he does have a considerable number of brain cells, and he says that journalists who are Climate Sceptics need to be afraid, very afraid.

Last night at the “Sceptic Backlash” event hosted by the “Campaign against Climate Change” (what a mouthful, Phil Thornhill ! Get the name or your organisation changed ! Immediately !), Ben Stewart said, “we need to pull together a community of activists to hold journalists to account. We have to launch a campaign so these people are scared of us.”

Well, you could call this bravado, or you could call it a statement of intent. I think I’d probably plump for the latter.

So here’s a message to all those Climate Change sceptical journalists and sundry denier-obstructer bloggists out there : brace yourselves. Climate Change is coming !

Continue reading “Ben Stewart : Greenpeace Stalking”
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Bait & Switch Behaviour Changeling Climate Change Divide & Rule Extreme Weather Low Carbon Life Media Meltdown Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Public Relations Regulatory Ultimatum Screaming Panic Social Change Voluntary Behaviour Change

Polar Bear : Poster Child

So, I’m standing in the G2 theatre at the School of Oriental and African Studies, after the “Sceptic Backlash” event, talking with two Climate Change activists, one Irish, one American.

The question arises : since our lifestyles are causing deadly Climate Change for people in other parts of the world, maybe we should have communications based around pictures of suffering children ?

I disagree. I point out that when the environmentalists put out posters about Polar Bears, that the audience pretty quickly realised that the Polar Bears were being used as a “poster child” for Climate Change, and they started to mock the campaigning.

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Climate Change Media

James Delingpole Warmly Invited

Here is a copy of the contact I just submitted at JamesDelingpole.com :-

https://jamesdelingpole.com/contact/

Dear Mr Delingpole,

You are cordially invited to a presentation, with question and answer session, on the nature of Climate Change scepticism in the Media :-

https://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting

This will take place tomorrow, Wednesday 14th April 2010, 6.30pm (or 18:30), at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, off Russell Square, in Venue G2. Entry for you, as for all attendees, will be free and for gratis.

As you will be able to see from the fact sheets and articles associated with the event, Climategate features quite highly in the analysis, and presumably will be one of the main subjects of the debate :-

https://www.campaigncc.org/sceptics

https://climatesafety.org/climategate-a-briefer/

Now, as one of the principal architects of the Media scandal known as Climategate (in fact, if I’m not mistaken, you named it), I am sure you would like to contribute your insight and experience to the discussion, and that your contribution would be most welcome.

In addition to hearing your erudite commentary in person, I am sure that your presence at the event will contribute an enormous amount in terms of raising the profile of the subject of the Media treatment of Climate Change.

It would also be an opportunity to meet some of your opponents in person, in a public space, and talk things over in a calm, civil manner, which I’m sure you would appreciate; perturbed, as I know you are, by the whole subject of Climate Change communications.

I fully intend to attend the event myself, and it would be a pleasure to meet you in person, shake you warmly by the hand, and thank you vigorously for raising the level of Climate Change urgency in the Media.

Happy Days,

Ms J. Abbess BSc

Let’s see if the great man responds…

Categories
Climate Change Media

Media Gets Obama Bypass

It seems like Team Obama will be bypassing the mainstream Media in their Climate Change communications :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/12/us-document-strategy-climate-talks

“…A document accidentally left on a European hotel computer and passed to the Guardian reveals the US government’s increasingly controversial strategy in the global UN climate talks…Top of the list of objectives is to: “Reinforce the perception that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change.” It also talks of “managing expectations” of the outcome of the Cancun meeting and bypassing traditional media outlets…”

There you have it. I’m not surprised, given the appalling behaviour of some of the Gentlepersons of the Press in recent months…

Continue reading “Media Gets Obama Bypass”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science Science Rules

The Great Sceptic Backlash

If you’re looking for a dose of sheer entertainment, then hop on down this Wednesday to Bloomsbury in London, for a public meeting about the dreaded, sharptoothed, hairy, boogle-eyed, Ye Olde Skeptik Backlash :-

https://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting

There you should find Dr David Adam, esteemed and seriously reputable journalist from The Guardian newspaper, and an itchy-and-scratchy, rabble-rousing Ben Stewart from Greenpeace and George Marshall (no, not that George Marshall) of pork-pie-eating, Trilby-wearing-whilst-cycling and Climate anti-denial fame :-

https://climatedenial.org/

Continue reading “The Great Sceptic Backlash”
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Climate Change Media

George Monbiot : Wrong Call

There was a long time during my life when I refused to read British newspapers. They irritated me. The stories hinged on the opinions of a few unresearched writers; facts were dubious; the ideological cultures distinguishing the publications were artificial; and the constructed narratives offended me.

I distinctly recall the day I decided I needed to read the newspapers again. It was a chance glance at the Guardian Weekly, on the shelf in an international bookshop in Brussels. In there, I read a piece by George Monbiot, and my reaction was, in paraphrase, “how can he be allowed to write such a thing for publication ?” I was impressed, both at his audacity and his plainspeaking, and the facts to back up his position looked credible.

In overview, it was a good thing that I started to read the newspapers again, even though I have had to wade through interminable barrelloads of rotten opinions and poor research in following the public story of Climate Change and Energy Revival. I have traced the emergence of some almost acceptable Science and Environment writing in the Press, but there has been a remarkable turnaround just recently.

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Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations Science Rules

A Short History of Denial

Why do people deny the facts coming from Scientists on Global Warming ?

“Well-financed conservative think-tanks”
“Unduly weighted outlier views”
“Scientific illiteracy”
“Our message hasn’t gotten through to the American people”
“Organised and systematic campaign”

https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/science_show_on_climate_change.php

https://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2010/04/ssw_20100403_1205.mp3

Mentioned by Naomi Oreskes in the audio presentation :-

https://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/

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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science The Data

James Delingpole : Cruel Jester

Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters (and those who are hermaphrodite, or in other ways gender-alternative) when you face trials and tribulations of many kinds, from those who have not recognised in you the Light, the Truth and the Way.

James Delingpole is doing his very best-worst to be annoying, or even insulting, I’m not sure, by levelling some personally negative comments towards me. But I have responded in friendliness and lovingkindness, although I might get moderated off the comments page, so I’ve included my words here :-

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100032622/inside-the-seething-green-roach-pit-where-they-eat-their-own

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Climate Change Media Toxic Hazard

Phil Jones : My Hero

Phil Jones – untarnished, innocent, heroic. Clean as a recently, cleanly, cleaned clean whistle.

The Media are beside themselves. No longer do they have a public victim to hold up, for us to mourn. No longer can they build the case for Phil Jones as scapegoat. No longer than they dangle Phil Jones out over the evil toothy fishes from the end of the sweating, shaking, rickety gang plank.

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7081921.ece

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8595483.stm

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7538446/University-of-East-Anglia-refused-to-share-information-on-global-warming.html

https://news.sky.com

Continue reading “Phil Jones : My Hero”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

CURRU : Horrible Headlines

The Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit would like to ask anybody out there with a few spare minutes and a reliable contact with the Daily Telegraph to have a little chat with them about this, their latest “Horrible Headline”, headlighted on their Science page thusly :-

“Will it really be a ‘barbecue summer’? : Forecasts for a barbecue summer are as uncertain as predictions of climate change, argues Roger Highfield : 23 Mar 2010”

They appear to have already bowed to some sort of internal or external pressure to change it from its original form, which appears to have had its datestamp set back to the year 2000, for some unknown reason :-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7499524/You-cant-predict-the-weather-or-climate-change.html

“You can’t predict the weather; or climate change : Our weather forecasts will always be as unreliable as our predictions of climate change. : By Roger Highfield : Published: 7:00AM GMT 23 Mar 2000”

Continue reading “CURRU : Horrible Headlines”
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Climate Change Media

CURRU : Amazongate Badge of Honour Award

The Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit (CURRU) has scored another major victory this week in the ongoing struggle for accurate journalism, with the submission made to the British Press Complaints Commission by a working Climate Change Scientist, Simon Lewis, concerning poor treatment of rainforest Science by Jonathan Leake of The Sunday Times :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/24/sunday-times-ipcc-amazon-rainforest

https://climateprogress.org/2010/03/24/simon-lewis-jonathan-leake-richard-north-amazon-gate-ipcc-sunday-times-complaint-pcc/

https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/leakegate_scientist_fights_bac.php

For this, Simon Lewis deserves a strong cup of herbal tea and several congratulatory back thumps, and a glorious badge of honour, which I shall personally craft myself from twigs, leaves and spiderwebbings.

Continue reading “CURRU : Amazongate Badge of Honour Award”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Meltdown Non-Science The Data

CURRU : First Service Award Announced

Joe Romm from Climate Progress has been awarded the first service award of the week from CURRU, the Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit, for his sterling, hard-working, thorough piece on the meltdown in the Arctic :-

https://climateprogress.org/2010/03/22/thin-ice-arctic-winds-sea-ice-extent-global-warming/

“Misreported study: “It is clear … that the precipitous decline in September sea ice extent in recent years is mainly due to the cumulative loss of multiyear ice.” Physicist: “If temperatures change just a few tenths of a degree then this oh-so-thin ice cap is doomed.””

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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations

CURRU : Launch of the Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit

Tiresome ?

You know the feeling. As a scientist or lay person with some inside knowledge on Climate Change, you’re reading your favourite daily newspaper or checking the news online, when an article with outright falsehoods in it really leaps out at you, grabs you by the throat and makes you very, very annoyed and FTB.

Being Full To Bursting, you make a mental note to write a letter to the Media organisation, or phone somebody and be very stern with them, but during the course of the day you are forced to engage with your normal duties and you reach nightfall tired and unable to pen the letter or lift the phone to make a complaint.

It’s really wearing.

Continue reading “CURRU : Launch of the Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit”
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Climate Change Extreme Weather Media

The Church of Climate Change

Clue for the Climate Change “sceptics” (“skeptics”) who pass by here : The Reverend Billy is not an ordained minister, and his organisation is not part of a religious sect. Billy Talen is a “performance artist”.

Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Amazongate : Why Investigate ?

The Climate Change “sceptics” are calling it “Amazongate”. I’d rather like to rename it “Investigate”, because of the appalling lack of investigative journalism that surrounds latest news of the Science of the Amazon basin.

Why is it that so many mainstream newspapers repeat the same lazy accusation that somebody has uncovered “yet another error” in the IPCC report ? This looks like a flawed attempt to create a narrative of scandal, where there is actually nothing to find.

Many expert commentators have tried to explain that, yes, the IPCC had a couple of problems, where they have used information that was not peer-reviewed Science, and findings that other experts disagree with. But no, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report still stands, and is still the best statement that Sciencekind can give on the subject of Climate Change.

There is no evidence of the kind of wrongdoing in the work of the IPCC that the Climate Change “sceptics” claim. So why do the journalists carry on with the narrative of doubt ? Could it have something to do with the fact that they don’t check the facts ?

And why do most of the mainsteam news organisations take the same line, with the same sloppy thinking and poor arguments replicated in article after article ? Could it be that there is no investigative journalism left these days ?

Why does it have to fall to the independent web loggers to point out the facts ? Why can’t the newspapers at least hire Environment writers who have studied Climate Change Science ?

Continue reading “Amazongate : Why Investigate ?”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Amazongate : Media Entanglement

[ UPDATE 15 MARCH 2010 FROM JOABBESS.COM ]

There’s this crazy effect in sub-atomic Physics, where bits and bobs (to give them their proper names) get “quantum entangled” under certain scenarios, and can affect each other at a distance, immediately, without any apparent need of communication.

This effect seems to happen in the Media, too. Perhaps journalists talk to each other. They certainly all read the same Press Releases and draw research from each others’ articles.

This must explain why the Daily Telegraph repeats all the errors of other articles this week about the Amazon and Climate Change :-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7437016/UN-climate-change-claims-on-rainforests-were-wrong-study-suggests.html

AND THE DAILY EXPRESS, OF COURSE :-

https://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/162987/Climate-fanatics-are-totally-wrong-about-rainforest-

“CLIMATE FANATICS ARE ‘TOTALLY WRONG’ ABOUT RAINFOREST : Climate fanatics are ‘totally wrong’ about rainforest : Monday March 15,2010”

Read my corruscating, scintillating, penetrating analysis of the “greeniness” of the Amazon, here :-

https://www.joabbess.com/2010/03/12/amazongate-redux-jonathan-leake-still-misguided/

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Big Picture Climate Change Media

Amazongate Redux : Jonathan Leake Still Misguided

I was going to entitle this little web log post “Yet More Proof Journalists Can’t Read” but I thought that might seem a little too rude, and anyway, I wanted to be clear about the subject of the content of the post in the title, so I changed it.

I have just received an e-mail from Jonathan Leake of the Times of London and the Sunday Times. By order of his e-mail signature, I am not permitted to share entirely the contents of that e-mail with you, however, I can relate to you that it concerns the latest Climate Change “sceptic” bunkum story, to which you can find extensive reference plastered all over the Internet like some ugly, testosterone-fuelled teenage graffiti :-

https://news.oneindia.in/2010/03/12/amazonrain-forests-were-unaffected-from-once-in-a-centuryd.html

“Amazon rain forests were unaffected from once-in-a-century drought in 2005 : Friday, March 12, 2010”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311175039.htm

“New Study Debunks Myths About Vulnerability of Amazon Rain Forests to Drought : ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2010)”

Continue reading “Amazongate Redux : Jonathan Leake Still Misguided”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

Bringing Physics Into Disrepute

I first commented on the suspected link between the Institute of Physics and the noted Climate Change “sceptic” Piers Corbyn in a previous post :-

https://www.joabbess.com/2010/03/02/fred-pearce-still-crucifying-phil-jones/

One of my commentators challenged what I had written, so I edited it out, awaiting the opportunity to discover more.

More has now been uncovered; not my me, I hasten to add, but by another commentator :-

https://www.joabbess.com/2010/03/06/institute-of-physics-nosedive/#comment-600

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Advancing Africa Big Picture Climate Change Media

The Dutch Will Get Wet

When are the Media going to get their own School of the Environment, where all the journalists can come and learn the Science of Climate Change ?

The Times of London continues to mangle the facts, it seems to me; this time from the pen/fingers of Ben Webster, perhaps a Mini-Me version of that accreditable journalist Jonathan Leake :-

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7056173.ece

“[The IPCC]…also claimed that global warming could cut rain-fed North African crop production by up to 50 per cent by 2020. A senior IPCC contributor has since admitted that there is no evidence to support this claim…”

I don’t think that quite pins it down accurately.

Continue reading “The Dutch Will Get Wet”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations

Imagine There’s No Medicine

Imagine there’s no Medicine; no doctors, nurses, hospitals, surgeons, ward administrators, paramedics on bicycles in bright yellow and green jackets, ambulances, medical technology or pharmaceuticals. It’s not easy, even if you try. What would your life be like ? Pretty painful and quite possibly nastily shortened, I’d hazard.

There are people in the world who still do not have access to medical care (let’s think…all those Americans without basic health care insurance), so they know the grim realities of it all – but the reason I’m considering this is there could have been a point in human history where the development of Medicine was thwarted by sceptics and people with ulterior motives.

“You’re sick because you’ve sinned”, a portion of humanity used to believe; the wealthy throughout history have sometimes been keen for disease to wipe out the scum of the poor. Appeals to Nature and to God to explain sickness and accidental damage could have been followed by a refusal to care for or treat people – as it was not what the Laws of the Universe dictated.

Continue reading “Imagine There’s No Medicine”