Climate Change

In recent years, editors of medical, science, and bioethics journals have proclaimed almost every major societal problem to be a “health emergency” or crisis. Off the top of my head, I can think of several: guns, racism, immigration enforcement, global warming, abortion restrictions, and fear of future pandemics. Now, the editors of The Lancet want to stoke fear of summer wildfires as the pretext to claim yet another public health emergency. From, “Wildfires, a Health Emergency“: Europe is burning. Wildfires in France and Spain have engulfed hundreds of square miles of land, destroying homes and forcing the evacuation of 330,000 people as the threat now moves east to Greece, Italy, and central Europe. The fires have been so large and Read More ›

One would have thought that bioethicists and technocrats would learn from the COVID debacle that coerced public health policies can easily become exploding cigars when misapplied, and indeed, ultimately harm the very community cohesion these autocrats claim to champion. But no. A new article in the prestigious Journal of Medical Ethics urges that we prepare now for more mandates to prevent epidemics due to AMRs (for antimicrobial resistance, such as bacteria evolving, rendering antibiotics less effective) and to fight climate change.

The authors identify various means of persuading the public to comply with favored public health policies. The first is simple suasion, or “normative compliance.”

From “Making the Public Protect Public Health: The Ethics of Promoting Collective Action in Emergencies” (citations omitted):

Normative compliance and moral involvement/commitment: This strategy is to convince people of the importance of assuming responsibility and acting accordingly. When congruent, the commitment of lower-level actors to comply is high. Participants with moral involvement/commitment are loyal to the aims and internalise the goals of the governing authority.

A few months ago, I posted about a Republican-sponsored bill in Wisconsin that would preempt local communities from enacting “nature rights” ordinances. I wrote at the time: If the bill passes, I suspect that the Democrat governor will veto it. Nature rights was adopted into the platform of Florida’s Democratic Party, and I predict it will eventually become a plank of the national party as it is becoming a zealous progressive cause as a means of combatting climate change and hobbling capitalism. But at least a veto would be clarifying. Later, Wisconsin Democrat legislators heightened my expectation by filing a resolution in support of granting nature “inherent rights, including the right to exist, flourish, regenerate, and be restored.” The Republican Read More ›

Mark Twain is generally credited with the quip, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” The same can’t be said about climate change, which has become one of our most contentious and complicated public policy controversies. It’s also divisive. According to a recent Gallup Poll, sixty-two percent of those polled worry about climate change a great Read More ›

The public-health intelligentsia and bioethics movement are determined to become the primary policy decision makers internationally. For example, back in 2020—at the height of COVID—Anthony Fauci wrote that the UN and WHO should be empowered to “rebuild the infrastructure of human existence.” You don’t get much more expansive than that. In the years since, others among that ilk have pounded the same drum furthered by an international agreement known as “One Health” (without US involvement) establishing an international bureaucracy aiming “to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems.” Toward that end, writing in The Lancet, a gaggle of international technocrats and academics reject the WHO’s current definition of human health as “a state of complete physical, Read More ›

The ambition of the bioethics movement continues to inflate. Now, we are told, humanity and endangered species need rescuing.

Writing in The Lancet, 22 (count ’em) bioethicists argue that there is a planet to save and they are just the experts to do it! From “Bioethics for the Planet“:

Severe threats to the health of humans and other species derive from degradation of Earth’s life-support systems, particularly the impacts of climate change. Researchers and practitioners in clinical medicine, public health, global health, and One Health are increasingly focusing on these risks to planetary health, which include (but are not limited to) rising temperatures, extreme weather disasters, intensified wildfires and flooding, biodiversity and species loss, expansion of vectors of infectious diseases, reduction or arable land alongside growth of intensive and factory farming, a proliferation of microplastics, antimicrobial resistance, and chemical contamination of the environment.

Consequently, the authors argue, the field should no longer be limited to health care, public health policy, clinical controversies, and medical ethics:

The “nature rights” movement continues to advance swiftly across the globe. Recently, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in an advisory opinion that to protect humans from climate change and other environmental disasters, nature should be granted “rights.” From the opinion (citations omitted): The Court takes note that the United Nations General Assembly has adopt fifteen resolutions and twelve reports that reflect the increasing recognition of the case law on the Earth and the rights of Nature at the global level. Additionally, the Pact for the Future, adopted by Member States of the United Nations in 2024, declares “the urgent need for a fundamental shift in our approach in order to achieve a world in which humanity lives in Read More ›

Science, medical, and bioethics journals are setting themselves up as the new political resistance to Trump policies, most particularly around global warming controversies. For example, The Lancet published a piece blaming the Los Angeles fires on climate change, which is hardly a medical issue properly understood. A bit later — as I wrote about here — a major bioethics journal published an advocacy article asserting that it is up to bioethicists to prevent global warming. Not to be undone, JAMA has just published a column decrying Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord and claiming that preventing climate change is now up to doctors. From, “Defying Environmental Deregulation:” These policy changes may appear catastrophic for effective climate action, but they Read More ›

The assistant secretary general of the U.S., Kanni Wignaraja, wants “nature” to go to court so that tribunals can set environmental policy for the world. From her “Nature Goes to Court,” published by the U.N. Development Programme (of which she is a regional director): Nature is taking the stand as courtrooms worldwide become battlegrounds for Earth’s rights. The rise in climate litigation shows how the environment can take centre stage as a plaintiff, demanding justice and accountability, benefiting us all. . . . Good grief. “Nature” would not be “going to court” or doing anything as viruses, geological features, flora and fauna would be utterly oblivious of the proceedings. What Wignaraja really means is that people who think like her Read More ›

About a month ago, some bioethicists claimed that bioethics should prevent climate change. My eyes had finally stopped rolling when lo and behold, I learn from three UN Women researchers — in Scientific American, no less — that feminism holds the real key to preventing the planet from cooking. As you would expect, the opinion piece is a godawful mess that attacks capitalism and the use of fossil fuels, in other words, its authors disdain prosperity. From “How Feminism Can Guide Climate Change Action:” The current economic system that underpins that status quo is rooted in the extraction of natural resources and exploitation of cheap or unpaid labor, often done by women and marginalized communities. This system therefore drives the climate crisis while perpetuating inequalities based Read More ›