Eighteen UK doctors speak out about covid vaccine concerns
Doctors for Patients UK | December 21, 2022
Doctors for Patients UK (DFPUK) was launched in September 2022 and has become a fast-growing group of UK doctors who are dedicated to practising ethical, evidence-based, patient-centred medicine. Our group was borne out of increasing concerns that core principles of medical ethics are being disregarded, such as the oath to “First do no harm”, respect for individual bodily autonomy and the need to obtain full and informed consent for all medical interventions.
Many doctors, in the UK and internationally, have become increasingly concerned about the safety profile of Covid-19 vaccines and the continued rollout of these products to the public, including pregnant women and children. Several doctors in DFPUK have submitted multiple Yellow Card reports of adverse events to the MHRA, and have signed letters to the JCVI, MHRA, the RCOG, Prime Minister and others to express their concerns, but have seen little or no response or action taken.
They have, therefore, now compiled the video above in which they share their individual perspectives, clinical experiences and serious ethical concerns, in the hope that urgent action will finally be taken by the authorities.
This fulfils their duty, as outlined by the General Medical Council, for doctors to take prompt action when they see that patient safety is being compromised.
For any enquiries about DFPUK or the video please contact doctorsforpatientsuk@proton.me Please review the information under our resources page for further information and presentations on this issue.
Vaccine Failure a Major Determinant of Measles and Pertussis Outbreaks
Blaming the Children and Families for Vaccine Choice is not Justified
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | December 28, 2022
On vacation this week I had a chance to catch up on movies and watched Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe produced by Del Bigtree which focused on the MMR vaccine and the explosive epidemiology of autism in countries where this product is used. I was asked how dangerous measles was, so I went to the modern literature on measles and pertussis outbreaks and found this large review by Phadke et al from Emory University and was shocked at what I learned.
Phadke VK, Bednarczyk RA, Salmon DA, Omer SB. Association Between Vaccine Refusal and Vaccine-Preventable Diseases in the United States: A Review of Measles and Pertussis. JAMA. 2016 Mar 15;315(11):1149-58. doi: 10.1001/jama.2016.1353. Erratum in: JAMA. 2016 May 17;315(19):2125. Erratum in: JAMA. 2016 May 17;315 (19):2125. PMID: 26978210; PMCID: PMC5007135.
For measles, since it’s declaration of eradication in 2000 to 2015, there were 18 published measles studies (9 annual summaries and 9 outbreak reports), which described 1416 measles cases (individual age range, 2 weeks-84 years; 178 cases younger than 12 months) and 43.2% had been vaccinated against measles.
In this paper no hospitalizations or deaths were reported. Among 32 reports of pertussis outbreaks, which included 10,609 individuals for whom vaccination status was reported (age range, 10 days-87 years), the 5 largest statewide epidemics had substantial proportions (55%) that were vaccinated.
While the authors, like so many in public health, attempted to blame the victim (patients and families) for vaccine hesitancy, they had to concede: “However, several pertussis outbreaks also occurred in highly vaccinated populations, indicating waning immunity.”
For pertussis, which is readily treated with antibiotics, there were no reported hospitalizations or deaths in this study. In summary, large fractions of “preventable disease outbreaks” involving measles and pertussis occur because vaccines fail to provide adequate protection.
Given the neuropsychiatric concerns over the MMR vaccine and the stochastic risk of allergic/immunologic reactions to any injection including components of (DTaP, Tdap) or MMR, the parental movement for vaccine choice is well justified.
For measles and pertussis, the vaccines convey imperfect protection and breakthrough infection (vaccine failure) should receive considerable “blame” by public health researchers.
CDC About Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis Vaccines accessed Dec 28, 2022
The (Covid) Law is an Ass – No Jab, No Job
The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | December 28, 2022
As I suggested in my article yesterday, 2023 will be the year of the excuse. One of those excuses will be that the vaccine may have caused some harm but it saved many more people.
A similar excuse of “we had to do these things to save lives” can be seen in a recent and terrible employment tribunal decision concerning care home staff.
Barchester Healthcare is one of the largest care home providers in the UK with over 250 care homes. In January 2021 it created a new vaccine policy whereby new staff would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Furthermore, existing staff wouldn’t be promoted or paid bonuses if they refused vaccination.
Shortly afterwards, in February of that year, it made vaccination a condition of employment for all of its 17,000 employees. Workers who weren’t exempt were told that by the end of April 2021 they could be dismissed if not jabbed. They were told it was part of their ‘moral and ethical duty to do the right thing’ and it was to be considered as a privilege to be vaccinated before the rest of the general population.
Between 11 November 2021 and 15 March 2022 it became mandatory for care home workers in the UK to be vaccinated. As a result up to 60,000 workers lost their jobs. However, vaccination was not mandatory when Barchester started firing it’s staff.
Five of the dismissed employees brought a claim of unfair dismissal against their former employer. One of their arguments was that the dismissal breached Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which concerns the right to respect for private and family life. Two of the claimants also argued that their right to freedom of religion or belief (Article 9) had also been breached.
The decision, which was published on 8 December 2022, found in favour of Barchester Healthcare. The tribunal decided that the reason for the claimants’ dismissal was genuine and undertaken fairly. Furthermore, firing the unvaccinated workers was done in order to protect the clinically vulnerable and was therefore fine.
Barchester said it needed to protect people because 10% of its residents and six staff members died “with Covid” in 2020.
When dealing with the issue of freedom of religion, this was dismissed due to the number of Christians and Muslims that had been vaccinated.
The Judge, who clearly sounded biased in his views, said “[Barchester] of course never proposed, for instance, vaccination by force.” Well that’s ok then, no one was tied down and vaccinated, case closed!
“Whilst they would not have judged it as free choice given the obvious implications of a loss of employment, it was a choice they had.”
He went on: “It was at pains, throughout the introduction of the policy, to reaffirm that it recognised vaccines could not be mandated, that vaccination was the choice of the individual, that consent had to be given freely and consent to future vaccination could be withdrawn at any stage.” It sounds like the Judge is actually Barchester’s representation!
Naturally, Barchester was thrilled:
“We welcome the ruling of the employment tribunal who found our vaccine policy to be reasonable, and accepted the introduction of our policy to reduce the risk of spread of Covid infection in our homes and hospitals. However we do respect personal choice and the decision of those who didn’t want the vaccine and we wish those staff well.”
The caring-times, who also reported on this case, quoted Sejal Raja a Partner at Weightmans law firm.
“This is a significant and welcome ruling, that will have direct implications for those employers in the care industry, who may face similar claims in the future.
The tribunal recognised the principle, enshrined in law, that people must be allowed to hold, and act, in line with their personal beliefs. But the ruling highlighted that the law also permits difficult but essential decisions to be taken where these rights interfere in order to protect others’ inviolable rights – specifically the right to life.
This judgement will give care home management teams that acted responsibly, with due process and with the safety of their residents front of mind, confidence in their decisions.”
The legal system has kicked off 2023 – the year of the excuse, with an extension of the excuse I reported on yesterday – “these things are necessary (and now legal) to save lives”.
Whilst Sejal Raja welcomes the decision, in reality it is a worrying and dangerous one. It sets the precedent that you can be sacked from your job if you don’t get vaccinated from the latest thing. No matter if there is no legal basis for the vaccination (which would also be wrong but anyway). And no need to show any data that supports your opinion that it protects people. If I read a headline on the BBC that says that the Science has found that the latest thing protects others from the latest thing then your human rights can be trampled on. And this latest judgement has just made you being trampled on in the future, legal and far more likely.
Top White House Covid Advisor Admits: ‘No Study in the World Shows Masks Work’
Infowars | December 28, 2022
A viral video features top White House Covid adviser Dr. Ashish Jha admitting there are no studies that show face masks work.
“There’s no study in the world that shows that masks work that well,” Jha told The Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this month.
“So you’re never going to get the kind of benefit from mandatory year-round masking as you would from making substantial improvements in indoor air quality, plus it’s a lot easier to implement as well,” he continued. “So this is an area where we’re doing a lot and trying to really encourage people to use the resources they have to make those investments and start really improving ventilation filtration in buildings.”
Despite his admission, Dr. Jha and other top Covid advisers have previously advocated for masking.
Jha’s vacillation on whether masks work parallels with NIAID Director Anthony Fauci’s own back-and-forth remarks on masks, which he initially claimed do not work.
Jha has previously been criticized for giving Americans shady medical advice encouraging them to take both flu and Covid-19 jabs at the same time, saying, “That’s why God gave you two arms.”
Despite their questionable efficacy, many places around the country are once again considering implementing mandatory face mask policies.
No rise in temps or rainfall in Bangladesh for 100 years, despite alarmists pointing to it as ‘canary in the coalmine’
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | DECEMBER 28, 2022
The country of Bangladesh is mostly a floodplain. Over 80% of the territory is classified as such, while 75% of the land is less than 10 metres above sea level. Heavy monsoons and widespread flooding are common. In an average year, 18% of the landmass is inundated, a figure that rose to 75% in 1988. What better place for western guilt-trippers to highlight and claim that all the natural tribulations are down to humans changing the climate? And what better ‘poster child’ for grant-hungry activists and local politicians to highlight when demanding large amounts of ‘compensation’ from developed nations to assuage the sins of industrialisation?
Earlier this year, Bangladesh was hit by the regular monsoon rains and flooding. Sky News reported that “experts say that climate change is increasing the frequency, ferocity and unpredictability of floods in Bangladesh”. Needless to say, the BBC made the same point, adding that “experts say that climate change is increasing the likelihood of events like this happening around the world”.
Presumably, when they talk about climate change, Sky and the BBC are worried about flooding being caused by rising temperatures and increased rainfall. It might therefore be considered curious that these climate changes do not seem to have affected Bangladesh.
According to figures compiled for the World Bank, the average temperature in Bangladesh is the same today as it was 100 years ago. There are the usual cyclical changes, but global warming is not much in evidence around the Bay of Bengal.
Let’s try rainfall.
Again according to the World Bank, we see little change in the overall trend going back 100 years. If anything, rainfall has slightly decreased, and there‘s certainly nothing unusual in the recent past. The graph shows that rainfall can vary widely between years. Severe monsoons in the past have caused enormous damage and heavy loss of life. Six catastrophic floods were recorded in the 19th century and 18 in the 20th. These days, hundreds of people can die in the flooding; in the past the figures could run into hundreds of thousands.
In a recent article in Climate Home News, it was said that Bangladeshis were dealing with wave after wave of climate chaos. The article “sponsored” by the international ngo Helvetas told its Western audience that one of the impacts of these disasters is “forced migration”. Of course, this plays into another common climate scare, suggesting, without any discernible evidence, that huge numbers of people will become ‘climate refugees’ in the future, mostly from tropical areas, and inevitably seeking to move northwards to ‘safety’.
Making Bangladesh a poster country for Western Armageddonites spreading the pseudoscientific notion that humans are causing the climate to radically change, does the country few favours. It is sited in many geographically fragile areas, and is prone to tropical cyclones. But over 160 million people are sustained by good agriculture, increased manufacturing development, and economic growth of around 6% per annum.
As countries become more prosperous, they can become more resilient in the face of what nature has always thrown at them. This appears to have happened in the case of Bangladesh, where the number of fatalities from flooding has significantly declined over the last 50 years. Surely, this is the good news story that should be spread in mainstream media, and probably would be if the climate change narrative was not embedded in every part of the discourse.
As we have reported throughout the year, it has been a disastrous period for climate alarmists preaching their gospel of doom to inflict a controlling Net Zero political agenda across the world. Global warming ran out of steam years ago, and no amount of ‘adjusting’ of surface temperature databases can hide that fact. Weather events are cyclical, and attributing any one event to human activity is model-driven junk science. Summer Arctic sea ice stopped declining over a decade ago, but David Attenborough still says it could all be gone by 2035. Polar bears, penguins and coral – all doing nicely thank you. More prosperous and healthier societies are learning to protect themselves against the ravages of Mother Nature. Small increases in carbon dioxide, otherwise known as plant food, continue to green up the planet, leading to higher food yields, reduced famine and healthier eco systems.
Powering up the WHO: be alert and alarmed
Why proposed changes to the International Health Regulations are a VERY BAD idea
By Libby Klein | Reclaim Ethical Medicine | December 18, 2022
One might think that of course we need an international body that can help everyone around the world to work together in times of crisis to combat pandemics and other scary global things.
Well that sounds sensible.
One might think that’s what we have the World Health Organisation (WHO) for.
Well that may have been the original idea, but it turns out there’s a few issues with the WHO. How effective is it and what role should it have?
Seems the world has skipped past those questions and gone straight to: let’s give the WHO all the power it needs so that it can do a better job of controlling pandemics.
And let’s not just tweak one or two things here and there. Let’s have a whole new treaty. And let’s call it something really long, like Convention, Agreement or Other International Instrument on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response and give it a confusing acronym, like CA+.
AND let’s also simultaneously amend the existing International Health Regulations. In ways that overlap. Through forums which are supposedly transparent but which are largely conducted in secret.
There’s a lot going on here. But don’t be fooled by the flowery language or put off by the density and complexity of the documents. Be assured there are some big issues which warrant your attention.
I’ve listed some of the issues in the most recent proposals to amend the International Health Regulations below. Please add your comments and share your insights!
Note: they don’t call a spade a spade and they don’t call a pandemic a pandemic. They call it a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern”. There’s 2 reasons for that:
- they like to use long confusing names and make up impressive acronyms (“PHEIC”)
- they want to have power to do all sorts of things whether or not there’s actually a pandemic and even where they think there might be something happening which one day may result in a pandemic.
The scope of WHO’s powers is to be broadened significantly, from “public health risk” to “all risks with a potential to impact public health” (Article 2)
- Proposed new article 13A recognises the WHO as the authority of public health response during a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. (Note: none of the published submissions make this suggestion. Where did it come from?)
- Article 13A includes an undertaking by all Member States, that they will follow WHO’s “recommendations”. Earlier in the document, “recommendations” are defined to be legally binding.
- Countries are also required to ensure they have regulatory agency with legal authority to implement WHO’s dictates. (Article 4 para 1)
- Countries can contest the legally binding recommendations but the Emergency Committee’s review decision will be final, following which the country must report to the WHO that it has complied. (Article 43 para 6).
- The World Health Assembly can make decisions “on the strengthening of the implementation of these Regulations and improvement of compliance” – obscure language – does this mean the World Health Assembly can decide on sanctions?
- Developed countries must provide funding (Article 44 para 2(f); Annex 1 new para “1 bis”)
- The World Health Assembly will oversee expenditure of funds that Member States are required to provide (Article 44A para 2).
- WHO decides on allocation of health products (Article 13A).
- WHO requires Member States to scale up production (Article 13A para 4), and to supply health products to the WHO or other Member States as directed by the WHO (Article 13 para 5).
- The Director General – a single person – can make temporary, binding “recommendations” on the basis that an event has the potential to become a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and those recommendations can continue in force beyond the end of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (Article 15).
- The concept of public health measures which are aimed at achieving “the appropriate level of health protection” is to be removed. The new objective is to attain the “highest achievable level of health protection” without any consideration of proportionality.
- WHO can impose restrictions on international travel – and may not even disclose the information it has relied on in doing so – Article 11.
- Any discussions that countries have amongst themselves must be reported to the WHO (Article 44 para 3).
- Countries must comply with requests by WHO or other countries (Annex 10).
- Governments will be required to enforce compliance with WHO health measures by all actors including NGOs (Article 42).
- Countries must cooperate in censorship of information which the WHO deems to be “false and unreliable (Article 44 para 1(h)).
- WHO will strengthen capacities to counter misinformation and disinformation (Annex 1 para 7).
- The Director General – a single person – unilaterally determines whether there is a (potential or actual) Public Health Emergency of International Concern in a particular location. (Article 12 para 1).
- In deciding whether to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the Director General does not have to consult with the country concerned or its own Emergency Committee (Article 12 para 2). (And at any rate the Director General chooses the members of the Emergency Committee – Article 48 para 2.)
- The ability of the country to object to the WHO’s declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern has been removed (Article 12 para 3).
- There is to be “secure global digital exchange of health information” (Article 44 para 2(d))
- Centralised data sharing is to be controlled by the WHO (Article 11)
- Governments can agree to share and store your personal health data (Article 45 para 4).
- Regulatory dossiers submitted by manufacturers concerning safety and efficacy, and manufacturing and quality control measures, have to be shared, but countries can only use that information for accelerating the manufacture and supply of those products and technologies. There is no reference to using the data to make their own assessment of safety and efficacy, betraying a blind spot on the part of the drafters: they are so focussed on facilitating the imposition of pharmaceutical products on everybody that they don’t even think to make provisions regarding sharing of information for the purpose of assessing or monitoring safety and efficacy.
- There is a requirement to adopt “legal, administrative and technical measures to diversify and increase production of health products” (Annex 1 para 7) (but not to promote development of early treatment protocols for example).
- Rules of engagement: Malaysia (article 12 para 7) and Africa (article 13A para 7) have proposed new wording which ostensibly puts some guard rails around how the WHO engages with non-State actors, by requiring the WHO to comply with paragraph 73 of the Framework for Engagement of Non-State Actors (FENSA). However, that paragraph in FENSA does not impose any constraints on the WHO. On the contrary, it grants the Director-General complete flexibility: “… the Director-General may exercise flexibility as might be needed in the application of procedures of this framework in those responses, when he/she deems necessary, in accordance with WHO’s responsibilities as health cluster lead.” This complete flexibility is given to a single individual, the Director-General of the WHO.
- In terms of disclosure, the new article 13A does require the WHO to report all its engagements with other stakeholders to the World Health Assembly, and to “provide documents and information relating to such engagements upon request of State Parties.” However, this is far from requiring full disclosure. The WHO could supply summary documents and information, rather than making full disclosure. The WHO has not disclosed who has proposed this new article 13A.
Steve Kirsch interview with UK cardiologist Aseem Malhotra
stkirsch – December 21, 2022
My 80-minute interview with famous UK cardiologist Aseem Malhotra. He went from pro-vax to anti-vax. He noted that “No cardiologist that you know of is getting any more COVID jabs. That’s information that’s been shared with me since my publication.” Guess what? The mainstream UK press is NOT covering that.
In one year, the UK has gone from nearly all the UK cardiologists getting jabbed to all of them refusing to get any more. That’s a pretty dramatic shift in opinion in 1 year. The narrative cannot be maintained much longer. How many years will it be before the mainstream media reports this?
We covered a lot of ground in the 80 minute interview which I recorded using Squadcast.fm for crystal clarity of the video, then I imported into Davinci Resolve to assemble the two videos and normalize the sound levels.
Topics covered (but not in this order):
- WHO says that patients should be fully informed of side effects but for the vaccine the rule doesn’t apply
- Is there a scientific reason that vaccines should have liability protection? What happened when India refused to offer it? [Kudos to India for being smarter than the rest of the world health authorities ]
- When does the nonsense stop in the UK?
- Will anyone debate you? Why do they all refuse?
- Is the vaccine helpful for anyone?
- C, D, Zinc + nasal rinses: far better than vaccines for COVID?
- 8% needed to seek medical attention after the vax (per v-safe, rasmussen, and my surveys). Is that “safe”? Or ridiculously unsafe? What should it be?
- How many red-pilled cardiologists are there in the UK? It went from 5% against to 100% against in just one year!
- What are the death and disability rates from the vax?
- Is there enough evidence now to stop the vaccines? So why aren’t they?
- Does the vax do anything good? or is it all net bad?
- Did the press cover your paper? WTF?!!? Why not? They covered all your other papers!
- You got the vax. Have you screened yourself for subclinical myocarditis?
- How confident are you that your dad died suddenly due to the vaccine?
- Nobody wanted to see the Israeli safety data. Ever heard of that before?
- What do you think of the embalmer clots?
- How are they trying to discredit you? Have people accused you of being a grifter? motivations?
- Has anyone published a rebuttal to your paper? With the entire world against you (at least publicly), it seems odd nobody is challenging your papers on COVID.
Aseem’s patreon account has various levels if you would like to support his work.
U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked (1989 article)
Kind of like the “Winter of Illness and Death”
By Igor Chudov | December 26, 2022
Let’s appreciate how lucky we all are:
- We are having a great holiday season.
- We did not die last year in the “Winter of Illness and Death for the Unvaccinated.”
- We did not die of overheating, starvation, dust bowl, and massive ocean flooding that was supposed to kill or displace us by 2019.
Let’s talk about the last point: a 1989 AP article explains that the UN predicted a global climate disaster that was supposed to happen within 30 years, so by 2019.
The article is terrifying to read. Actual quotes:
- Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.
- Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of ″eco- refugees.”
- Ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations.
- The most conservative scientific estimate is that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown.
You may be relieved to find out that the actual temperature change between 1989 and 2021, if you believe the official temperature numbers, is 0.85-0.27 degrees, or 0.58 degrees.
The 1989 UNEP report deals with degrees in CELSIUS, as does the chart above.
What about the global sea level that was supposed to inundate entire countries and turn people into eco-refugees? The NOAA ocean level chart helps us see what happened since 1989:
Instead of 3 feet, the sea level rose by 3 inches!
Some of my critically-thinking readers may ask: what if the dire prediction failed to materialize because of a success in curbing CO2 emissions? The helpful official carbon dioxide chart shows a continued rise of CO2 — so there was no real curbing of emissions.
This RECENT photo illustrates that climate change is real and threatening. Please find the difference between these two pictures!
In the 2022 report, like the UN 30 years ago, the WEF is also warning us that in 30 years, we will have to deal with 200 million climate refugees:
Climate change is causing heart attacks in 2022!
I totally believe in all this! How can the WEF be wrong?
Twitter Files describe Covid censorship campaign
RT | December 26, 2022
The latest batch of Twitter documents released by CEO Elon Musk show how the platform censored posts about Covid-19 that didn’t align with the White House’s message. Qualified doctors and epidemiologists were suppressed and banned at the direct request of the Biden administration, the documents suggest.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations pushed Twitter to moderate coronavirus-related content, journalist David Zweig reported on Monday, citing the company’s internal communications. While Trump’s team wanted to tamp down rumors of grocery-store shortages to combat panic-buying, Biden switched focus to “misinformation” about vaccines once his team took over in January 2021.
According to files seen by Zweig, Biden’s staff directly pressured Twitter to ban “high-profile anti-vaxxer accounts,” including that of former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson, who has persistently claimed that the risks of vaccination outweigh the benefits. Twitter complied and suspended Berenson in July 2021, but Twitter employees said afterwards that “the Biden team” was still “not satisfied” with the platform’s censorship efforts, and angrily demanded that it “de-platform several accounts.”
Twitter placed a warning label on the account of a Harvard epidemiologist who argued that “those with prior natural infection” do not need to be vaccinated, and flagged as “misleading” tweets that cited the Biden administration’s own data on Covid death rates. It used a combination of AI “bots” and contracted moderators in foreign countries to make these decisions.
A physician was flagged for sharing the results of a peer-reviewed study linking vaccination with cardiac arrests in young people, while another doctor was permanently suspended for referring to a published study suggesting that vaccination temporarily impairs male patients’ sperm count.
“Dissident yet legitimate content was labeled as misinformation, and the accounts of doctors and others were suspended both for tweeting opinions and demonstrably true information,” Zweig tweeted.
When former President Donald Trump urged his followers not to “be afraid of Covid” following his own recovery from the illness, Twitter’s senior moderators debated taking action against the tweet, before concluding that Trump’s “optimistic” assessment did not count as misinformation.
Since purchasing Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has released batches of documents shedding light on the platform’s previously opaque censorship policies. Published by several independent journalists, these document dumps have shown how Twitter suppressed information damaging to Joe Biden’s election campaign, colluded with the FBI to remove content the agency wanted hidden, assisted the US military’s online influence campaigns, and censored “anti-Ukraine narratives” on behalf of multiple US intelligence agencies.
Daily Mail Promotes ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’ Scare that Experts Call “Junk Science”
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | DECEMBER 24, 2022
The Daily Mail recently published a story claiming the world could face a mass extinction of plants and animals within less than 80 years, with more than a quarter of species dying by 2100. It was an eye-catching headline, timed of course to appear at the same time as the UN’s biodiversity conference. But curiously missing from the article, based on a recent science paper, was a note that most of the data underpinning the eco-scare were created by the authors of the report, while assumptions were made that global temperatures would rise by up to 5°C. Given that global temperatures have risen only 1.1°C over the last two centuries, and over the last two decades probably no more than 0.1°C, this looks a tad on the high side.
The report authors give considerable weight to the view that food chains are fragile in nature, and one extinction leads to another. This may be true in some cases, although most animals in the wild are resilient in adapting their diets to changing conditions. But building a media ‘mass death’ headline surely needs a few actual facts. The authors admit: “Apart from the obvious modelling and computational challenges to incorporate interactions among species, the main reason why there are few studies accounting for interactions is that obtaining sufficient data in most communities is intractable.” They add that an important caveat is that “while our virtual species are functionally realistic, they do not have taxonomic or phylogenetic meaning.” According to the Mail, the scientists aimed to build an “ecologically plausible Earth”.
Modelled results were obtained via a supercomputer assuming temperatures suddenly leap by between 4-5°C in just 80 years. The so-called ‘pathways’ feeding in these huge temperature rises are themselves the product of computers. But reality has started to bite in climate model circles with the realisation that their mock-ups are running far too hot. Four decades of wrong forecasts and the knowledge that global warming went off the boil two decades ago has led to a slight lowering of the various projections. But claiming that a quarter of species could disappear within 80 years as temperatures rise five times more than they have done for the last 200 is just fanciful speculation.
The Mail reported that the scientists’ tool can map extinctions everywhere on earth. It is said to confirm “beyond doubt” that the world is in the throes of its sixth mass extinction.
The sixth mass extinction scare is becoming very popular in climate Armageddon circles. Heavily promoted by the World Wildlife Fund, it has a lot going for it on the propaganda front, although some may quibble that it is notably short on actual proof. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 823 animals and plant species (mostly animals) that have gone extinct since 1500. If we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, as the Mail reports, we might have expected to be able to name more than 823 extinct species in 522 years.
Five years ago, the eminent Smithsonian paleontologist Doug Erwin dismissed sixth mass extinction talk as “junk science“. He went on to state that “many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were”.
The Australian science blogger Jo Nova had an interesting take on the latest mass extinction science paper. “So a supercomputer adds up 15,000 webs of low level data on sloths, bark and butterflies, with error bars larger than trends, in systems we don’t understand, and a million lines of code, and extrapolates data up the kazoo – what could possibly go wrong?”
She goes on to quote Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, who has noted that most of the species going extinct, “never existed in the first place”. Moore is another who is underwhelmed by extinction work produced by computers. He is unimpressed by estimates from the biologist Edward Wilson that 50,000 species go extinct every year. This estimate is based on computer models of the number of potential but as yet undiscovered species in the world.
“There’s no scientific basis for saying that 50,000 species are going extinct. The only place you can find them is in Edward O. Wilson’s computer at Harvard University. They’re actually electrons on a hard drive. I want a list of Latin names of actual species,” he wrote.
Finally, let us remember the Bramble Cay melomys, the first animal said to have become extinct due to human-caused climate change. Until recently, this little brown rat lived on a small sandy island off the coast of Australia. How it got there nobody knows, but rats are very resourceful and it probably hopped on a passing branch, said goodbye to a billion of its close relatives, and set sail. It liked its new home since there were plenty of blue turtle and birds eggs to eat. But, alas, its home was only three metres above sea level and the area prone to cyclones (your fault), so one day it got washed away. The Guardian was particularly taken with its sad end since it called for a “moment of silence”, and said it would “continue to fight for the things you believe in” – although presumably not eating blue turtle eggs.
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From the Archives
Is Israel to blame for the Iraq War?
American Goy | March 10, 2008
I am so tired of this old canard that “Israel had nothing to do with USA’s war with Iraq – in fact, it officially advised America against it”.
Bullshit. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Laith Marouf: Hezbollah’s position on US-Iran ceasefire: What you’re not being told
- Israel’s priority lies in destroying chances of peace between Iran, US: Ex-UN nuclear chief
- Ceasefire for all or for none: Iran shuts Hormuz over Lebanon attacks
- Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s ‘nuclear weapon’ that forced US retreat: Medvedev
- Energy crisis will last for months – Kremlin envoy
- Europe’s quiet role in the war on Iran
- Forty days that shook the Empire: How Iran turned the tables on US and prevailed
- Netanyahu unilaterally declares Lebanon outside of ceasefire deal
- Israeli leaders: ‘Not a single goal’ achieved in war with Iran
- What on earth just happened? Trump, Iran, and the unlikely ceasefire
- If Americans Knew
- Gazans face a triple crisis: severe shortages of water and bread, healthcare in tatters
- NY Times reports how Netanyahu took the US into Iran War
- A sigh of relief over Iran, but Gaza and Lebanon in dire straits – Daily Update
- Thousands dead and neighborhoods razed to the ground: Aid agencies fear southern Lebanon is becoming the new Gaza
- The war the US is fighting for Israel could cost trillions
- ‘Cigarette Burns, Nail Wounds’: Toddler Tortured in Gaza to Coerce Father
- Trump Says US Sent ‘a Lot of Guns’ to Protesters in Iran
- Israeli forces destroy 17 UN peacekeeper cameras in south Lebanon
- US-Israeli strikes ‘completely destroy’ synagogue in Tehran
- Archbishop for US Military Says Iran War Is Unjust Under Catholic Teaching
- No Tricks Zone
- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
- Former Pfizer Toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz Tells Bundestag Hearing Pfizer Vaccine Should Have Never Been Approved
- Energy Expert: Germany’s Nuclear Phaseout Was A “500 Billion Euro Mistake”
- New Research: South Australia’s Mid-Holocene Sea Surface Temperatures Were 4°C Warmer Than Today
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