ROME — The once-prestigious Lancet medical journal warns this week that climate change threatens the survival of the human race “within decades.”
In its stated quest to “drive social and political change,” the Lancet has embraced radical climate alarmism, asserting Friday that climate change “harms health in all populations.”
“Climate change means many infectious diseases expand into previously safe areas and could increase pandemic risk,” the journal declares, and drives “population migration, political upheaval, and economic damage, all of which impact health.”
In this latest issue, the Lancet reiterates its unscientific and readily refutable claim that climate change is the “greatest global health threat of the 21st century.”
The Lancet itself revealed in 2021 that people are almost ten times more likely to die from cold weather than hot weather. As global temperatures have risen, all weather-related deaths have decreased significantly, suggesting that global warming actually saves lives.
Climate activists sit in so-called tripos at village Luetzerath near Erkelenz, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
“The threat is now to our very survival and to that of the ecosystem upon which we depend,” the journal confidently contends. “Grave impacts of climate change are already with us and could worsen catastrophically within decades.”
The journal goes on to make the extraordinary prophecy that even if carbon dioxide emissions ceased today and CO2 was drawn from our atmosphere, impacts will still “continue for millennia.”
The article also repeats apocalyptic predictions of that “substantial and sudden accelerations in sea level could arise from collapsing ice sheets” and sudden changes in the position of the Northern Jet Stream and in the function of major ocean circulations “risk dramatic changes in global weather patterns.”
Despite soaring energy prices in much of the northern hemisphere due to ideologically driven abandonment of fossil fuel production, the Lancet wags a finger at Europe’s failure to fully commit to the ill-conceived European Green Deal, despite its painful experience of dependence on Russian oil and gas.
In its zeal for green energy, the Lancet calls for “immediate action” which should include removing fossil fuel subsidies and “progressively taxing production,” which can in turn subsidize renewable power generation.
“Self-reliance on a green distributed energy system would enhance diplomatic and military security, reduce energy poverty, dampen energy price shocks, and stop almost the entire global population from breathing air that exceeds WHO air quality limits and threatens their health,” the journal alleges.
Along with these measures, governments can “pursue polices [sic] to promote socioeconomic equality too, create green jobs, and protect the poor from rising energy bills,” the journal declares. “With removal of subsidies governments could tax obesogenic unhealthy foods and shift to more sustainable, equitable, low-carbon food systems, making agriculture more resilient, and saving health-service costs.”
One can only hope that governments will allow themselves to be guided by common sense and a sincere pursuit of the good of their citizens rather than the alarmist ravings of a once-venerable but now thoroughly discredited medical journal.