The Health Benefits of Global Warming
This is a panel from today’s Doonesbury comic (click the image for to read the rest,) in which, White House Press person Dana Perino is grilled on OFFAL‘s awareness of the issues of global climate change.
It tracks pretty well with an interview on today’s Democracy Now! program, on the implications of climate change, during which, was played a recording of White House Press person Dana Perino being grilled on the Administration’s manipulation of testimony on possible effects of global climate change on public health. It’s a somewhat lengthy quote, but I’ve boldened my favorite parts for you.:
DANA PERINO: As I understand it, in the draft there was broad characterizations about climate change science that didn’t align with the IPCC. And we have experts and scientists across this administration that can take a look at that testimony and say, “This is an error” or “This doesn’t make sense.” And so, the decision on behalf of CDC was to focus that testimony on public health benefits. There are public health benefits to climate change, as well, but both benefits and concerns that somebody like a Dr. Gerberding, who is the expert in the field, could address. And so, that’s the testimony that she provided yesterday.
REPORTER: Is it typical for the White House to cut that much of an administration official’s prepared —
DANA PERINO: You know, I don’t look at — what I can tell you, it is typical for us to review testimony that comes across. And I think that when you have an issue as large as climate change and as complicated — and the White House reaches out to all sorts of scientists across the administration when it comes to climate change — if they have concerns that the IPCC document, which we agreed to its conclusions on, does not align with the testimony, that the prudent thing to do is to move forward, to have her testimony — and remember, we only suggest the edits.
REPORTER: There’s another CDC official saying that the testimony was “eviscerated,” which is pretty — I guess, accusing the White House of playing very heavy hands.
DANA PERINO: I understand what they’re accusing us of, but I can — I just reject it. And I will tell you that, again, we believe climate change is real; we believe that humans are largely responsible; we are working on a way to solve the problem. And in the meantime, we are working with experts like Julie Gerberding to figure out what are going to be the health benefits and the health concerns of climate change, of which there are many. And she testified fully on it yesterday.
I. Can’t. Fucking. Wait. For the public health benefits of global climate change.
People never freeze to death in the future, it’s so warm!
It’s a brilliant marketing ploy. Lot’s of deadly things have been marketed for their health benefits. Cigarettes, even. People eat that shit up!
Can it be argued that self-destructive addictive pathology itself benefits health? I’ll bet it can!
Hat-tip to Philosoraptor, Winston Smith on the Washington Post article linked above.
Stump Lane 
i’m not a physician, but i used to have an office next to one, and in the last decade of the last century he and i co-authored an article whose abstract remains available today via PubMed – PMID 7575289
that man has gone on to greatness and although i have not seen him for a decade he may still remember me (my name will always appear with his on his full c.v.) –
“In 2005, he was awarded as an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow, and as a Lead Author on IPCC reports for 1995, 1998, 2001, and 2007, shares in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore.”
and did i mention that i took a course with noam chomsky once? he gave me an a – in this i was not so unique – he gave everybody a’s
the course was titled “intellectuals and social change” –
and since then, i have continued to be an intellectual, of a sort, and social change has continued
coincidence?
and i read a speech recently in which bill moyers quoted a phrase from “italian philosopher” gramsci – “pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the will”
moyers knew that most of the audience would not know that gramsci was a communist – he could have mentioned it, but he chose not to – was he being dishonest, or merely discreet?
he was lbj’s spokesmodel, like dana perino now is for w
and yet i think of moyers as now being on MY side – OUR side, my dear montag –
so who knows if on some future occasion our sister dana might yet come to play a constructive role in the human race’s further evolution, if any?