There’s no bow too long for the screeching ninnies of climate alarmism to draw. Climate change has already been blamed for everything from a surplus of prostitutes to a shortage of maple syrup.
Worse, though, is the unseemly haste with which green zealots rush to exploit any tragedy. The smoke from Australia’s bushfires is yet to clear, but already Tim Flannery’s climate muppet show is Chicken-Little screeching that “You’re all gonna die!”
But, like almost everything that spews from the donations-desperate Climate Council, that’s egregious, uninformed nonsense.
You may have read several articles recently about the effects of bushfire smoke on your body.
Health experts have warned that smoke particles can aggravate conditions like asthma, and even trigger heart attacks or strokes.
Others compare the exposure to smoking several cigarettes a day.
This is precisely the kind of shrieking nonsense being peddled by the Climate Council.
But is that comparison fair and accurate?
The Australian Institute of Sport’s chief medical officer, David Hughes, does not think so.
“It is really about the concentration of particulate matter, particularly PM 2.5s, which are the particles which have the most detrimental effect in smoky air,” he said.
“There is a mathematical equation which says that, if that [pollution] is at a certain level, it can be the equivalent to smoking a certain number of cigarettes.
“But those sorts of measures and comparisons are imprecise.”
The chemicals inhaled when smoking a cigarette are much more toxic and harmful than what is found in bushfire smoke.
Also, when you smoke a cigarette, you deliberately suck its chemical cocktail deep into your lungs.
So, typical of the sort of Flannery flim-flam we’ve so sadly become used to, it’s a farrago of bad science and egregious scaremongering.
Dr Hughes said the smoke levels in south-east Australia were dangerous, but they would not cause the same long-term health problems as air pollution in countries like India and China.
“Generally speaking, the smoke from burning, even though it is not good for our health, is less harmful than industrial pollution,” he said.
Dr Hughes said most of the harm caused by bushfire smoke would be short-lived…”Generally, most healthy people will recover without any long-term effects.”
In fact, as we see repeatedly in these sort of disasters, green scare-mongering is by far the deadliest threat.
Nonetheless, the fire crisis’s ill effects are not limited to physical health.
Canberra mother Louise Grace said the weeks of thick smoke stoked deep fears about her eight-month-old son, Eric…”I’ve been lying awake until midnight worrying about how he’s coping.”
The ACT’s chief psychiatrist, Denise Riordan, said this type of anxiety could be traumatic, but was manageable.
abc.net.au/news/2020-01-09/is-breathing-in-smoky-air-really-the-same-as-smoking-cigarettes/
For a start, stop listening to zealous idiots like the Climate Council and the left-media.
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