I hope this will put an end to some of the wild exaggerations about #Fukushima: bit.ly/L8dClU Not that it will.
— GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) May 23, 2012
Justice for Ronald McDonald. ABC Radio National's Background Briefing on Sunday:
A GROUP of residents in Adelaide have opened a new front against the fast food giant. They're trying to stop a McDonald's restaurant opening opposite a school, arguing it will raise childhood obesity rates in the area.
Professor of Public Health John Coveney on website The Conversation with the evidence, May 18:
THERE'S a study from California showing that there's a relationship between schools that are quite close to fast-food outlets and the rates of obesity in those schools.
The research. The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity, Currie et al, 2009:
THIS research leaves several questions unanswered. The overall quantitative contribution of the expansion of the fast-food industry to the increase in obesity rate remains unclear. Relatively few schools are located within 0.1 miles of a fast food restaurant, so the impact identified by our paper applies to a relatively small population. We cannot speculate about the generalisability of our research to other samples.
Never mind. Coveney explains on The Conversation:
QUESTION: What would you say, in your personal opinion, are the chances of success in stopping the establishment of this fast-food outlet?
Coveney: Well I think they're good. Now that we have a public health act (SA Public Health Act 2011), it allows us to use what's called the "precautionary principle". That is, even though we don't have all of the evidence, when there's a suggestion a course of action could be injurious to health, we should question whether we should pursue that activity.
From the Oz's Cut & Paste section.
So there you have it, that's the quality of "evidence" that is sadly typical in this area.
Basically, they have no idea whether or not so-called "junk food" outlets close to schools has anything to do with current rates of obesity, but let's ban them anyway, just in case.
On February 22, 2012, I gave a lecture at the House of Commons explaining the nature of the arguments for climate alarm, and offering my reasons for regarding the concern as being unjustifiably exaggerated. The slides of this lecture were widely circulated. Not surprisingly, the lecture led to a variety of complaints from those supporting alarm. The most thoughtful of these (by Hoskins, Mitchell, Palmer, Shine and Wolff) was a detailed critique posted at the website of the Grantham Institute that Hoskins heads. While there was a considerable amount of agreement between the critics and myself, the overall tenor of the critique suggested that I was presenting a misleading position. The following is my response to this critique. Since both the critique and my lecture focused on the science, the discussion is, of necessity, technical. Moreover, there are distinct limits to what can be covered in a one hour lecture. The following provides more detail than could be included in the lecture.The critique by Hoskins et al. of a lecture that I recently gave seems to be primarily a statement of subjective disagreement, though it has important errors, and is highly misleading. The critics are, for the most part, scientists for whom I have considerable respect. The following response to their critique will, I hope, be considered to be part of a constructive exchange. Such constructive exchanges are new in the field of global warming, and, perhaps, represent a return to the normal process of scientific discourse.