Scaring children is one of the most reprehensible ways to push climate alarmism, but using doctors and other caregivers is up there too.

There are a number of alarmist groups working to indoctrinate doctors, nurses and other health care professionals, especially during their education. Doctors and such are great message multipliers because they see a lot of people. That these people may be sick at the time is of no concern to the alarmists. They just want to spread their horrific message for political purposes.

The general rubric these alarmist groups typically use is so-called “climate and health.” Alarmist dogma says that human-caused climate change will be catastrophic and many of these catastrophes include adverse pubic health impacts. These include hurricanes, heatwaves, floods and droughts, plus the spread of various diseases. That there is no scientific basis for these scares is irrelevant.

Nor is there anything medical for doctors to do in the name of climate change, because all of these things occur naturally, in an unfortunate abundance. The alarmists really just want the medical community to be a carrier for their toxic message. Instead of pushing pills they are pushing alarmism.

A paradigm case is the Public Health Institute’s Center for Climate Change & Health. Their focus is definitely political, saying upfront that “The Center engages local leaders, scientists, policymakers, health care providers and civil society in mainstreaming the protection of health across a wide range of policies and sectors.

Their blog features alarmist stories like “Climate Change Made Hurricane Harvey Even More Dangerous to People’s Health.” They also boast that “The International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations, representing 1.3 million medical students from 126 nations, is leading the charge with opinion pieces and training curriculum on climate change and health.” No doubt the curriculum is as alarmist as the opinion pieces. Their website features an activist strategy paper titled “Climate Change, Health, and Equity: Opportunities for Action.

It is no surprise that the activist PHI has a number of federal funders. These include the medically focused Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Cancer Institute, National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, plus the policy making Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Justice.

Another case is the US Climate and Health Alliance, which bills itself as “a national network of health and public health practitioners dedicated to addressing the threats of climate change to health.” Their home page features a clearly alarmist news story titled “Will More Hot Days Mean More Inequality?

Their mission statement begins with “Advance efforts to mitigate climate change, while promoting and demonstrating the health benefits of reducing GHG emissions and building climate resilience.” and “Build the capacity of medical, nursing, public health and community health students and professionals to take action on issues related to climate change and health.” Note the focus on students.

There are also a number of alarmist organizations at the university level. An example is the YALE Climate Change and Health Initiative, part of the Yale School of Public Health. Their home page begins with these hugely alarmist claims:

Climate change has profound implications for human health, today and in the future. The 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change concluded that: the effects of climate change are being felt today, and future projections represent an unacceptably high and potentially catastrophic risk to human health; tackling climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century; the health community has a vital part to play in accelerating progress to address climate change.”

Clearly the vital part to be played by the health community is in political activism. In fact the home page focuses on reducing CO2 emissions, which is certainly not part of medical practice. Note that what this initiative claims to do is to “provide a comprehensive educational program.” In short it is an alarmist indoctrination program at a major public health school and there are many like it.

Those of us who are skeptical of the excesses of climate alarmism need to be aware of these politically motivated so-called health initiatives and to push back. There is no science here, just activism and student indoctrination. In particular, federal funding should cease.

Even if climate alarmism were true, which it most certainly is not, it would create no new medical education needs. The scary alarmist claims are entirely statistical, namely that certain types of bad weather and disease will occur more often. Medical personnel are already trained to deal with these events because they occur naturally. The sole purpose of these so-called education initiatives is to spread the alarmist dogma. Ironically this is just like using carriers to spread a disease, which alarmism resembles — the disease of false beliefs. We need to stop this spread.