But Green Crap and the NHS are So 2009

Mere experts are once again pestering the Minister for Health and News Corporation with the implication that royal colleges, medical faculties, medical publications and, of all things, doctors' organisations know a thing or two about public health. A bunch of meddlers calling itself the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change has warned that Britain's health systems are about as prepared for the effects of global warming as anything else in the country; among other things, almost ten per cent of healthcare buildings could be underwater the next time the Chancellor decides that a round of tax cuts for his chums is worth a few soggy carpets in the hovels of the proles. Quite aside from the fact that Jeremy C Hunt probably considers the floods in Cumbria a homeopathic remedy for rising damp, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine gave a neat summary of why exhortations to urgent action are unlikely to obtrude themselves with any great force upon the Conservative consciousness: "Elderly people, pregnant women and children can be especially vulnerable and are often the first to get into difficulty. Flooding in particular makes homes uninhabitable and displaces large numbers of people. Even temporary displacement can result in long term physical and psychological damage." In short, nobody will be too badly affected provided that they buy a home or two on inland sites, and keep the air conditioning in good working order, and perhaps arrange an extra skiing holiday when the weather becomes a bit sultry. Anyone who lacks the foresight to take these simple precautions will be made poorer and more miserable by any damage that takes place; and we all know that there are few better incentives than poverty and misery to stimulate the natural pluck and gumption of the British prole.