This article is reprinted from National Review with the permission of the author.

The New England Journal of Medicine is pushing progressive politics in the guise of protecting health, again, this time publishing an article that attacks the fossil fuel industry. From, “Clearing the Smoke on Fossil Fuels — The Health Imperative for a Countermarketing Campaign”:

International Energy Agency analyses show that expected growth in global electricity demand can be met without any new fossil-fuel extraction; a recent comprehensive analysis concludes that there is a “large consensus” across all published studies that developing new oil and gas fields is “incompatible” with the target established by the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. But the fossil-fuel industry continues its reckless expansion of oil and gas extraction and production.

No, sufficient energy can’t be generated without fossil fuels — especially without a massive switch to nuclear power — and that problem may be intractable. Most renewable energy methods favored by the green crowd are weather-dependent. If the wind doesn’t blow, windmills don’t turn. If the sun doesn’t come out, solar energy generation is reduced. The Germans have even coined a word for the energy crisis caused there by this phenomenon: dunkelflaute, or “dark doldrum.”

The impediment is going to become even more urgent in coming years, when exponential increases in electricity generation will be required. Environmentalists insist, for example, that we all switch within a decade to electric vehicles and phase out natural gas in heating and cooking. The growth of AI alone will require so much additional power generation that Microsoft has contracted to open the still functioning Three Mile Island nuclear reactor solely to serve its growing AI farms. And what about destitute peoples? Are developing nations supposed to stifle the construction of electric grids until renewable sources can produce the needed energy? That seems particularly cruel to me.

Never mind. In the name of health there needs to be a massive propaganda — er, I mean, PR — campaign to turn people against fossil fuels:

It is time to counter the disinformation of the fossil-fuel industry. We believe local and state public health jurisdictions — in partnership with philanthropic organizations — should build a comprehensive public health campaign that weds countermarketing and community-based organizing to accomplish several ends. It should aim to limit the influence of the fossil-fuel industry by exposing its deceptive practices and massive health harms; to reduce the acceptability and availability of products and systems that cause fossil-fuel pollution; to inform the public about the health benefits of reduced fossil-fuel pollution; and to galvanize public support and political will for policies that protect from the health harms of fossil fuels and climate change and hold the fossil-fuel industry accountable.

The experience with tobacco also suggests that several complementary strategies would be valuable, such as Surgeon General warnings regarding the health harms of fossil fuels; strengthening and more robust enforcement of rules regarding misleading advertising and greenwashing; requirements for warning labels on gas stoves and other consumer products that produce harmful indoor and outdoor air pollution from fossil-fuel combustion; ending of fossil-fuel subsidies; and rules that minimize industry influence on national and international climate policy. . . .

A bold, large-scale countermarketing campaign can expose industry deception, shift the narrative, and ignite demand for clean energy policies that will safeguard our health now and in the future.

No, it won’t “ignite demand for clean energy policies” if they destroy the petroleum, gas, and coal industries.

Medical intellectuals may be clueless, but most people understand that modern society depends on the ubiquitous use of fossil fuels well beyond power generation and, indeed, that destroying its extraction and refinement would be catastrophic. Without fossil fuels millions would freeze in the winter and broil in the summer. Travel of all kinds would be materially impeded. Fertilizers would become far less available, reducing food production significantly. Plastic could not be manufactured, which, by the way, is used in countless medical products, including artificial heart valves. Petroleum by-products are also used in medicines such as antiseptics. Mundane products like paint and synthetic fiber carpets would cease to exist. Synthetic rubber would disappear, and kiss nylon pantyhose goodbye. And here’s an irony: Plastic cells are used in solar panels.

One need not be an energy “expert” to understand what an idiotic idea this is. Until the editors of the NEJM (along with those of other prominent medical journals) eschew politics and return full-time to their actual purpose of informing the medical sector about new treatment modalities and research results, trust in public health policy will continue to erode.