A plethora of on-message communicators, embedded in governments and global organisations, are engaged in disseminating messages to the masses urging us all to change our behaviours so as to save the world from purported existential threats. Near the top of the pyramid of these influencers are behavioural scientists, with the UK hosting many such ‘nudgers’ skilled in the art of persuading the populace to comply with diktats to ‘save’ the planet from a looming viral or climate apocalypse. But do these various mouthpieces promoting globalist agendas ever pause to question the legitimacy their goals? Recent evidence would suggest not.

We were only following orders, m’lud

Professional communicators know that human beings are more amenable to persuasion if the messenger is a trusted source. White-coated ‘doctors’ in the infamous Milgram experiments in the early 1960s represent a stark example of this phenomenon, naïve subjects demonstrating a willingness to administer what they believed to be life-threatening electric shocks when asked to do so by an ‘expert’. This propensity to obey authority was recognised in the influential MINDSPACE (2010) document, where a ‘messenger’ nudge (based on the fact that the source of the information matters) is one of nine recommended behavioural science strategies to strengthen government communications and thereby win people’s compliance with state diktats. We are currently witnessing a coordinated effort to exploit this inherent inclination to believe authoritative sources as a means of promoting climate catastrophism.

Trust me; I’m a doctor

The current year has already spawned two documents that peddle the climate-Armageddon narrative and, shamelessly, strive to exploit people’s inclination to swallow the proclamations of those in white coats. These documents are: a World Health Organisation (WHO) offering titled, ‘Communicating on Climate Change & Health: Toolkit for health professionals’, and ‘The Green Physician Toolkit’ produced by the Royal College of Physicians.   

Published in March 2024, the WHO tells health professionals that, ‘This toolkit will help you become an effective and powerful climate communicator’. The two authors of the document, Remy Shergill and Shreya Shrikhande, display impressive world-government credentials: the former belonging to Australia’s ‘Health & Climate Alliance’, as well as being a co-chair of a ‘Planetary Health Working Group’ at the George Institute for Global Health; the latter a member of the ‘Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute’. It is acknowledged in the preamble that the content is informed by ‘several consultation sessions with communications experts’. Given that the prominent behavioural scientist, Professor Susan Michie, is currently the chair of the WHO’s ‘Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights’, it is reasonable to assume that Michie (and/or her team of nudgers) have significantly shaped the content of this guidance.

Drawing heavily on the WHO document, the Green Physician Toolkit was published in July. It boldly announces that ‘Physicians have a vital role to play in helping the NHS reach its net zero goal’. Predictably, the Royal College of Physicians’ booklet uncritically regurgitates the climate-emergency propaganda, citing fanciful modelled estimates of potential excess deaths resulting from extreme weather (incorporating, of course, insidious masked figures to perpetuate fear). The toolkit goes on to recommend specific actions for its members, such as: ‘including sustainability as a standing item in all clinical governance meetings’; ‘communicating with patients about climate change to help them understand how it will affect their health’; and to ‘advocate for organisational change such as divestment from fossil fuel companies and implementation of green plans.’ If, after the covid event, we needed any more evidence of the politicisation of the medical profession, this is it.

Both these documents explicitly exploit the messenger nudge. Thus, the WHO publication states, ‘Health professionals wear many hats in society – one of which is a trusted community voice.’ By recruiting these respected mouthpieces, the authors aim to enable health professionals to ‘communicate with confidence’ and thereby ‘empower … patients, clients and communities to take measures that will help limit climate change’. Similarly, the Green Physician Toolkit includes the line, ‘You are uniquely placed as a trusted member of the community to discuss public health threats with patients’. It is clear that those pushing climate catastrophism agendas are unashamedly taking advantage of the fact that most people give credence to what their doctors tell them.

Are doctors getting dimmer?

Gaining access to medical school has long been considered one of the most formidable of academic challenges, requiring the highest A-level qualifications for entry. Once accepted onto a course, aspiring doctors must navigate a long and rigorous training programme, requiring the assimilation of huge amounts of information. At its best, the process produces highly knowledgeable physicians who can skilfully combine their in-depth understanding of the human body with their high levels of general intelligence so as to expertly tailor an optimal medical intervention for each individual patient. Alas – although many such practitioners remain – it seems that their number is dwindling year on year, replaced by an entity devoid of critical thinking who robotically follows top-down directives.

Based on my extended experience working in the NHS, I suspect the rot set in around the turn of the century with the increased reliance on centrally constructed protocols to direct healthcare interventions – of the type, ‘if X applies, then do Y’. The traditional GP, who once expertly combined multiple information sources (the presenting symptoms, knowledge of disease processes, the patient’s medical history, lifestyle and personal preferences), has too often been replaced by a passive and unthinking operative who instinctively looks upwards for instruction from technocrats.

The content of the two previously mentioned ‘climate emergency’ documents provide support for my doctors-are-getting-dimmer hypothesis. For instance, both publications perpetuate the ‘science is settled’ oxymoron: the WHO paper cites the David Attenborough quote, ‘Saving the planet is no longer just a scientific challenge but a communications challenge’; the Royal College of Physicians booklet implores its members, ‘Don’t discuss the science’. Clearly, the overarching directive is to ‘do as you’re told’, without any deliberation or reflection on the legitimacy of the instruction. Instead, their technocratic thought leaders relay communication advice such as, ‘Keep the message simple, and repeat it often and ‘Tell stories to connect people’. Should I ever visit my GP in the future, I imagine being told:

‘OK, so you’re worried about your testicular lump, Mr Sidley, but you really need to keep your concerns in perspective; do you know the world is burning up as we speak, burning up as we speak, burning up as we speak. And once upon a time – I think it was around the late 1990s - I visited the Gulf of Mexico and was informed by a local barman, while he served me my third shot of Tequila, that sea levels are on the rise…’  

It is, of course, unfair to suggest all physicians are displaying intellectual decline. Encouragingly, when the Green Physician Toolkit was posted on a GP online forum, it evoked some ridicule, with comments such as ‘virtue signalling & no use to anyone’, ‘seriously unethical’, and ‘Is this some kind of parody?’. Also, it would be wrong to suggest that it is only the medical professions that engages in this mindless collusion with climate catastrophism. The ‘UK Health Alliance on Climate Change’, whose central mission is ‘Empowering health professionals to advocate for better responses to climate change’, is an association of 48 healthcare organisations. While medical professions constitute the bulk of the membership, this collective of trusted messengers also comprises the British Dental Association, the Royal College of Nursing, The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and the Association of Clinical Psychologists.   

Do pro-government influencers ever check the legitimacy of their goals?       

Whether it be under the banner of ‘deadly pandemic’, ‘climate Armageddon’, or other purported existential crisis, the state recruits an array of trusted messengers to impress the dominant narrative onto the masses, and thereby lever compliance with their latest diktats. Is it unreasonable to suggest that those engaged in this mission to relay government communications should first check the validity of the goals that they are promoting?

Arguably, this question can most forcibly be put to those professionals at the top of the communication pyramid whose raison d’etre is to enhance the power of the state’s official messaging: the behavioural scientists. During the covid event, nudgers on the specialist SAGE subgroup, the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), routinely encouraged the deployment of fear, shame and peer pressure to encourage compliance with the draconian restrictions and subsequent ‘vaccine’ rollout. Did prominent behavioural scientists on the SPI-B – such as Professors David Halpern and Susan Michie – ever pause to reflect on the dire consequences of the behaviours they were pushing? For example, that lockdowns were an ineffectual strategy for controlling viral spread, but inflicted huge damage (including increased mortality) upon ordinary people, in the UK and across the world. Or that, in 2020, there was already robust evidence that masks were of no benefit in reducing the spread of respiratory pathogens, yet would inflict a range of physical, social and psychological harms.   

Celebrities can also be powerful influencers. During the covid event, a collective of actors and comedians combined forces to urge ethnic minorities to accept the covid ‘vaccines’:

‘I want to implore everyone to get their vaccine when called, so we can get back to the all-singing, all-dancing, rhythm of life that we love’ (comedian David Walliams);

‘Thank you to the millions who have already received their vaccinations and please “just get your vaccine” to the rest. Vaccines are helping us get back to everything we love’ (actor Jim Broadbent);

‘We love you. We don’t want you to get sick. We don’t want you to die… when your turn comes, take the jab’ (comedian Lenny Henry, in his letter to ‘Black Britain’).

These three high profile mouthpieces also participated in an emotion-laden film espousing the benefits of the jabs. (Intriguingly this – cringeworthy - film is now blocked on the official GOV.UK website, but can still be viewed here).

I have no doubt that, in this instance, the motives of these celebrities were altruistic. Furthermore, it is perhaps unfair to expect non-academics to do their own in-depth research before agreeing to lend their considerable weight to such ‘public health’ campaigns. But I do not think it is too much to ask that high profile media figures, or agents on their behalf, should ensure there is a no realistic risk that the behaviours they are beseeching us to carry out will do more harm than good. After all, encouraging their fans to accept an experimental medical intervention that increases risk of myocarditis and blood clots is a calamitous outcome - and not a good look for the celebrities involved.  

And then we have the medical doctors. Is it unreasonable to suggest that these highly educated professionals should be conversant with the fact that the strongest predictor of health is wealth, and that policies, like the net-zero madness, impoverish us all? Are they blissfully unaware that Nobel-prize winning physicist, Dr John Clauser, has concluded that the dominant climate narrative is ‘a dangerous corruption of science’? Do these physicians know that, in August 2022, over 1200 scientists and professionals signed a declaration that, ‘There is no climate emergency’? (A remarkably high figure, particularly when one considers the extraordinary levels of censorship, cancellation and smearing that awaits any expert brave enough to speak openly against the dominant climate narrative; for example, a 2022 research paper by four Italian scientists, that concluded that a ‘climate emergency’ in not supported by the data, was subsequently censored and retracted).

Alas, it appears that our healthcare experts – or, perhaps more pertinently, the leaders of their professional bodies – blindly swallow whatever their elite paymasters espouse, thereby colluding in the propagation of ideologically-driven narratives, and blinded to the collateral damage of their endeavours.

Concluding comments

Words emanating from messengers that are perceived as authoritative, or having similar characteristics to those doing the listening, are likely to be more persuasive. Consequently, this ‘messenger’ nudge is routinely exploited by governments as a means of getting the populace to obey their decrees. Over recent years, healthcare professionals and TV celebrities have been recruited to act as influential mouthpieces, with behavioural scientists often providing guidance regarding what they should say.

It is incumbent on these influencers to check the legitimacy of the goals they are promoting BEFORE agreeing to be the state’s mouthpieces. Otherwise, they risk being collaborators in spreading messages that inflict more harm than good, as well as destroying their own reputations and/or the credibility of the professions to which they belong.

Photo courtesy of Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash