Assisted Death - Has a place but only in special circumstances

Should you be able to choose when to die?

TV presenter and Journalist Esther Rantzen has advanced lung cancer and there has been much media coverage on her story regarding assisted suicide. I support her views. The law must be changed that in certain circumstances ending a life is an option.

It is illogical that humans can be prosecuted for allowing an animal to suffer and indeed can also be allowed to euthanise sick animals, yet a human cannot legally despatch another human where there is no hope of cure. We all know it does go on though, allegedly dosing up people with Morphine until they peg out. It is that no one talks about it.

We have seen a number of reported cases of people with advanced health deterioration where there is no possibility of a cure, not wanting to burden the care system or their family, knowing they will eventually succumb to their medical condition and wanting to end their lives.

Stupid religious dogma assisted by the English Law means that you cannot be medically assisted to die and that means a person can be prosecuted for helping a friend or relative travel to a facility abroad where assisted suicide is legal.

When a medical case is terminal, and no obvious cure is available and the quality of there person's life will soon go or has gone, there is no real argument for prolonging that human life in my view if the patient can make a reasoned decision and wants to end their own misery. In fact many medical subjects do not want their life prolonged in this situation.

Of course this situation is open to abuse, which is why this is now a time to have this legal conversation and change the law. 

There is a vast difference in legalised euthanasia in certain circumstances that is well apart from ordinarily coercing or assisting a person to commit suicide. The two are entirely different situations.

As for religion, it does not seeming prevent death.

There is no death, just a change of worlds -

American Indian wisdom

If you have had an out of body experience, you will see your Earth body below you and your spirit in a transparent form as you leave this vessel. I've had this experience myself as have many on the operating table in medical rooms.

Humans do not die completely, only the two footed vehicle that we used to get around stops functioning. The spirit goes on. 

Outdated and wrong religious dogma prevent meaningful progress on this issue, it is about time that the nettle was grasped and the law was changed.

COP28: Could have been done on Zoom? Why this all looks a farce to the rest of the world.

Rather than fly to Dubai's COP28, should King Charles have led by example

and sent a video message over Zoom to show the way forward, instead?

An interesting fact - The total CO2 amount in the world's atmospheric gases =

CO2 = 1/2 of 1% of the total 100% of all gases.

Nitrogen is 95% of all gases.
 

Another year, another meaningless 'COP Summit' ? - this time we learn that there will be some 400,000 attendees to the Dubai COP28 conference, you can't help feeling that there is some element of hypocritical repetition here. Or another 'you couldn't make it up' story.

400,000 people intent on 'saving the Planet' are jetting from across the world to warm and sunny Dubai, perhaps there is clue in that. It is warm and sunny?

One thing we did benefit from during Covid was that so many of us were able to work from home. So that was one good thing to come out of it.

Zoom became the vital work tool of the day, often saving many people the worthless drudge of commuting to an office every day and allowing them to work from home. Hurrah! And from having to mix with stupid idiots you normally would otherwise avoid. But I digress...

COP28's spectacular own goal has been to treat the rest of the world not attending this earnest jamboree as fools. 

They have not seen that had this conference and all it's virtue signalling could have been conducted on Zoom. The likely only outcome of COP28 is to achieve a COP29 in 2024. Nearly 30 COP meetings later we are still alive and the doom and gloom about a dead planet hasn't happened yet.

The world is an oil based economy, Oil isn't going away anytime soon, nor are fossil fuels. The 'beloved' and failing EV market will need Oil to make tyres for these vehicles, which wear out tyres at a far higher rate than Petrol or Diesel vehicles. 80% of a Tyre is made from Oil. The paint and plastics on an EV are made from Oil. Go figure. Do the math - We need Oil.

Tarmac for roads includes Oil. EV's due to their weight cause more damage to roads.

If the West stops using Petrol or Diesel, Russia and China as examples likely won't be so squeamish. We can produce synthetic Petrol and Diesel fuels from renewable elements. We do not need to abandon the internal combustion engines, which are the cleanest ever now and will only improve.

We make clean air zones in cities, yet base an airport on the city periphery which blows pollution right back across these 'clean air zones' - we are not stupid. 

We can see the stupidity of charging motorists to drive and allowing unabated, free pollution by aircraft to be dumped back on those cities into those clean air zones.

The difference between Natural Gas and Hydrogen is barely a few elements, yet there is this a fanatical zeal to get rid of Natural Gas usage only because it is a 'fossil fuel.' This is frankly ridiculous when there is no viable ad cheaply priced technology in place, to take its place.

Whilst King Charles often pours forth his views on the climate and his concerns are valid to a point, he could have stolen a march on the whole COP28 shebang by giving a Zoom message to the COP28 delegates from the UK, rather than jet off to Dubai.

Perhaps this might have made the other delegates think. Maybe not. 

However, with all manner of celebrities and old has-been politicians bobbing up at COP28, it looks just to be another nice little 'jolly' - the lure of warm winter sunshine and the opportunities for networking, glad-handing and hobnobbing, or any other form of nobbing one wishes to indulge in, must out way any concerns for the climate then?

Be warned, the public are not fooled by all this vacuous grandstanding and dire warnings of climate doom being spewed out at COP28 and every COP before and likely in the future. 

Where is Greta Thunberg when you need here? I suppose it's early days yet and she has a week or so to pop up uninvited and foist her views on this jolly shindig.