Some rare good news in difficult times, as South Africa’s Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is sacked. She it was who promoted beetroot, garlic and lemon as cures for AIDS, describing the antiretroviral drugs that have saved millions of lives as dangerous and harmful. South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign reckons 300,000 deaths would have been averted if Tshabalala-Msimang and her equally dangerous former boss Thabo Mbeki had never been allowed near the health ministry. The probable next president, Jacob Zuma, believes having a shower after sex can stop you getting infected, but the country’s AIDS activists are thankful for any good news they can get, and have been throwing parties to celebrate.
Let’s make climate a culture war!
If the politics of climate change end up polarised, is that so bad? No – it’s disastrous. Or so I’ve long thought. Look at the US – where climate is even more polarised than abortion. Result: decades of flip flopping. Ambition under Clinton; reversal...
