From Australia, comes a breathless report about global warming and toddlers in hospital.

GLOBAL warming will take a toll on children’s health, according to a new report showing hospital admissions for fever soar as days get hotter.

The new study found that temperature rises had a significant impact on the number of pre-schoolers presenting to emergency departments for fever and gastroenteritis.

The two-year study at a major children’s hospital showed that for every five-degree rise in temperature two more children under six years old were admitted with fever to that hospital.

The University of Sydney research is the first to make a solid link between climate changes and childhood illness.

Whoa dude! Won’t someone please go to back to school and learn the difference between (a) weather and (b) climate? Or the difference between (a) 5 degrees celsius peak and (b) 2 degrees celsius average? Or (a) a hot spell during summer and (b) a gradual change over a century? Or (a) slope of a small linearized piece of a curve and (b) a quantitative trend?

If things were really as simple as the reporter outlined, we could make all toddlers hospital-safe by simply refrigerating the city of Sydney a few hundred degrees. Thermodynamics be damned – just think of the children!

A longer-term study was needed add strength to the findings, Dr Lam said.

Of course. More study. And more research dollars. Send money soon. Ta.