Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t John C; Desflurane has a greenhouse gas potential 2500x greater than CO2. But “… ensuring patient safety remains at the heart of every clinical decision …”.
Scotland first to ban environmentally harmful anaesthetic
By Smitha Mundasad
Health reporterScotland has become the first country in the world to stop its hospitals using the anaesthetic desflurane because of the threat it poses to the environment.
NHS data suggests the gas, used to keep people unconscious during surgery, has a global warming potential 2,500 times greater than carbon dioxide.
Banning it in Scotland – from its peak use in 2017 – would cut emissions equal to powering 1,700 homes a year.
UK hospitals have already cut down.
…
Scottish Health and Social Care Secretary, Humza Yousaf, said: “Programmes like this are key to our transition to become a net-zero health service, whilst ensuring patient safety remains at the heart of every clinical decision.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-64347191
What can I say – try not to get sick in Scotland.
According to Wikipedia, ” … It has the most rapid onset and offset of the volatile anesthetic drugs used for general anesthesia due to its low solubility in blood. …”. Given Desflurane is used to maintain surgical anaesthesia, this would seem to imply Desflurane is the absolute best drug for maintaining the correct level of surgical anaesthesia, because patients respond very rapidly when the anaesthesiologist adjusts the dose.
Scotland assures us that “patient safety remains at the heart of every clinical decision”, but if that were the case, why ban Desflurane? Why not let surgeons know about the greenhouse issue, but leave the choice of which drug to use to the judgement of the surgical team?
Perhaps the differences between Desflurane and the alternatives are too small to matter – this is not an issue I have studied. But whether Desflurane’s advantages are significant for a particular case no longer matters. Medical teams are now forbidden from using Desflurane, even if in their medical opinion Desflurane is the best anaesthetic for the procedure, so in that scenario at least, patient health comes second to the Scottish Health climate agenda.
I will suggest the Scottish government has depraved indifference to public health.
Since the SNP formed an alliance with the Scottish Greens, many ridiculous policies have been adopted. In effect, Scotland is now being run by the Scottish Green party. Unfortunately, the Scottish Greens are utterly delusional and this sounds like another example of their lunacy.
Further indication of the Two Incompatible Ideologies:
Imago Dei vs Lebensunwertes Leben (Image of God vs Life Unworthy of Life)
When societies looked at man as being a separate and special Creation; that the Earth was designed to be inhabited and host man’s creative work; that the Creator commanded Man to have dominion over the Earth, then mankind would flourish and eventually populate the Earth with billions of people.
Then people of the Dark Tetrad looked at mankind as diseased cattle that had to be cured or culled; that placed mankind as the lowest form of existence on the Earth; that viewed snail darters and insects of greater value and worth; that declared our own breath to be a danger and cause of all evil; we now get this abomination wearing the skin suit of the once noble medical profession.
This cannot end well.
Most rational minded people understand that any and all desired actions on climate change whether local or global will not give over control of same said climate to the various factions of governments that rule over the various multiplying populations on the planet.
By the same measures, all governments acting in unison will not allow for a United Nations directed controller of the climate. there is no thermostatic control that can be installed and any actions directed at deflecting sunlight will (not may) have catastrophic consequences to the Global Population and that will make the lab leaked(?) COVID seem like a fun weekend at the beach.
The primary vision of the Faceless Cultural Elite running their established World Economic Forum is global consensus on One World Governance. Once achieved, the Hobgoblins created by this nonsense such as Anthropogenic Global Warming will vanish into the mist of Central Authoritarian Governance as they will no longer need to make up excuses to tell us what we can and cannot do. They will then go to work on the primary task of reducing the world population by 60% while creating their petri dish babies programmed for specific functions. Welcome to their Brave New World.
A twilight faith (i.e. conflation of logical domains). An ethical or relativistic religion (i.e. behavioral protocol). A liberal or divergent ideology. Mortal gods, goddesses, experts to deliver the message in nominally secular societies with diverse (quantity, not color) past, present, and progressive precedents.
I know that the Irish had embraced this ethical religion. Scotland, et tu?
planned parenthood
planned parent/hood
planned patienthood
planned populationhood
planned Jewhood
Mao and progressive Chinese communists had their versions and still indulge in a secular religion of human rites, diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry), slavery, etc. Stalin, too. Mengele helped people “transition”. And so on and so forth.
depraved indifference to quite a few things trans (wo)men in womens prisons being another
Humza Yousaf has not been conspicuously successful in any of his portfolios but he has a stupendous ability to get noticed, and for doing so in ways that he probably thinks will see him remembered for being on the right side of history.
He is an Islamist – dedicated to subverting from within
I often like and agree with your comments, Strat, but I’m not sure what his faith has to do with anything.
Tousaf has supported bills on same-sex marriage and gender reform. That doesn’t sound like a hardline Muslim to me.
There was a viral video last year, of him ranting on about the excessive number of white folk in the Scottish government.
Apparently, the ethnic makeup of a government that reflects the ethnic makeup of the country that voted them into power is evidence of rαcism.
I want to go back to the 20th century. I was happy there.
have to admit a good laugh last night is an item entitled “the vanishing” on SOTT.net webpage
usa jewry extremely upset that therye not now 2.5% of the population representing 25% of the uni places in teaching and no longer the power holders in NY city etc
poor dears
Antisemitism is increasing, especially among the young. More hate incidents against them than any other group in the US. And you’re having a laugh. Good for you.
I guess you’re from Australia. Is antisemitism simply so ingrained there that you don’t see a problem expressing it so openly?
In general, if you can’t express opposition to someone’s policies without resorting to insulting their heritage, you should keep quiet.
Ordinarily I’d say the same, except for two things:
If, to a ‘true believer’, the outcome benefits the faith, then lying and/or hypocrisy (towards non-faithful) is integral to the faith.
Islamists will vote for parties supporting “progressive policies” for lack of a closer alternative; Islamists and communists were allies in Iran… Commies thought they knew better and would have power…
Thanks Redge
Check his record out. The mosque told him to miss the vote….
appears to be a poll vote/antisocial media ambo chaser pollie, no moral or scruples but keeping the job n income etc
supporting divisive and population lowering woke sexual idiocy works to destroy cohesive society from the inside, if your’e actually anti the society and wish to unsettle it…way to go!
This is going to hurt a bit…..
OUCH!
You are going to feel a little pinch.
I would be interested to see how they calculate that Desflurane has a greenhouse gas potential 2500x greater than CO2.
And how much of it is released – unbreathed – into the atmosphere
Easy; all of it gets released. What gets breathed in doesn’t matter. It doesn’t react chemically with the blood stream; 100% of what goes in, goes out.
I don’t quite understand – maybe not with the bloodstream but it seems like it would have to interact chemically with something in order to provide the anesthetic result. Would you mind helping me understand better?
Mechanism unclear:
Desflurane – StatPearls – NCBI Bookshelf (nih.gov)
Negligible metabolic effects:
Desflurane clinical pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics – PubMed (nih.gov)
And how many ppb there are of Desflurane
And how many millionths of a degree this will save the planet
The Global Warming Potential Number (GWP) that appears in all the IPCC reports is a convoluted scheme designed to produce a large but meaningless number.
A Piper Cub will fly 86 times further on a gallon of gas than a Jumbo Jet. The proper response is, “So What?” The same is true for a GWP of 86 for methane, “So What?”
The GWP numbers ranging from 440 to 6810 for anesthetic gas are also meaningless and deserving of a “So What?” response.
Note that nowhere does it ever say how much methane or these medical gases will actually increase global temperatures. We aren’t told because they won’t.
The GWP nonsense needs to be exposed.
I found a paper that estimates the total global use of anaesthetic gases is equivalent to 1 million cars or 1 coal fired power station. Call it 5 million tonnes CO2e p.a., or about 0.014% of global emissions. The use in Scotland will be of the order of 1 pro mille of that, or 5,000tonnes CO2e.
I found search engines were distinctly reluctant to offer an answer to the question “How much global warming from 1 billion tonnes CO2?”
Is it only me or does anyone else notice that travel by jumbo (450 passengers) rather than 450 piper cubs is rather more efficient in the use of fuel, not counting the 20 tons of cargo, range, and comfort etc?
They don’t agree with this paper Inhalation anaesthetics and climate change
DOI: 10.1093/bja/aeq259
Radiative efficiencies of 0.453, 0.469, and 0.351 W m22 ppb21 and global warming
potentials (GWPs) of 510, 1620, and 210 (100 yr time horizon) were established for
isoflurane, desflurane, and sevoflurane, respectively.
Conclusions. On the basis of the derived 100 yr GWPs, the average climate impact per
anaesthetic procedure at the University of Michigan is the same as the emission of 22
kg CO2. We estimate that the global emissions of inhalation anaesthetics have a climate
impact which is comparable with that from the CO2 emissions from one coal-fired power
plant or 1 million passenger cars.Radiative efficiencies of 0.453, 0.469, and 0.351 W m22 ppb21 and global warming potentials (GWPs) of 510, 1620, and 210 (100 yr time horizon) were established for isoflurane, desflurane, and sevoflurane, respectively.
Conclusions. On the basis of the derived 100 yr GWPs, the average climate impact per
anaesthetic procedure at the University of Michigan is the same as the emission of 22
kg CO2. We estimate that the global emissions of inhalation anaesthetics have a climate
impact which is comparable with that from the CO2 emissions from one coal-fired power
plant or 1 million passenger cars.
I guess they did not calculate (or they are hiding those calculations) of the climate change effect of other inhaled substances (for instance, cannabinoids)…
I want to see the atmospheric Desflurane concentration trends measured at Mona Loa to an accuracy of say +/- 1% of measured value. Is it possible to measure in “part per quadrillion”?
I suspect the NHS data showing that desflurane is “2,500 times worse than CO2” comes from spectroscopic studies in a “Standard Atmosphere.” If so, note that a Standard Atmosphere contains nearly all of the gasses in the earth’s atmosphere except water vapor. For details see https://hbcp.chemnetbase.com/faces/documents. The standard atmosphere contains no water vapor yet water vapor is by far the most dominant greenhouse gas on Earth. Had the studies been done in a real atmosphere with water vapor I suspect that the scientists involved would have found that the adsorption bands for desflurane are blocked entirely or nearly so by water vapor bands just as methane is blocked and that the compound has no measurable effect, just like methane.
Yes, I was thinking of how methane is characterized as being 80 times worse than CO2 and yet there is practically zero evidence of methane absorption in the satellite measured OLR spectrum.
Astute observation, you’re right.
When I was in high school touring colleges, a fraternity member at the University of Michigan showed us his room and he had 3 consecutive editions of the CRC Handbook above his desk. I didn’t realize how silly this was at the time, but perhaps subconsciously it kept me away from there.
It appears that no matter how rare a molecule is in the atmosphere, the game here is to bump up the supposed effect per molecule, so that various substances can be exciting ‘contenders’ for worst greenhouse gas?
Say, how about this! Viruses are essentially rare but large molecules. So let’s confidently state, ‘confidence game wise’, that a virus has several ‘billion gazillion’ times the greenhouse effect of any given CO2 molecule.
In the interest of playing for alarmism, you’ve just gotta stay ahead of the game, right?
Total intravenous requires far more plastic (tubing etc) than inhalational. perhaps greenies should only be allowed spinals?
The keep it in the ground folks would get rid of plastic and have us go back to glass, metal, wood, cork, rubber, etc.
Perhaps greenies shouldn’t be allowed near hospitals because, yer know, climate
or frontal lobotomies…
Perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed anesthetics at all, or perhaps only whiskey? The distillation of which needs a significant quantity of fossil fuel, so nothing at all then, and don’t suggest chloroform or ether, they come from oil!
Experience with the medical system of ‘the Good Old Days’ would soon smarten these politicians up. It was said that a good surgeon could take off a limb in the time it took for his colleague to turn away and take a pinch of snuff. No anesthetic, of course, but plenty of heavy guys to hold the patient down, and to deaden the screams.
A story that has circulated among musicians. Two musicians meet sometime after one of them left the orchestra, and they talk about old fellows. “And X, is he still with the orchestra?”, asks the one who had left. The other answers with a sad face: “He’s not well… You know, he had to have a surgery and the doctor has chosen to operate him with epoch instruments…”
Some info here:
If anesthesiologists need to feel “green” it’s a good one to pick….
https://practicegreenhealth.org/sites/default/files/2019-04/anesthetic_gas_how-to.pdf
These people are crazy.
CAGWDS
Another reason to challenge the claim that the climate response to CO2 can be reliably differentiated from zero in the real atmosphere, by any means we presently have available to us.
Why? Because 2500 times zero = zero.
These “climate” actions will otherwise not stop, even as they clearly degrade human well-being.
Who gets the private reserve?
Every medical intervention has a cost — manhours, disposables, water for cleaning, energy to heat/light/cool/maintain the facilities, education for the staff and on and on. Reasonable rational people do not make changes based on a single criteria or variable. Reasonable rational people make decisions based, at least, on a handful of important and related criteria.
Bing Chat tells us …
To do a cost-benefit analysis, you can follow these steps:
Clearly this has not been done or the reporter is ignoring it. My vote is on the first.
The Scots are tough, get them a piece of wood to bite on!
Josef Mengele giggles from hell.
I find it hard to believe that a gas that is 6 times heavier than air is a greenhouse gas in practical terms. More likely to be a soil contaminant.
So, they’re going back to chloroform? Progress, just like horse crap in the streets.
As a physician I can see this slippery slope for what it is. If we need to decide on therapies based on an imaginary fear of climate catastrophe, most modern medicine disappears. The harm to human society that will result may be just what the fear mongers are hoping for.
“The harm to human society that will result may be just what the fear mongers are hoping for.”
__________________________________________
That’s what the Duck Test says.
Climate change fear, along with other contemporary ideologies, will be the reversal of humanity. We will be back in the stone age before long. I remember reading a book as a kid where the protagonist is thrown far into the future where humanity has reverted entirely to a tribal, primitive existence. It was a fun read as a kid; now it’s a sad likely reality.
some bimbo on abc radio this arvo telling us we whities should “walk behind” the all knowing aboriginals as they will save the planet.
hmm well down under here thats mean us all living in whurlies starving as the greens wont allow non coloureds to kill the roos etc
60k claimed yrs of “occupation” and stuff all to show for it, everything they have whitey provides, and that includes on land we “handed back” but we still pay n provide, whilst being banned from access ie parks and other areas
wait till they start on the factories producing pharm meds..wont that be so fun
There’s an old saying – “Strain at a gnat to swallow a fly…” That’s about what is going on here. Or another analogy would be an obese person who is trying to lose weight by cutting out one teaspoon of sugar from their morning coffee, and expecting results.
In the scheme of things, really, how much of this gas was actually used? Probably very, very little. These days many more surgeries are done with IV sedation and local anesthesia that a few decades ago would have been done under general anesthesia. I do know that here in the US anesthetic gasses are used much less frequently than they were when I was a child. There are plenty of reasons not to use gasses that have nothing to do with the environment (or perceived threats to the environment, as in this case). They are far more likely to cause nausea than IV anesthetics, they can linger longer in the patient’s body (I can vouch for the first two, having had bad experiences with anesthetic gasses) and then there is all of the tanks, hoses, masks, regulators and equipment that is needed.
Even in dentistry, nitrous oxide has mostly fallen out of favor and now IV sedation is used.
It’s long past time that these countries ban h2o which when in it’s gas form is a potent greenhouse gas.
OK, suppose it is 2500 times as potent a greenhouse gas; how long does it remain in the atmosphere?
Because Virtue Signaling saves lives.
Any action taken to achieve net zero should immediately be blocked.
So Scotland is going to “bite the bullet”.
(Are bullets still legal in Scotland?)
In the job I retired from we had annual Haz-Com training.(Some years coordinated with the fire department our first responders.)
The priorities in a response used to be:
That was changed to:
(In my last training session that involved the on site at the FD, they surprised at the change.)
Sounds like Scotland’s may now be:
(I suppose in the first change I mentioned, an exaggeration I admit, they’d let your house burn down rather than have the water to put out the fire let that bottle of bleach under your sink runoff into the “environment”.)
Hey Youngster,
When I started in this business, the priority list was …
.1. PEOPLE
Geoff S
Thanks!
Been awhile since anybody called me a “Youngster”!
😎
Scots think with their Haggis and not their brain.
Everyone of those officials in Scotland who supported this should be immediately subjected to an appendectomy, without anesthetic of course. They should know what they’re going to put other people through.
A number that strongly suggests that those who estimated this:
A) Did not identify radiation wavelengths involved.
B) Did not ensure that the involved wavelengths are not already at maximum wavelength absorption.
Making their estimates horrible.
An estimate based on lazy estimations and maximum gross assumptions; e.g., a) Their home energy use assume low energy needs; b) Optimistic conversion of anaesthetic non-use to their mysterious home energy usage.
What’s up with that Scotland parliament and independence?
Isn’t it time to stop the nonsense?
“ Desflurane has a greenhouse gas potential 2500x greater than CO2. But “… sooooo, ~0 percentage. Got it.
My son, an anesthesiologist in a major UK city, tells me that Desflurane hasn’t been used for many years and it’s only now that the Scottish woke police have caught up with “science” .
What they use now is just as good and not as polluting. The decision (a long time ago) had nothing to do with climate change.
Patients will drink a pint of whiskey before the operation and chew on a stick during the operation. No big deal.
Im curious as to their supposed useage. why? because the inhaled anaesthetics are a higher risk of cancer causation apparently so they prefer injectables for adults, kids apparently get the inhaleds still.
one of my vets refuses to use injectables and their costs per surgery are far higher cost for the knockout meds. I go to the other vets for the injectables use as the wakeup injectables are also enabling a same day home with less effect surgery outcomes from what ive seen. Im old enough to remember Ether and the blinding headaches n nausea it left you with;-(
this article pertains to this topic and others
“story tip” maybe?
anyway i found it rather interesting
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/attack-subversive-elites
Windscreen Water Repellant:
Back in 1988 they also banned a water repellant, used to clear aircraft windscreens while landing. This was a great product that meant you did not need to even use windscreen wipers. You could see everything.
Then it was banned because of alleged ozone holes, and we could not see anything on rainy approaches. The windscreen wipers of the B-737 were absolutely useless – all noise and no real action. I think they were early Land Rover wipers. In the late 90s they changed them for a new model that was quiet, but did absolutely nothing to clear the screen. Above 120 kt they just skidded over the screen.
So on two occasions since then, I was forced to abort the landing because I could not see the runway, due to rain. So the banning of this product made aviation much more dangerous. The Greens want you to die, when skidding off the runway.
(Note: autolands are not always possible, if the wind is too high, or the aircraft or crew are not autoland certified.)
.
Fire Extinguishers:
At the same time they banned BCF fire extinguishers (the manufacture of their contents). Thus ever since this time, aviation has been recycling a diminishing quantity of BCF for the world’s aircraft. Resulting in a few prosecutions for companies which were caught diluting the BCF, for financial gain.
BCF is the best retardant out there, and the only one that will work on aircraft. In the 1980s when it could still be used, a fireman told me to put out a huge fire in a shipping container. I thought he was barking mad, or making fun of me, because the fire was so large. But I did as I was told, ducked down under the flames, gave a 3 second squirt, and the fire went out. By banning BCF, the Greens want you to die in a fiery aircraft incident.
.
High-rise Flat Cladding:
The large Grenfield flats fire in London, was caused by the Greens banning CFCs in refrigerants. The cheap alternative in domestic fridges from Chiina was methane, and these had a habit of exploding. And a fridge did this in the lower levels of the Grenfield flats.
The resulting fire was compounded by the Greens insisting on insulating cladding, which had not been fully tested for flammability – especially when flames could run up between the flats and the cladding and use the gap as a chimney. The result was the entire block of flats becoming a huge roman-candle.
This was compounded by a ‘stay put’ fire policy, which suggested waiting for fire brigade help, rather than evacuating. Residents who called 999 (911) were told to stay in their flats. This was a ‘reasonable’ policy for concrete flats, and an internal fire. But this was an external fire, which could jump from flat to flat outside. So all the people who adhered to the ‘stay put’ policy died. Again, the Greens want you to die in a fiery housing complex.
Just as with Covid and Climate – never believe the authorities, and never believe the science.
Ralph
There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on global climate. There is plenty of scientific rationale to support the conclusion that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. 2,500 X 0 = 0 Hence releasing the anesthetic into the atmosphere will have no effect on global climate.