Posted on 04/07/2015 2:59:48 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
A new study suggests the gases commonly used to knock out patients before surgery are accumulating in the atmosphere, and may be contributing to global warming.
Scientists say atmospheric concentrations of common anesthetic gases like desflurane, isoflurane and sevoflurane are on the rise, and have been detected as far away as Antarctica.
"Health care in and of itself in the U.S. is one of the worst polluting industries," said Jodi Sherman, an anesthesiologist at the Yale University School of Medicine who reviewed the GRL paper. "It generates 8 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases according to one study.
According to the atmospheric chemists responsible for the new research, a single kilogram (2.2 pounds) of desflurane offers the same greenhouse warming potential as 2,500 kilograms (5,512 pounds) of carbon dioxide.
To estimate the total levels of anesthetic gases in the atmosphere, researchers relied on a series of air samples collected throughout the Northern Hemisphere since 2000. Using a computer model, scientists used these small samples to extrapolate global concentrations.
While anesthetic gases remain minor contributors to global warming, curbing the greenhouse warming requires all industries to cut back emissions.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
With the Leftist Liberals, you never know.
I had 4 hours - oral surgery, a few years ago, and my insurance said I didn’t need anesthesia for it!!!!!! Well I was SO upset! My husband said he would PAY for it himself if insurance didn’t pay it.
Local anesthetics would be more fun anyway. The patients could watch.
It must be. We lit off so many nuclear bombs over the past that it's amazing it is even dark at night.
Seems self-evident that the more there is of this stuff in the atmosphere, the better off we will all be. How about massive releases in the Muslim world?
[[To me that’s an act of economic terrorism because there is absolutely no point in it whatsoever other than raising fuel costs.]]
Exactly, but what I wonder is WHERE the HELL (excuse my bad language) are the republicans pounding these FACTS and demanding that the left explain themselves for scamming the world?
[[Of course he does, he’s knows damn well it’s a ridiculously low number ]]
Precisely, he and ilk decided long ago they would pound the message that man is icky and terrible, and nothing, not even facts, would stand In their way to accomplish global warming mandates/fines and credits
I asked Ted Cruz’s office, and EVERY GOP’s office why they aren’t standing up and informing the public of the FACTS about man’s insignificant production of CO2- not one of them answered except Ted’s office who didn’t address the facts or explain why no one was denouncing the lies of the left. So no one answered the question- I even posed the question to James Inhoffe- the fella that was in charge of all the info on climate change that proved man is not responsible-
[[I had 4 hours - oral surgery, a few years ago, and my insurance said I didn’t need anesthesia for it!!!!!! ]]
I sued to have everything covered by insurance- didn’t matter w3hat it was I’d go to pharmacy and they’d order it and insurance covered it-
in the last 6 years more and more things are no longer covered- and doctor’s offices and dentists don’t even take many medicare patients any longer- they just quit taking them
Cheer up, it’s going to get a lot worse
"How can your facts be so different than mine?"
"Because mine are facts and yours are propaganda" I told him. He sneered and walked away, secure in his ideological ignorance.
dang, that should be “I USED to have everything covered by insurance”
and not “SUED” lol
Since I haven’t had major surgeries... people can thank me for NOT warming the planet.
In that case, shouldn’t “Progressives” start volunteering to forgo surgical anesthesia? You know, to “save” the planet? After all, if there’s one thing a good little “Progressive” knows, it’s that Mother Earth’s health is FAR more important than the well-being of puny humans.
Illustrate this with two open cans of Coke. Put one in ice water, one in hot water. Cold ocean holds lots of CO2. Hot ocean expels CO2. Tell the climate change guru he gets the one in hot water in two minutes, you get the cold one.
Even a Harvard grad can understand.
Where do you get that man is responsible for 3.4% of the .04% carbon in the atmosphere? I would love to have a source on that.
I thought it was bad when they banned Freon from asthma inhalers, causing them to from $10 to almost $100 while getting something that doesn’t propel into the lungs as well.
Yep! Four belts of whiskey and a leather chew toy will have to suffice.
What you deniers don’t understand is the cumulative effect that
0.00018% means to humanity. In a billion years it will rise to 0.00019% and that will be the end of life as we know it!/s
Aw crap, I’ve got two more surgeries to line up after this last one, how guilty am I?
There was 0.028%, now there is 0.04%, that rise is manmade. The simplest explanation is that although the oceans are warming and would be outgassing CO2, but looking at the ice core, an ocean warming of 1C can only produce about 5 or at most 10ppm rise. IOW earth would have gone from 0.028% CO2 to 0.029% CO2. Instead of that situation, the oceans are now ingassing net.
The very rough ratio 3.5% (you 3.4% above) comes from comparing man's production of CO2 in a year (about 30Gt) to the natural production of CO2 from oceans and decaying plant matter in a year, about 800 or 900 Gt. The natural flux is poorly measured.
But the natural flux goes in both directions. Mainly the greening of the northern hemisphere each spring and summer pulls lots of CO2. The oceans absorb the rest. So the (roughly( 850 is two directions. Manmade, 30 Gt is all output.
But in the spring and summer the deciduous vegetation in the northern hemisphere soaks it all back up. Meanwhile the ocean constantly absorbing on a net basis. The seasonal nature of the natural flux is apparent here:
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