My fellow traveler on The Energy Transition Podcast, Dr. Tammy Nemeth, pointed me this morning to news that Scotland’s government has now decided to ban one of the most effective surgical anesthetics on the market because of … wait for it … climate change.

“This isn’t Scotland is it?

Because science, or something.

Here’s an excerpt from the BBC report on the matter, which of course comes with a pro-ban, catastrophizing headline:

Scotland first to ban environmentally harmful anaesthetic

Scotland 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.

In the last few years, more than 40 hospital trusts in England and a number of hospitals in Wales have stopped using it.

NHS England will introduce a similar ban from 2024, which – like Scotland – prohibits its use for anything but exceptional circumstances.

Banning it across NHS hospitals in England would cut harmful emissions equivalent to those caused by powering 11,000 homes every year, according to NHS analysis of desflurane use in 2020.

Other countries, including many in Europe, are likely to make similar moves in the next few years.

Now, perhaps there are alternatives that are just as effective as desflurane, but the current medical literature indicates it is the most effective available, and among the least intrusive to the human body. 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. …”.

Regardless, shouldn’t the decision about which anesthesia to use on a case-by-case basis be left to the anesthesiologist to decide? I mean, we’re all told by our media scolds to “trust the experts,” on such things – in this case, aren’t the anesthesiologists the relevant experts?

But hey, fealty to the climate alarm narrative is more important than protecting human life, isn’t it? Of course it is – otherwise we wouldn’t see governments in places like Sri Lanka and the Netherlands lurching to putting farmers out of business en masse and banning the nitrogen-based fertilizers that enable us to feed the world’s teeming masses, would we?

We must keep in mind that this is, more than anything else, an exercise in religious faith.

I’ve always wanted to visit Scotland, given my family’s origins there. But at my age, and with a heart condition, I’m not sure I can justify the risk anymore. I certainly wouldn’t want to end up in the hospital in that country.

This article originally appeared at the excellent Energy Transition Absurdities (subscribe today!) and is reposted here with the permission of the author.

Editor’s Note: Scotland’s decision to prioritize climate political correctness (climate tribal conformity) over human health based on grifter junk science illustrates the insanity into which the Western World has descended as its corporatists and wannabe world dictators have successfully manipulated religion starved wannabe true believers into adopting climate change as their personal cult of self-destruction.