Electric ambulances are not available for new calls when they need to be charged. And that is a problem, says Soren Hansen.
When people talk about climate deaths, people usually think of people dying in storms, collapsing in the fields during heat waves or dying of hunger and thirst during periods of drought.
Well, and then those who drown in floods that the authorities were too lazy to warn about, or are burned up in wildfires caused by hot and cold weather. It is now a wonder that there are any living people left.
However, all the deaths mentioned here are not new occurrences. There have always been people who have died in weather-related disasters.
And as Bjorn Lomborg often points out, the number of deaths today is only a fraction of what it was 100 years ago.
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Since "climate change" even according to the IPCC has so far not resulted in more extreme weather, it is further difficult to link any deaths with global warming.
In reality, the world has probably yet to see its first true climate-induced loss of life.
On the other hand, we are much closer to the death toll caused by the climate battle and the green transition. We already have climate activists blocking traffic in big cities.
In this way, they prevent, among other things, ambulances in reaching the sick or injured in time, thus worsening the victims' chances of getting help in time.
But it gets even worse. Paul Homewood has written an article about the big plans in the British health service.
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Here, an organization of a total of 48 experts has been built up to look at how to reduce the CO2 emissions from the activities.
After all, the hospital service must make their contribution to the nation reaching the promised net-zero by 2050.
You look at e.g. on disposable plastic equipment, which otherwise provides the greatest safety for patients in terms of the risk of infection.
There is also talk of saving on anesthetic gases, which in many cases are powerful greenhouse gases in themselves. The climate issue here clearly trumps any additional discomfort the surgery patients had to be exposed to.
A nearby area to address is of course the ambulances. They run on CO2-spewing petrol today and should of course be electric. So what could be better than replacing the entire fleet with electric cars?
Pilot trials have been started, and the preliminary experiences are not promising. Electric ambulances typically have a range of approx. 150 kilometers.
After that, they have to be recharged for perhaps several hours, and are therefore not available for new calls. In comparison, a gasoline-powered ambulance can cover 7-800 kilometers on a refueling, after which it can be filled up again in approximately five minutes.
The fear in this connection is self-evident that there will be fewer ambulances available, and thus that patients will not be able to get help in time.
The same will be the case if the electric ambulance on its way to an emergency runs out of power. The situation will be especially dangerous outside the cities in winter.
Here, electric cars will generally have a significantly shorter range, and ambulance journeys are on average much longer than in the city.
In such cases, the patients' lives may be in danger. And it can end badly for some of them. Will these end up as the first climate deaths?
The debate entry was first published on 1 April 2024 on kilimarealisme.dk .
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