Doctors leading climate change is self delusion

doi:10.1136/bmj.39037.699549.3A

BMJ 2006;333:1124 (25 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.39037.699549.3A

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Doctors leading climate change is self delusion

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

It is both egotistical and unwarranted to presumethat doctors are more, or indeed less, caring for the planetthan individuals with similar disposable incomes.¹ When I attendedmy hospital this morning there were three other cars in theon-call car park—all huge gas guzzling monstrosities:Land Rover, Mercedes, and Volvo.

Consultants generally have huge or ridiculouscars such as Porsches, four wheel drives, and so on, and onlythe ones deemed terminally eccentric or anaesthetists are seen(God forbid!) cycling to work. I suspect general practitionersare similarly inclined, particularly following the new contract,and I think doctors in particular and the NHS in general arein no position to lecture others on "carbon footprints."

Hospitals are almost all electric company financialdirectors' dreams, with unheeded lights lit all weekend, radiatorsjammed on next to open windows, and all the other ecovandalismswe have been familiar with for decades. . . . [Full text of this article]

William T Stevenson, consultant radiologist

¹ Royal Lancaster Infirmary, Lancaster LA1 4RP William.Stevenson@rli.mbht.nhs.uk

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