Five passengers and at least one flight attendant were wheeled out of a Delta flight 555 from Harry Reid Las Vegas Airport to Atlanta and sent to the hospital after receiving emergency care from medics providing oxygen to the victims suffering from heat illness after the plane sat on the tarmac in outside temperatures of over 110 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours.
There was no temperature reported on the interior of the flight. The aircraft had no air conditioning.
There are a lot of unanswered questions, such as was the Tarmac melted from the heat. Delta will investigate the incident and hopefully provide much more detail than was reported by witnesses.
The pilot informed passengers the plane would be turning around due to emergencies, according to a Fox News producer who was aboard the flight.
Those in the cabin were instructed to remain in their seats until paramedics could meet the plane.
As the situation worsened, the Fox producer witnessed passengers faint and others soil themselves as the plane sat in the baking 111F (43.8C) heat. Flight attendants were seen running up and down the aisles with oxygen tanks and babies screamed as passengers were told to remain seated, according to Fox Business.
At least five passengers were carted off the plane in a stretcher after the jet taxied back to the terminal. Passengers were allowed to deboard, and some stayed, believe it or not. The flight was later canceled.
Las Vegas and the Southwest have been seeing record-high temperatures for weeks. The National Weather Service warned residents that although the city is in a hot desert, it is not typical desert heat this time.
Climate change is a threat multiplier. In Phoenix, some people have second-degree burns from the heat from contact on surfaces, such as concrete and blacktop.
Democratic Senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly of Arizona, in an interview with ABC 15, relayed what he observed in space and urged the Senate to act.
“When I went into space four times, I mean, I could see how thin the atmosphere is over this planet. It’s as thin as a contact lens on an eyeball, and we have got to do a better job taking care of it,” Kelly told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
“I have not seen in my time in the Senate many folks that deny that the climate is changing. That was a thing of the past. Now is: What do we do about it? We passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is a big down payment on reducing the amount of carbon we put up into the atmosphere. That will make a difference over time. We obviously have to do more,” he added.
Tweets from a Fox producer who was on the flight.
Scientific studies have determined that flight turbulence is increasing due to worsening climate conditions.
Republicans running on a platform of climate denial in 2023 and 2024 will be fascinating. Good luck with that; we are totally blind flying in a totally new climate, one that we never and most other species evolved in. There is no going back for a do-over.
From Fortune Magazine on GQP greenwashing.
When the speaker was asked about climate change and forest fires, he was ready with a response: Plant a trillion trees.
The idea — simple yet massively ambitious — revealed recent Republican thinking on how to address climate change. The party is no longer denying that global warming exists, yet is searching for a response to sweltering summers, weather disasters and rising sea levels that doesn’t involve abandoning their enthusiastic support for American-produced energy from burning oil, coal and gas.
“We need to manage our forests better so our environment can be stronger,” McCarthy said, adding, “Let’s replace Russian natural gas with American natural gas and let’s not only have a cleaner world, let’s have a safer world.”
The solution to the looming catastrophe for the GQP is to plant a trillion trees worldwide. First, our priority should be saving every last forest remnant on the planet and restoring healthy topsoil, as it, too, is a carbon sink. Secondly, the idiotic plan would also require a land area the size of the lower 48 states. Where will we get out groceries? Thirdly it is all lies and bullshit and is magical thinking at best that is their plan, and only plan. Their plan will not keep one single molecule of carbon to remain in the ground.
Protecting existing forests and planting new ones are surely good things to do. However, scientists say we must not place too much faith in trees to save us. In particular, last year one research group claimed we can plant a trillion extra trees and remove a quarter of the carbon dioxide currently in the air. These figures have been widely criticised as overhyped and unreliable. Trees will definitely help us slow climate change, but they won’t reverse it on their own.People understand that stopping human-caused climate change isn't the same as reversing climate change, so we'd have to live with whatever warmer climate we end up in, right? Right?? Dr. Simon LeeBut the tree-planting push has drawn intense pushback from environmental scientists who call it a distraction from cutting emissions from fossil fuels. The authors of the original study have also clarified that planting trees does not eliminate “the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Planting one trillion trees would also require a massive amount of space — roughly the size of the continental United States. And more trees could even increase the risk of wildfires by serving as fuel in a warming world.
“There is a lot of value to planting trees, but it is not a panacea,” said Mark Ashton, a professor of forest ecology at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
For Republicans, the bill checks the right boxes. It is friendly to the timber industry and touts a climate solution — sequestering a massive amount of carbon from manmade emissions — that would also partially alleviate the need to wean the country off fossil fuels.