343
submitted 3 months ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Six motorcyclists rode into Death Valley National Park on July 6. Only five came out alive. With temperatures reaching 128 degrees Fahrenheit in California, the cyclists faced extreme heat exposure that killed one and sent another to a local hospital, according to the National Park Service.

When there’s a medical emergency like this, helicopters are typically dispatched to get people to a hospital. However, the extreme heat made it impossible for the helicopters to fly.

The next day, an emergency helicopter pilot in Stanford, California had to cancel a flight because the tarmac near a patient was too hot for him to land. As reported by The Washington Post on Wednesday, the pilot said he’d never seen temperatures this bad in his 27-year career.

Extreme heat, as many across the U.S. are experiencing this summer, can cause computer and mechanical systems on board helicopters to overheat and malfunction. But it’s not just a mechanical issue as air pressure is also a factor. Air expands when it’s hot and contracts when it’s cold. As it gets hotter outside, air pressure plummets. The air literally gets thin which means that spinning helicopter blades have less air to cut through and it’s harder for them to achieve lift. That makes it dangerous, and sometimes impossible, to fly.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ignirtoq@fedia.io 97 points 3 months ago

People need to start changing their behavior about this heat. I know this sounds like victim blaming. I know people shouldn't have to change their behavior because we saw global warning coming for 30 years and should have prevented this from happening. But it's happening. You can't go into Death Valley in the summer anymore. You just can't. Please don't put yourself in this position.

It's a tragedy that this death happened. We absolutely need to adapt our emergency services to this heat to try to prevent something like this from happening again. But we also need to change our behaviors so we don't end up in that position in the first place.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 36 points 3 months ago

I know people shouldn’t have to change their behavior

The whole reason we're in this situation is because we refuse to change our behavior.

[-] ignirtoq@fedia.io 29 points 3 months ago

No, we're in this position because of a failure of leadership. Leaders can unite people behind doing things they don't want to do. It's how rationing was tolerated for years in WWII. But we have an entire political party built around telling people what they want to hear while working against their interests for the wealthy's short term gains. We could have conquered this from the top-down with a good plan and charismatic leaders supporting it.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Except we wont elect leadership that will do something. The electorate has been brainwashed by decades of advertisements that have convinced them that they deserve the very best of everything. Any possible leader that would push for a strong solution to climate change wouldn't get the votes and they wouldn't get those corporate "campaign contributions".

We have two entire political parties built around telling people what they want to hear.

[-] Moneo@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Even mild solutions get shouted down. In Canada we have a carbon tax that mostly ends up getting returned to Canadians in the form of a rebate. Reportedly 80% of Canadians receive more from the rebate than they spend on the tax.

The conservative party have managed to politicize the tax and seem poised to win the next election, with "scrap the tax" being a big part of their platform. We have a province literally going rogue and refusing to pay the tax, causing our tax agency to garnish them essentially.

Shit is fucking wild. All over a marginal tax that benefits poor people and punishes the heaviest polluters. People are so fucking stupid and selfish it drives me fucking nuts.

[-] Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 3 months ago

Leaders can unite people behind doing things

It seems to me that people want to make the world worse, because that's what people are doing.

[-] Takashiro@lemmy.today 8 points 3 months ago

"We" is incorrect, it is mostly the rich refusing and sabotaging change,

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

It’s the global 1% not just the ultra rich

[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Exactly, a middle class American has an enormous carbon foot print compared to a middle class person in the rest of the world.

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago

This is cope. I know too many people who roleplay as environmentalists, but are fully engaged in consumerism. Friends who look at me funny when I insist that we can have the same conversations over discord that we can when I drive an hour to to see them or who think that Biden's Green Deal will be enough. My primary concern for the past 30 years, more time then I've been an adult, has been to reduce my co2 output or make sure that what co2 I do output has been productive. There's a huge disconnect between myself and my supposedly like minded friends that can only be explained my a deep unwillingness to be put in any sort of discomfort. So they cope by telling themselves that they deserve this vacation that requires air travel or ignore the mountain of waste that the average movie production produces or that plastic recycling works and you can drink your Pepsi(tm) if you just put the bottle in the recycling.

If the rich are responsible for all of our problems, we're responsible for letting them be rich.

[-] Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world -2 points 3 months ago

Why bother when it's far too late and nothing is going to change?

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Funny how it went from not being real to being far too late. Almost like there's always a "reason" not to do anything.

[-] Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

What are you going to do about it?

[-] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I'm saying your being manipulated into inaction.

[-] Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

We're locked in for between 4-10C of warming at this point, with the highest probability being ~6C. Even 4 is catastrophic for global food production.

[-] Killer57@lemmy.ca 27 points 3 months ago

Man, it's almost like it's called Death Valley for a reason or something

[-] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago

You can still ride safely in Mild Bummer Valley.

[-] Psythik@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

Yeah but judging by the success of Liquid Death water, there is a certain group of people who are attracted to things with morbid names.

[-] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 8 points 3 months ago

And behaviour includes food, agriculture, luxuries (like hobbies), etc.

But not gamers, we are doing all the right things already.

[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 months ago

I know people shouldn’t have to change their behavior because we saw global warning coming for 30 years and should have prevented this from happening.

no we quite literally do, if we want global warming to not kill our asses faster than our lack of intelligence in a fleeting moment where it mattered, we absolutely do need to change our behaviors.

this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
343 points (98.6% liked)

News

23267 readers
3023 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS