United Airlines history-making sustainability flight
Concerned Flyer: Should I be worried about climate change?
Careen wrote to me asking numerous questions about winds, heavy rain, extreme weather, tornadoes and clear air turbulence. She was baffled and wondered whether climate change could affect the safety of air travel.
Firstly, climate change defines the increasing changes of climate over a long period of time whereas global warming refers to the rise in global temperatures.
NASA’s historical data indicates that the earth is warming at a rate of 1.9 degrees C per century.
Changes in temperature, precipitation, storm patterns, sea level and wind patterns are the five main ways climate change is expected to affect aviation.
Global warming could affect the jet streams and we may see an increase in clear air turbulence leading to increased injuries to passengers and crew.
The Paris Agreement 2015 sets out a global target of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees C and limits it to 1.5 degrees C.
Why is 1.5 degrees C such a big deal?
Well, to warm our entire planet up by 1.5 degrees C requires a lot of heat. All these extra heats would melt glaciers, Arctic sea ice and raises sea levels, and some cities like New York, London, Sidney, Jakarta or Male in the Maldives may be partially submerged by the 21st century.
As such, the airline industry has taken various measures to reduce carbon emission and improve air safety.
Amongst others, more efficient planes would be flying and sustainable aviation fuels are envisaged. Such fuels can be from corn ethanol or made from used cooking oil, municipal waste and woody biomass which has the potential to reduce carbon emissions by up to 80%.
However, these fuels are more expensive than jet fuel because the supply is low.
On 1st December 2021, the first passenger flight from United powered by 100% sustainable fuel took off from Chicago to Washington DC. One engine was filled with 100% sustainable aviation fuel instead of fossil fuels.
While it is commendable that the airline industry is making great effort to reduce carbon emission to the atmosphere, there are detractors who are of the view that the climate change hype is all a hoax. Amongst them is the USA ex-President Donald Trump who decided to pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2017.
Some people really think global warming is a myth because the fossil-fuel industry has spent billions of dollars on a campaign of lies and dishonesty in order to create confusion in the minds of the public and policy-makers.
Apparently, they’ve bought off just enough retired scientists and dishonest politicians to convince them of the climate change threat
To Careen, whether climate change is real or a hoax, I would not be worried about its impacts on air travel. The airline industry and aircraft manufacturers have technologies in place to look into any weather-related safety issues now and in the future.
See youTube video on Global Warming
here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJAbATJCugs
See a YouTube video on Climate change impacts aviation sector, hot air makes it harder for plane to fly
here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zecYIgiP3RE
See a YouTube video on ‘History-making sustainability flight’
here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3n76p2JaTo