According to a National Park Service news release, the 42-year-old Belgian tourist was taking a short walk Saturday in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes in 123-degree heat when he either broke or lost his flip-flops, putting his feet into direct contact with the desert ground. The result: third-degree burns.
“The skin was melted off his foot,” said Death Valley National Park Service Ranger Gia Ponce. “The ground can be much hotter — 170, 180 [degrees]. Sometimes up into the 200 range.”
Unable to get out on his own and in extreme pain, the man and his family recruited other park visitors to help; together, the group carried him to the sand dunes parking lot, where park rangers assessed his injuries.
Though they wanted a helicopter to fly him out, helicopters can’t generate enough lift to fly in the heat-thinned air over the hottest parts of Death Valley, officials said. So park rangers summoned an ambulance that took him to higher ground, where it was a cooler 109 degrees and he could then be flown out.
Tourists
I wonder how much CO2 was released getting the Belgian tourist to Death Valley.
No one should ever do anything.
People need to reconsider modern indulgences. Things the people did without 100 years ago. I’m not talking about medical advancements, but this type of hyper convenient travel isn’t really necessary.
Commercial air travel is actually quite efficient per passenger.
Just a reminder that everyone preaching “individual responsibility” and not starting with the 1% responsible for the lion’s share of carbon emissions, is just carrying water for the 1%.
Travel itself isn’t necessary. This Belgian traveled half way across the globe to burn his feet in the desert. I won’t travel an hour to hang out with friends that can’t figure out discord.
We can demand the 1% fix their shit and fix our own shit. Not reducing our own consumption only feeds more profits to the 1%.
Look mate, if I’m going to work myself to death generating profits for the billionaire class, I’m going to use whatever surplus value I’m allotted to live my life, and that includes travelling the world and seeing as much of it as I can afford to in the time I have.
And anyone who dares question my choice to fly economy to Europe/Asia/Oceana or wherever else I feel like visiting once per year, without first reining in the billionaire class that exploits me flying their private jets all over the world on a near daily basis, has revealed themselves to be a class traitor and my enemy.
Flying economy produces 33% fewer carbon emissions per passenger mile traveled than driving a hybrid vehicle (30mpg) without passengers.
The average American drives 14,500 miles per year in their car (26mpg average). A round trip flight between Seattle and Dresden (the flight this family took) is only 10,000 miles. So that flight produces about 3.3 tons of CO2 for one passenger, which comes out to less than 20% of the total average CO2 emissions per capita, and less than half of what is produced by driving.
Germans drive quite a bit less than Americans too, and produce about half the CO2 per capita than an American, so they’ve more than made up for any travel they do.
And there are people like me that live in the US, but live in dense efficient housing and don’t own cars and take hybrid/electric buses everywhere, so you can fuck off if you think I need to keep sacrificing my happiness while the rich burn the world down. If you live in an house or drive a car, you’re doing more damage to the planet than I am, so maybe take a look in the mirror before you throw a fit about one German family that visited America (and died here) 28 fucking years ago.
If you want people to make sacrifices to save the planet, go after the ruling class. If you come after the working class, expect to get what you deserve as a class traitor.
EDIT: The reason I don’t give a shit about the carbon emissions of the working class, is because the carbon emissions of the working class are just fine. The working class isn’t the problem, the ruling class is: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/co2-emissions-by-income/ <– The top 10% produces 49% of all CO2 emissions. The bottom 90% produces 51% of all CO2 emissions.
I live a mile from work, converted my farm to biodiesel, got as much solar installed as allowed and heat with firewood. I’m pissed about keyboard warriors who complain about the rich, but don’t do anything but complain online about it.
I live in a hole and eat ants for sustenance.
Do you also post comments on any article involving beef chastising people for eating it? Do you eat it? That has a dramatically higher carbon impact than people occasionally (or even frequently) taking a vacation.
Edit: from what I can tell, his share of the greenhouse impact of his flight to and from, is roughly equal to eating two 1/3 pound hamburgers.
~1650kg impact per flight each way / 200 passengers (low estimate) * 2 (to and from) = 16.5kg
Estimated 60kg of impact, per kg of beef produced / * 1/3 pound * 2 burgers = ~18kg of impact.
Edit2: found another source that estimated hamburger beef at 21.88kg of impact (the difference seems to be partly how they estimate the methane produced and its relative impact compared to carbon). If so, then it’d be 6 burgers for that round-trip flight.
The first 2 or 3 months of the covid lock down was the most optimistic I’ve ever been. The air cleaned up immediately and you could almost see the temperatures start to plateau. We will never achieve something like that again.
Cool anecdote about how reducing needless traffic between homes and offices, to satisfy micromanaging executives and the real estate investors who own their office buildings, reduced pollution superficially in populated areas.
Not sure what this has to do with planes, which have a negligible effect on pollution compared to personal automobiles, but I do advocate for going car-free (and still being able to get around), and work from home for the growing population of employees whose jobs don’t require a physical presence.
So you’re going to just ignore the question I asked and the points I made, very cool.