In a surprising move, Secretary of State Pete Buttigieg didn't blame an alleged increase in extreme turbulence impacting air travel on racism. During an interview on CBS's "Face The Nation," the embattled cabinet member instead chose to blame the problem on climate change.
"The effects of climate change are already upon us in terms of our transportation," he said. "We've seen that in the form of everything from heat waves that shouldn't statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest to hurricane seasons becoming more and more extreme."
A recent study found hurricanes and typhoons are actually decreasing, but okay, Pete.
Buttigieg's tenure as Transportation secretary has been marred by incompetence and scandal. Typically, most people wouldn't even know who the U.S. Transportation secretary is, yet Buttigieg has been repeatedly thrust himself into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. His decision to take paternity leave during the supply chain crisis, his pledge to invest $1 billion to address "racist" highways, the Southwest Airlines fiasco, the FAA outage, the Chinese spy balloon incident, and his poor handling of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the subsequent environmental disaster were all huge black marks on his record.
And now he's trying to push the idea that climate change, which has yet to cause polar ice caps to melt and raise sea levels as has been "predicted" for decades, is the culprit because when it comes to an alleged increase in extreme air turbulence.
"There are protocols and patterns for things like how pilots who encountered turbulence notify those who might be coming in the past, but I do think we need to continually reevaluate that in the face of the reality that these things are more frequent and more severe than before," he claimed.
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“We’ve seen that in the form of everything from heat waves that shouldn’t statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest,” he went on before citing “indications that turbulence is up by about 15%.”
Host Margaret Brennan brought up the recent Singapore Airlines flight that experienced extreme turbulence that resulted in one death and thirty injuries.
"To be clear, something that extreme is very rare, but turbulence can happen, And sometimes it can happen unexpectedly," Buttiigieg said. "Our climate is evolving. our policies and our technology and our infrastructure have to evolve accordingly to this is all about making sure that we stay ahead of the curve, keeping aviation as safe as it is. It’s not for nothing that it became the safest form of travel in America. We’ve got to treat that not as some mission accomplished.”
.@SecretaryPete says an increase in flight turbulence is one of the effects of climate change that "are already upon us in terms of our transportation."
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 26, 2024
He says the deadly turbulence on a recent Singapore Airlines flight is "very rare," but "turbulence can happen and sometimes… pic.twitter.com/GIOvMHi7fh
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