www.ushalonbank.com 1.800.433.1751                                   November 2022 - Vol 4, Issue 8

GLYNN COUNTY, Ga. -- Evacuation orders for the surrounding neighborhoods have been lifted after a fire was extinguished at a chemical plant in Glynn County.

The Symrise Chemical Plant was evacuated after multiple explosions were reported. One initial explosion and two subsequent explosions happened.

BATON ROUGE -- A man was arrested for arson after investigators determined he set fire to an apartment complex at the edge of Baton Rouge's historic Spanish Town district.

The Baton Rouge Fire Department said Ihab Mustafa was arrested after the fire at Lake Tower Apartments at 999 North 9th Street. There were 50 people inside the complex at the time of the fire.

Investigators believe Mustafa sabotaged the building's fire alarm, meaning several tenants didn't wake up until they smelled smoke inside their units. The building did not sustain any major damage, according to the fire department.

The aviation branch of the United Firefighters Union (UFU) has sounded the alarm after aviation regulators failed to maintain a safe level of fire safety at airports. Staff cutbacks during the pandemic have left firefighting numbers short and with distressing consequences.

UFU Aviation Branch Secretary Wes Garrett told "On the Job" that passengers’ safety is the sole focus of his members, and that the systemic understaffing of firefighters was putting the lives of air travelers at risk.

The air transportation sector’s best hope for achieving near-term decarbonization is sustainable aviation fuel, but numerous questions remain as plans move toward its broad usage as 100% jet fuel rather than blended with current jet fuel.

Unblended sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) emissions characteristics have not yet been examined across a variety of engine types, and there are concerns over the possible impact of its particles and chemistry on the creation of contrails.

As reported by Fox11 News in Los Angeles, on October 31, 2022, four workers at Los Angeles International Airport became ill due to carbon dioxide leaking from a fire-suppression system in an electrical utility room. One of the workers was hospitalized in critical condition. The entire terminal near where the leak occurred had to be evacuated. Some inbound flights were also impacted by the event.

The incident emphasizes the importance for facility management and personnel to be as vigilant regarding the levels of CO2 in their buildings as they are for carbon monoxide (CO).

To ensure compliance with codes and standards throughout new construction, changes in use and occupancy, or simply the passing of time, facilities must often perform code reviews. There are several things to consider during a code review: egress, fire sprinkler locations, fire alarm enunciation, the quantity and placement of fire alarm initiation and notification devices (such as pull stations or strobe lights), the flame spread and smoke development rating of textile wall coverings — just to name a few. It’s a process that demands accuracy and collaboration.

Twenty-Sixth Conference of Parties represent a meaningful strengthening of global ambition compared to the 2015 Paris pledges. Yet, limiting global warming below 1.5 °C this century will require countries to ratchet ambition for 2030 and beyond. Here, we explore a suite of emissions pathways to show that ratcheting near-term ambition through 2030 will be crucial to limiting peak temperature changes. Delaying ratcheting ambition to beyond 2030 could still deliver end-of-century temperature change of less than 1.5 °C but would result in higher temperature overshoot over many decades with the potential for adverse consequences. Ratcheting near-term ambition would also deliver benefits from enhanced non-CO2 mitigation and facilitate faster transitions to net-zero emissions systems in major economies.