[music playing]
CARL AZUZ: It's time for "CNN 10" on this January 20, 2022!
My name is Carl Azuz.
It's good to see you, and we hope you're doing well.
A new and bleak record has been set concerning
drug overdoses in America.
This month, the US Centers for Disease Control
released estimates on drug overdoses recorded between June
of 2020 and June of 2021.
During that year-long period, the health agency
believes that more than 101,000 Americans
died of a drug overdose.
If our reporting on this sounds familiar,
it wasn't that long ago we covered the previous record
for US overdose deaths.
That had been set between the spring of 2020
and the spring of 2021.
And that was the first year-long period
when the number of estimated deaths exceeded 100,000.
So the record we're reporting on today accounts for almost 1,000
more deaths than the last one, and they amounted to a 21%
increase over the year before.
Most of these fatalities came from synthetic
or made painkillers like fentanyl.
It's an extremely potent opioid that's many times
stronger than other painkillers.
Fentanyl was intended to be used for cancer patients
or injured people in severe pain,
but it's also been blended illegally with other drugs
and sold to people who abuse them.
And its strength can cause an unintended overdose.
The US government says illegal fentanyl has been seized
in every state, but it's not the only drug
problem the country has.
Illegal cocaine and methamphetamine
accounted for about 30% of the overdoses
in the CDC's latest report, and the deaths
caused from those drugs had increased as well.
So why is all this happening?
Drug abuse was a problem in America
long before the COVID pandemic hit,
but health officials say the pandemic likely
made things worse, as an increase in deaths
occurred during the lockdowns in the spring of 2020.
Up next, tensions involving airlines,
wireless carriers, and the US government.
Here's what's going on.
Fifth-generation wireless technology, better known as 5G,
is being rolled out nationwide.
It promises faster internet connection speeds
for smartphones and other computers,
the Federal Aviation Administration
has been concerned that 5G antennas near some US airports
could potentially interfere with certain planes'
altimeters, which show how high they are off the ground.
Airline carriers in the US and beyond
are also worried about this.
Wireless companies have said their technology is safe,
and that it's been deployed in other countries
without problems.
But the president of Emirates Airlines
says US antennas have twice the power of those
in other countries, and that they're
positioned in a way that could affect flight control systems.
Several international carriers have changed or canceled flight
plans to some US airports.
The FAA says 62% of US commercial airliners
have been cleared for low-visibility landings
near 5G antennas.
- Major airlines call it the latest issue affecting
your safety in the sky.
They say new high-speed 5G cell service
could cause errors in crucial information
that pilots need to land.
In a new letter to the Biden administration,
10 airlines, including Delta, American, and United
insist that could lead to as many as 1,000 flights diverted,
delayed, or canceled each day, a situation
they call "economic calamity."
Airlines say 5G signals can disrupt radar altimeters,
instruments that bounce a radio beam
at the ground to give a hyper-accurate reading
of height.
Pilots like Captain Dennis Tajer of the Allied Pilots
Association call the system essential
when they need it most, in poor weather when
it's hard to see the runway.
DENNIS TAJER: This one instrument,
if it gets bad data, sends it to a collection of other systems.
Flight controls, auto throttles, wind shear protection,
stick shaker.
I could go on under 17 items.
Each of those, if they get bad information in,
they're going to do bad things.
- In this simulator of a regional airliner,
I saw what happened when a radar altimeter fails.
Automatic warnings could stop, and flight displays give
confusing mismatched readings.
You just go around and--
- Right, and figure it out.
- Cause a big bottleneck.
Verizon and AT&T have now agreed to delay their rollout
near certain airports.
AT&T, which owns CNN's parent company, says airlines
and the FAA "have not utilized the two
years they've had to responsibly plan for this deployment."
Verizon says officials figured out
how to make 5G "safe and fully operational
in more than 40 other countries."
Even still, United Airlines fears interference would impact
operations at some of its busiest
destinations, Houston, Newark, Los Angeles,
San Francisco, and Chicago.
EDUARDO ROJAS: It is critical, especially
to make sure that the airplane doesn't crash on the ground.
- Professor Eduardo Rojas is researching 5G interference
with radar altimeters at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical
University in Florida.
EDUARDO ROJAS: It's one of the most critical systems
in the aircraft, in helicopters, especially
because it helps to land.
CARL AZUZ: 10-second trivia!
Fullerenes, or Bucky tubes, are forms of what?
Exhaust pipes, carbon molecules, aluminum, or drainage basins?
Named for American architect R. Buckminster Fuller,
these are the names of carbon molecules.
Can carbon capture technology significantly
reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air
and improve the global environment?
There are more than two dozen plants
around the world that pull CO2 out of the atmosphere
and bury it underground.
But a study and a report last year
found they don't make a meaningful impact in reducing
the world's CO2 emissions, and that the technology isn't
worth the money spent on it.
Still, supporters of carbon capture
say it's one step toward reducing carbon dioxide.
- Iceland prides itself on its use of renewables.
The government says that about 85% of its total energy supply
comes from a mix of hydropower and geothermal sources.
That's the highest proportion of renewable power
for any nation in the world.
But it's also using this renewable energy
to capture and store CO2.
Carbon capture and storage, or CCS,
is one of the many technologies the IPCC says
could help reduce global warming and avert climate catastrophe.
And to do that, these giant fans are sucking CO2
directly from the surrounding air,
just like a giant vacuum cleaner.
- The method that CarbFix has developed is to mineralize CO2.
So essentially to turn CO2 into stone.
And for that, we need a certain type of rock,
volcanic rock such as basalt.
- This geothermal power station is
where Snaebjornsdottir is working
on the mineralization process.
And these igloos are where it happens.
The pipes here channel CO2 mixed with water underground
to a depth of around 800 meters, or more than 2,600 feet.
- These rocks are very permeable,
so they act kind of like a sponge.
They have a lot of pores and fractures
for the CO2-charged fluid to flow through.
It has been estimated that over 100 kilos of CO2
can be stored in each cubic meter.
- The CO2 comes from two sources.
One is the geothermal plant itself.
- Geothermal is, of course, clean energy
but it still emits some CO2.
This plant emits about 3% of what
a fossil-fuel burning plant of similar size would emit.
- The second source of CO2 is the atmosphere.
And this is where the fans come in.
The Orca plant, named after the Icelandic word for "energy,"
is run by a Swiss company called Climeworks.
They say it's the world's largest
direct air capture facility.
It captures around 4,000 tons of CO2 per year.
But the global energy demand for 2021
alone is predicted to emit 33 billion tons.
Also, this method of carbon capture and storage
is incredibly energy-intensive, especially at the capture site.
And some critics argue that the process
will delay industries from making the switch away
from fossil fuels.
Looking beyond Iceland, CarbFix has created
a worldwide database to show where other basalt formations
could be used to store CO2.
And it's also creating a plan for a fleet of specially
designed ships to transport it.
[music playing]
CARL AZUZ: Is it a beauty mask or is it lunch meat?
That is the question for today's "10 out of 10" segment.
Oscar Mayer is famous for baloney
packages that look like this.
But look closer, because this here container
holds a slice of skin care.
The meat company says this is for your face, not
your sandwich.
It's a hydrogel mask being sold online
that's intended to improve your skin,
and it's advertised as beauty inspired by baloney.
If your poor skin is feeling a bit deprived,
why not step up to a counter where lunch and care collide?
You've arrived.
Let's face it, when you can take some meat
and place it on your noggin, while you're hogging
the meal on which they base it, it's
like food and pulchritude come together in a plan which
makes an about face to place this skincare plan
into a sandwich. Can you beat it?
You can't eat it.
For me, it's just a phony.
But those hungry to feed their face will say it's no baloney.
Never thought I'd rap about lunch meat.
That is almost a wrap for today's show.
Want to give a shout out to Fairhope High
School in Fairhope, Alabama.
Thank you for watching.
I'm Carl Azuz.
[music playing]