French astronaut Thomas Pesquet used a video call from space to describe the view from the International Space Station of global warming's repercussions.
Pesquet told French President Emmanuel Macron during the call on Thursday that the space station's portholes revealed the haunting fragility of humanity's only home.
“We see the pollution of rivers, atmospheric pollution, things like that," the astronaut said. "What really shocked me on this mission were extreme weather or climate phenomena.”
“We saw entire regions burning from the space station, in Canada, in California,” he continued.
“We saw all of California covered by a cloud of smoke and flames with the naked eye from 400 kilometers (250 miles) up.”
This is Pesquet's second mission to the space station. He also spent 197 days in orbit in 2016-2017. The destructive effects of human activity have become increasingly visible in the interim, he said.
Macron said the goal for negotiators at the UN climate conference in Scotland must be to speed up humanity's response.
“There is still a huge job ahead of us, and I think we are all aware of that,” the French leader said.
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(Published 04 November 2021, 16:39 IST)
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