French astronaut Thomas Pesquet describes to President Emmanuel Macron the climate damage on Earth: We could see whole regions burning
Steph Deschamps / November 5, 2021
In a video conversation from the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, astronaut Thomas Pesquet described to French President Emmanuel Macron the climate damage on Earth that he saw from space during his second mission in orbit.
Asked by Mr. Macron about tangible traces of the consequences of climate change, the astronaut, in weightlessness in the station, replied that through the window of the Space Station, we can clearly see the fragility of the Earth, an oasis with limited resources, and the harmful effects of human activities, river pollution, air pollution.
We saw entire regions burning: Canada, California covered with a cloud of smoke, flames that we saw with the naked eye at 400 km of attitude, same thing in the south of France and Greece and the Mediterranean basin, he continued. He also described the sad spectacle of tropical storms that follow each other.
These meteorological phenomena are accelerating in a worrying way, added the astronaut, who nodded to the question of the French president asking him if he saw evolutions compared to his last mission.
We hope that we will be able to take the necessary measures so that the planet remains habitable for everyone, concluded Mr. Pesquet.
We must accelerate our commitments and their implementation. This is the objective of this COP26 and of what we are all trying to do at the national, regional and European levels, concluded Emmanuel Macron, thanking the astronaut for bringing his part of the dream and inspiration.
Thomas Pesquet should return to Earth in the next few days, but the exact date of his return has not yet been announced.
The French astronaut also recalled the objectives of the next space missions, in particular to return to the Moon in a more durable way to establish a base there, and in a few years to go towards Mars, to see if what happened to this planet - to lose its atmosphere - can arrive at the Earth.