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Humans are "waging war on nature" resulting in extreme weather events

02 December 2020
Dan Ackermann

Apocalyptic weather is the new normal because humans are "waging war on nature," the UN declared on Wednesday.

What they're saying: "The state of the planet is broken," said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, reports AP. “This is suicidal.”

The big picture: 2020 will go down as one of the three warmest years on record.

  • The World Meteorological Organization said this year is set to end about 2.2°F warmer than the last half of the 1800s.
  • That's a half degree away from the limit set by the Paris climate accord, which could be exceeded by 2024, the WMO said today.

Among the dozens of extremes of 2020, from the WMO report:

  • Record 30 Atlantic named tropical storms and hurricanes.
  • Death Valley had the hottest temperature on Earth in the last 80 years.
  • Record wildfires in the western U.S. and record heat in Australia.
  • Record wildfires and a prolonged heat wave in the Arctic.
  • Record low Arctic sea ice was reported for April and August, and the yearly minimum, in September, was the second lowest on record.

Between the lines: It's projected to get worse before it gets better, judging by current fossil fuel production projections, reports Axios' Ben Geman.

Reproduced from The Production Gap Report: 2020 Special Report; Chart: Axios Visuals

The bottom line: Guterres urged American students and citizens to do “everything you can” to get their governments to curb emissions more quickly, because no climate plan works without the U.S. playing a major role.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.