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Governments Failing, Again, on Climate - The Tuesday AM Quickie 11/21/23

By Jacob Silverman —

Can we bill Eric Adams' Turkish benefactors for NYC's budget cuts? - Jacob

ON THE SHOW TODAY

11/21: It's News Day Tuesday! But first, Sam and Emma speak with Jacob Sugarman, lifestyle editor at the Buenos Aires Herald and writer at The Nation, to discuss Javier Milei's recent victory in Argentina's presidential election.

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Today you'll read about our doomed biosphere, drama at America's most valuable startup, and NYC's most crooked cop.

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THE BIG NEWS

World Set to Pass Crucial Climate Change Threshold

On Monday, the United Nations released a report announcing that governments were failing on their climate-change promises made in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The planet is on the path to achieving 3 degrees Celsius of warming, a major threshold that will accelerate already catastrophic changes to the environment and climate. The report was titled "Broken Record," a reflection of the exhaustion of climate scientists who have repeatedly called for fundamental change in energy production and economic life more broadly, only to see the problem get worse. Despite most countries pledging to reduce emissions to zero by 2050, carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise.

UN environmental official Inger Andersen echoed the warning that maintaining business as usual is leading us down a very dark path:

"There is no person or economy left on the planet untouched by climate change, so we need to stop setting unwanted records on greenhouse gas emissions, global temperature highs and extreme weather. We must instead lift the needle out of the same old groove of insufficient ambition and not enough action, and start setting other records: on cutting emissions, on green and just transitions and on climate finance."

Thanksgiving Promises Annual Tradition of Bad Weather

As an estimated 55 million Americans are gearing up to brave the country's dilapidated roads and airports – and their weird uncles' political diatribes – much of the eastern part of the country is facing various storm warnings and tornado watches. Travel hubs like Chicago, New York, Dallas, Atlanta, and Houston could all be dealing with significant rain. "We can't control the weather," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg astutely noted at a public briefing on Monday. He pledged that the government was working with airlines and transit hubs to improve services. He also asked travelers to treat beleaguered airport workers with more respect, a policy we can support.

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • X Sues Media Matters Elon Musk followed through on his threat to go "thermonuclear" on Media Matters, the progressive media watchdog group. On Monday, X filed a lawsuit in Texas accusing Media Matters of manipulating images to portray ads appearing next to posts by Nazis. via BBC News.
  • OpenAI Employees Pledge to Follow Ousted Altman At least 700 of OpenAI's 770 employees have promised to follow their recently fired CEO Sam Altman out the door. Altman is set to lead a new Microsoft AI lab, and the company, which already works with OpenAI, has billions of dollars to plow into AI efforts, including by poaching talent. via Bloomberg.
  • NYPD Officer Accused of Framing Dozens of People for Murder More than $110 million in settlement money has gone to victims of NYPD detective Louis N. Scarcella, who fabricated evidence and coerced witness testimony to frame innocent people for unsolved murders. Scarcella hasn't yet been charged with a crime. via The New York Times.
  • Yet Another Massive Surveillance Program Revealed Trillions of American phone records are available to law enforcement agencies at all levels, often without a warrant as part of the Hemisphere surveillance program. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has called on the Department of Justice to release more information about the secretive operation. via Wired and Sen. Ron Wyden.

SOME NUMBER

Two

That's how many times Emilian Gebrev, owner of Bulgarian arms manufacturer Emco, claims he has been poisoned by Russian secret services. Gebrev, who fell into a weeks-long coma after the first assassination attempt, may have been a Russian target because his company produces munitions for Ukrainian tanks. His factories have also been hit with several large explosions – apparent acts of sabotage.

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS‌

CNN Host Fails Basic Journalism During Deranged Israeli Propaganda Segment

Sam and Emma parse the deceptive language games and propaganda being used to spin coverage of the war in Gaza.

WATCH: Republican's UNHINGED Audition For Trump Goon Squad

An Iowa state representative went a little nuts while trotting out some very tired MAGA applause lines.

PARTING WORDS

"I deeply regret my participation in the board's actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we've built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company."

-- From a tweet by Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder, board member, and chief scientist. Sutskever reportedly helped lead the board's effort to oust CEO Sam Altman, throwing the $80 billion startup into existential crisis. Just days later, as most of the company's employees pledged to join Altman at Microsoft, Sutskever changed his mind.

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