# Is the paris accord really unfair to the USA **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 2, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929 "2017-06-02T14:39:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/181 "2017-06-08T21:43:42Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > How broadly does this principle extend? Should we label whole books as “lies” because one sentence in them is incorrect? It depends on how important that sentence is to the work as a whole. I would certainly say it invalidates the paragraph, and probably even the chapter. Any conclusions based on that incorrect sentence are suspect at best. It probably will cast doubt on the veracity of other claims in the work. This is assuming that you are talking non-fiction, if it is fiction, then obviously false sentences probably abound, and still may tell a fun story. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/182 "2017-06-08T22:01:20Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > We’re not talking about some subtle exotica here. If Trump’s statement was correct, it explicitly says that the Paris accords, the culmination of years of effort among more than 180 nations to lay the groundwork for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, is completely useless and a waste of time; Yes, that sounds like a less-succinct version of the judgement of the WSJ that Trump quoted: “The reality is that withdrawing is in America’s economic interest and won’t matter much to the climate.” > [@wolfpup](#): > > … please explain why we should believe Trump over the climate scientists who support the Paris accord. As I’ve already explained: PolitiFact called the statement “broadly accurate”. I’m more comfortable with their analysis on the matter than yours, which I can see quite clearly comes from a deeply partisan position. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/183 "2017-06-08T22:24:04Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Yes, that sounds like a less-succinct version of the judgement of the WSJ that Trump quoted: “The reality is that withdrawing is in America’s economic interest and won’t matter much to the climate.” Point #1: “Won’t matter much” is dangerously wrong, as already extensively discussed. Anything beyond a two degree increase by the end of the century is an increasingly serious risk. > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > As I’ve already explained: PolitiFact called the statement “broadly accurate”. I’m more comfortable with their analysis on the matter than yours, which I can see quite clearly comes from a deeply partisan position. Point #2: It’s not about me versus Politifact, it’s not about _ad hominems_ or attacking the source, my question was an attempt to get you to examine the facts I presented that demonstrate that Trump’s statement was a blatant lie, and either to tell me what you see wrong with the clearly delineated facts or acknowledge that they’re correct. In view of your refusal to do so, I conclude that you have no interest in discussing the facts, which poisons the dialog and makes further discussion futile. There is nothing “partisan” about my position on this particular matter; I may be partisan on certain sociopolitical matters, but climate science is about facts, not politics, and I’m certainly frustrated with Trump’s endless pathological dishonesty on this and just about everything else. Good for you that you’re comfortable with it. I guess there’s no further possibility of a productive conversation with you on this matter. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/184 "2017-06-08T22:50:55Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > … it’s not about _ad hominems_ or attacking the source … There is nothing “partisan” about my position on this particular matter … Trump’s endless pathological dishonesty on this and just about everything else. … :rolleyes: I think you’re right: there’s not much room for productive conversation here. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/185 "2017-06-08T23:41:51Z")
Good. We’ve now clearly established that the facts of the matter, such as those presented in [#167](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20261143&postcount=167) and [#169](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20262770&postcount=169), were of no interest to you once you discovered that you have no rebuttal to them. I note also that you were going to read the CCES report which addressed mitigation policy issues that you claimed great interest in, and we never heard any more about that, either, so I guess you had no rebuttal to that, either. The world’s climate may be going to hell, but the main thing is, you were able to post a rolleyes emoticon, thus demonstrating … something important, I’m sure. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/186 "2017-06-08T23:55:29Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Good. We’ve now clearly established that the facts of the matter, such as those presented in [#167](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20261143&postcount=167) and [#169](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20262770&postcount=169), were of no interest to you once you discovered that you have no rebuttal to them. I note also that you were going to read the CCES report which addressed mitigation policy issues that you claimed great interest in, and we never heard any more about that, either, so I guess you had no rebuttal to that, either. The world’s climate may be going to hell, but the main thing is, you were able to post a rolleyes emoticon, thus demonstrating … something important, I’m sure. We established that you were lacing wildly partisan attacks in with your posts, and I got tired of it. Here are some examples: > [@wolfpup](#): > > … the Triumvirate of Stupid … those buffoons … perhaps a new low in shameless mendacity, even for Trump. > [@wolfpup](#): > > … Trump’s track record of mendacity and non-stop lying … the malign influence of the climate-denying Koch brothers … > [@wolfpup](#): > > … Trump’s endless pathological dishonesty on this and just about everything else. … You claim to want to have a just-the-facts discussion, but your posts show otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/187 "2017-06-09T00:04:07Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Yes, that sounds like a less-succinct version of the judgement of the WSJ that Trump quoted: “The reality is that withdrawing is in America’s economic interest and won’t matter much to the climate.” > > As I’ve already explained: PolitiFact called the statement “broadly accurate”. I’m more comfortable with their analysis on the matter than yours, which I can see quite clearly comes from a deeply partisan position. [QUOTE=Politifact] However, Reilly said that tackling climate problems depends on taking a series of incremental steps to reduce carbon emissions, and noted that pulling out of the Paris agreement would require even bigger reductions in the future. [/QUOTE] Saying that something is broadly accurate in this context is the same as saying that it is kinda accurate to say that the president is saving several hundred dollars by not hiring a tax accountant to review complicated situations, but he will later owe the IRS millions in fees and penalties. As for the idea that we should disparage this as just partisanship, as I pointed many times before: even Republican scientists do not agree with what Trump is doing. [https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/06/01/will-the-us-leave-paris-climate-agreement](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/06/01/will-the-us-leave-paris-climate-agreement) In the Broadcast Richard Alley\* made also the point that: “The scholarship says that if a big player, China or the US, were to act unilaterally they can help themselves by dealing with climate, but that the help is much bigger if everybody is on board; so, no one country can do it by themselves but the world would have real trouble doing it without the big countries.” Yes, last I checked, he is still a Republican. But I have seen how he is discouraged by the ignorance that it is prevalent in his party. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/188 "2017-06-09T00:09:25Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > We established that you were lacing wildly partisan attacks in with your posts, and I got tired of it. Here are some examples: > > You claim to want to have a just-the-facts discussion, but your posts show otherwise. Uh, I will have to tell you that what you quoted and what you say is like telling us that **all** Republicans are that. When **wolfpup** did not say that. Unless you want to claim that indeed all Republicans should be like the deniers he pointed at. No wonder Kerry Emmanuel stopped being a Republican and became an independent, there were many like you that are assuming that all Republicans are like those deniers, so scientists like him “deserved” threats and hate because they are indeed not seeing why this issue should be a partisan one. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/189 "2017-06-09T01:07:24Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > … what you quoted and what you say is like telling us that **all** Republicans are that. I’d love for you to elaborate on this, starting perhaps with what you mean by “that”, and continuing on to which part of my post you think had anything to do with “ **all** Republicans” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/190 "2017-06-09T01:17:47Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I’d love for you to elaborate on this, starting perhaps with what you mean by “that”, and continuing on to which part of my post you think had anything to do with “ **all** Republicans” Trump and the Kochs are indeed not all Republicans, and there are a good number of Republicans that are not in favor of what Trump is doing with this issue, hence the point that when you feel insulted it follows that it is because you **are** assuming that disparaging clear deniers that have taken power is **just** because of their politics. That is silly. > **[Shultz pleads for US to remain in climate change deal | CNN Politics](https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/09/politics/george-shultz-paris-climate-deal-op-ed/index.html)** > > A veteran Republican official is urging the Trump administration to remain in the Paris climate agreement, co-writing an op-ed arguing “the business case” for the international accord. > [@](#): > > George Shultz – who served as secretary of state, secretary of labor, treasury secretary and director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Nixon and Reagan presidencies – lays out the argument in an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times with Ted Halstead, president of the Climate Leadership Council. > > Shultz and Halstead note the “newly invigorated pro-Paris campaign by many of America’s top CEOs,” citing a series of “public letters and full-page ads.” > “This is as close as big business gets to a consensus position,” they write, arguing that “our companies are best served by a stable and predictable international framework that commits all nations to climate-change mitigation.” Shultz and Halstead say that a US withdrawal from the Paris deal would cloud the international business climate. > > Just as important, Shultz and Halstead argue, withdrawing from the Paris deal “carries major implications for America’s place in the geoeconomic order.” > > “American companies are well positioned to benefit from growing global markets in clean technologies, generating domestic jobs and growth,” they write. “By contrast, pulling out of the agreement could subject the United States to retaliatory trade measures, enabling other countries to leapfrog American industry.” > “Global statecraft relies on trust, reputation and credibility, which can be all too easily squandered,” Shultz and Halstead write. “The United States is far better off maintaining a seat at the head of the table rather than standing outside.” ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/191 "2017-06-09T01:29:48Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Trump and the Kochs are indeed not all Republicans, and there are a good number of Republicans that are not in favor of what Trump is doing with this issue, hence the point that when you feel insulted it follows that it is because you **are** assuming that disparaging clear deniers that have taken power is **just** because of their politics. That is silly. > > [http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/09/politics/george-shultz-paris-climate-deal-op-ed/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/09/politics/george-shultz-paris-climate-deal-op-ed/index.html) Ahhh, I see your mistake. I don’t feel that **wolfpup** was personally insulting me, or that he was insulting all Republicans. That was an inference on your part that I never intended to imply, and certainly never said. My annoyance was that he claimed to want to engage in a fact-centered discussion, but instead interwove partisan sniping throughout his posts. Does that clarify things? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/192 "2017-06-09T01:32:39Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Ahhh, I see your mistake. I don’t feel that **wolfpup** was personally insulting me, or that he was insulting all Republicans. That was an inference on your part that I never intended to imply, and certainly never said. > > My annoyance was that he claimed to want to engage in a fact-centered discussion, but instead interwove partisan sniping throughout his posts. Does that clarify things? Move the bit about you being insulted to you thinking that he was insulting all republicans, same applies, Trump and the Kochs are not all the Republicans and more so regarding this subject. As I have linked to show it here and many times in the past too. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/193 "2017-06-09T05:39:05Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Leaving aside the facts that there are no enforcement or penalties in the Paris agreement that can be used to punish countries that don’t comply (including the US). Leaving aside that the funds to assist third world nations in achieving lower carbon emissions goals are also voluntary. Leaving aside the fact that the incompetent orange buffoon didn’t need to bail on the agreement in order to “re-negotiate a better deal”. > > What’s worth reminding the orange buffoon and his slavishly adoring minions is that having the US lead the world by example is good for the US economy because we can develop renewable energy and related technology before the rest of the world can, and then sell that technology to the rest of the world. That’s jobs! That’s economy! That’s the future! That’s putting “America First!” in terms even the orange minion should be able to understand. Trump is a silly (that is, nigh unto senile) narcissist vaguely following a party of provincial madmen. The nationalists in the USA barely interact with and barely understand the outside world. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/194 "2017-06-09T11:55:05Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Ahhh, I see your mistake. I don’t feel that **wolfpup** was personally insulting me, or that he was insulting all Republicans. That was an inference on your part that I never intended to imply, and certainly never said. > > My annoyance was that he claimed to want to engage in a fact-centered discussion, but instead interwove partisan sniping throughout his posts. Does that clarify things? Facts remain facts whether or not you personally approve of the tone in which they’re stated. I note for the record that the facts have been established, as noted upthread, demonstrating that Trump’s speech withdrawing from the Paris accord was substantially a pack of lies from beginning to end. Your unwillingness to continue the discussion at this point is understandable but don’t blame my alleged “partisanship”. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/195 "2017-06-09T12:20:03Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Good. We’ve now clearly established that the facts of the matter, such as those presented in [#167](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20261143&postcount=167) and [#169](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20262770&postcount=169), were of no interest to you once you discovered that you have no rebuttal to them. I note also that you were going to read the CCES report which addressed mitigation policy issues that you claimed great interest in, and we never heard any more about that, either, so I guess you had no rebuttal to that, either. The world’s climate may be going to hell, but the main thing is, you were able to post a rolleyes emoticon, thus demonstrating … something important, I’m sure. **H-D** , **wolfpup** is correct. You’ve not addressed the above, nor my post #166. What say you? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/196 "2017-06-09T13:41:55Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > While -2/10 of a degree is not very much, I think we should not minimize the importance of the fact that it’s not an increase of 2-5 degrees. I think that’s something that’s being consistently overlooked. My impression was that even if all nations met their Paris INDCs the temperature is still going to rise 2-3 degrees (see [here](http://climateactiontracker.org/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=http://climateactiontracker.org//assets/Global/November_2016/CAT_thermometer_161105_MR.png&w=120)), so your post quoted here looks … confused. Is that a satisfactory answer? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/197 "2017-06-09T14:00:27Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > As I’ve already explained: PolitiFact called the statement “broadly accurate”. I’m more comfortable with their analysis on the matter than yours, which I can see quite clearly comes from a deeply partisan position. Broadly accurate does not apply to the entire speech, but only to the part about temperature reduction. Broadly accurate is also not a straightforward complementary endorsement of truth. It is a bit of a backhanded compliment, like telling an artist they have great technique, or an author they have ecxellent splleing. The other statements earn terms like “Take these statistics with a grain of salt.”, “This doesn’t accurately describe the agreement.”, “So that makes Trump’s concerns about growth-related brownouts and blackouts seem unwarranted.”, and “Invoking the city of Pittsburgh, Pa., has a certain irony, because the city voted overwhelmingly for Trump’s rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton.” You keep headlining the “broadly accurate” phrase, as if it is more important than all the other phrases in the article and validates his speech. Now, as far as the overall accuracy of the statements, and your admonishment to democrats (and many republicans, for that matter) for calling it all a pack of lies, I suppose that is where we have a difference of opinion on how to evaluate a statement. I have asked a couple of times on hypothetical statements that contain true phrases, false phrases, and erroneous conclusions whether or not you felt that those statements were true or false. You have declined to answer, so, given the thrust of your argument, I will make the hesitant assumption that you evaluate such phrases as true. Where you would say that a phrase like “2+2=5, 5+5=10, 10+10=100, and 100+100=200. Therefore 2=100” is partly true, but I would say that it is entirely false. That, from my perspective, is an odd way of evaluating the veracity of a statement as a whole, but using that method of analysis, you are correct in that it is not entirely lies. However, I do not think that that is a common method of evaluating the truth of a statement, nor a useful one. The people who are calling the thing a pack of lies are evaluating statements as true or false based on the entirety of the statement and its context. Using this methodology, I do not see a single statement in his speech about the paris agreement that does not contain more than enough lie in it to invalidate the entirety of the statement. This is why when I “scoured” his speech earlier, the only things I could find were small phrases, when taken out of context, are actually true. I could have found more of these accurate phrases in the midst of lies, but I did not realize that you would take it so literally, and I think that most would get my point that in order to get true statements, you would have to remove them from their context. Thus “pack of lies” is a perfectly defensible statement that is observation, not blind partisan rhetoric. Can you at least accept that others may evaluate his statements in a different, but still neutral, way and come to a different conclusion than you? > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > We established that you were lacing wildly partisan attacks in with your posts, and I got tired of it. Here are some examples: I don’t know that they were “wildly partisan attacks”, somewhat insulting and maybe slightly unnecessary on a few, “… the Triumvirate of Stupid … those buffoons” in particular are simply insults, directed at specific people doing specifically stupid and buffoonish things. “Trump’s track record of mendacity and non-stop lying” is a claim that could be disproven, but not even really an insult, just a description, “the malign influence of the climate-denying Koch brothers” is an observation that the Koch Brothers deny climate change, have influence, and the “malign” part is opinion, but not anything close to “wildly partisan attack”, “… Trump’s endless pathological dishonesty on this and just about everything else. …” is an accurate observation. So, you have identified opinion in wp’s posts, but I think you’d be hard pressed to accurately describe them as “wildl partisan”, and you have most certainly not shown that those “partisan attacks” invalidate the rest of his posts where he makes very clear and factual statements about the science of climate change. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/198 "2017-06-09T14:59:20Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Broadly accurate does not apply to the entire speech, but only to the part about temperature reduction. I agree, and I think if you look back through this thread, you’ll find that I only use that phrase when the discussion was about the estimated 0.2 degree effect of the Paris INDCs. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > … I suppose that is where we have a difference of opinion on how to evaluate a statement. I agree. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > I have asked a couple of times on hypothetical statements that contain true phrases, false phrases, and erroneous conclusions whether or not you felt that those statements were true or false. You have declined to answer, so, given the thrust of your argument, I will make the hesitant assumption that you evaluate such phrases as true. Where you would say that a phrase like “2+2=5, 5+5=10, 10+10=100, and 100+100=200. Therefore 2=100” is partly true, but I would say that it is entirely false. > > That, from my perspective, is an odd way of evaluating the veracity of a statement as a whole, but using that method of analysis, you are correct in that it is not entirely lies. Your hesitant assumption is incorrect. If asked to evaluate the veracity of your sample phrase, I’d say something like “It had several inaccuracies” or “the only correct parts were 5+5=10 and 100+100=200”. There’s a very good reason that, for example, PolitiFact uses judgements like “mostly true”, “half true” and “mostly false”. Reality is a bit more nuanced than just simple “true” or “false” in a lot of circumstances. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > Can you at least accept that others may evaluate his statements in a different, but still neutral, way and come to a different conclusion than you? Yes, like I said to you earlier: “Impressions about the overall tone of the speech are largely personal …” [opinions] ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929/199 "2017-06-09T15:02:57Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Yes, like I said to you earlier: “Impressions about the overall tone of the speech are largely personal …” [opinions] And the very educated “opinions” of the makers of the MIT study that Trump misused were tossed under the bus by Trump and henchmen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-paris-accord-really-unfair-to-the-usa/787929.md?page=9)