Yeah, I have to say though it looks a lot like if Trump is going for the cartoon villain model.
“Meanwhile, at the legion of Doom” is only impressive with the USA in it, but having Syria and Nicaragua as [del]“super villain members”[/del] partners is underwhelming.
(And Nicaragua actually decided not to join the accord because they thought it was not strong, we are really in bed just with Syria and Asad on this one.)
You understand that is disagreement, not debunking?
When a study considers only the costs of a policy and not the costs along with the benefits, using that study to claim some result that would be impacted by the benefits is objectively wrong. It’s not a matter of opinion or debate.
As the New York Times pointed out:
Point being that most studies show that what Trump relied on was the minority report. And with an ax to grind.
Never heard of peer review, huh?
I haven’t seen such a wave of bullshit rationalizations since the Trump campaign. All we’d have to do is change our achievement levels and, aside from grumbles from a few signatories, there’d be no backlash whatsoever. But no, Trump has to prove “He’s the man!”, take his ball, and go home, regardless of how it damages our relationships with the rest of the world.
How can the Paris Accord be unfair to anybody ? Not only are the rules the same for everyone, they’re barely binding - the only enforcement for not realizing its goals are “pointing” and “bad-mouthing”. That’s it.
And yes, amazingly, actually realizing the goals of the treaty could cost some short term money and old jobs, old ways of doing things. Because we’re moving into gasp new sectors, new R&D that’s still being tested, and new jobs. Guess what : safety regs did that, too. OSHA did that, too. Banning child labour did that, too. Not filling our living spaces with asbestos and lead any more did that too, and it continues to cost a mint to remove that poison from our homes and universities.Fuck it, let’s throw ending slavery in there as well. Each of these progressive measures was met with a barrage of griping by conservatives and industrialists because they wuz gonna be the end of the world and my GOD, will nobody think of the [del]children[/del] profit margins ?!
It happens to be necessary so people can live on. So fuck your minimum wage coal mining job. Come serve lattes with the rest of us assholes.
Huh, this struck me a bit. Some of these poor bastards are going to see their entire town’s economies collapse as the one main industry in it closes. Let’s have a moment of silence for these poor, scared folks with no choice but to uproot themselves and move, possibly without the money to do so, or die.
Okay, moment over. Now let’s close the coal mines.
IMHO those communities are the prime example of why the idea of a Basic Income should be considered. If not for all, at least for communities were thanks to changing conditions the main job provider is not coming back.
As far as I can tell, the Paris accords basically do nothing. All of the goals are voluntary and there are no repercussions for not meeting them. In that sense, it’s hard to see how the agreement is unfair to anyone since no one is being forced to do anything. And, similarly, the US withdrawing doesn’t seem to actually do anything.
And it will take 4 years to withdraw. So the next American president (not Trump) will have the final word on the withdrawal anyway.
Largely this is like everything else Trump pretends to do. All heat and no light. Empty as any promise he’s ever made to anyone in his entire useless life.
Honestly, moving back and forth between this thread and the other one in GD on Trump pulling out of the Paris Accords I’m struck by the flexibility of positions. In the other thread, the US pulling out is the worst thing ever, a disaster for the world, a betrayal of the entire human race, etc etc. Here, it’s ‘well, it doesn’t really do anything, it’s all voluntary anyway so how is that ‘unfair’ to the US?’. 
I think that there are some ‘unfair’ aspects from the US perspective, and I think it’s disingenuous of anyone to say otherwise. Voluntary or not, assuming a country actually planned to follow the things (and if they don’t, what’s the point of all this tearing of hair and tears of agony over the US pulling out?), it favors developing nations over industrialized ones. China and India, both major CO2 producers, both get some fairly generous extensions out of it, for instance, that put certain segments of US business at a disadvantage. Whether you think this is right or wrong (and I realize most on this board understand WHY that is and also think it’s reasonable) or that we all need to do something, it is still ‘unfair’ from the perspective of segments of the US as a whole…and not just the coal industry, though obviously that’s a big part of it. Personally, I’m fine with accelerating our movement away from coal, and also think that, with our without these Accords (whether they are voluntary or not), and even with or without whatever nebulous boost Trump is promising, it’s going to happen anyway…natural gas is going to continue to make serious inroads on coal regardless of what we do or don’t do. It’s just a matter of time, IMHO.
If America wants to continue to be the leader of the free world and to be respected as such, it needs to lead by example instead of petulantly tossing the teddy and pouting about how some other kids got a bigger cookie.
Well, a couple of things on this. First, Trump doesn’t seem to want to be the leader of the free world…so, it’s kind of moot. His base doesn’t want that either, nor do Republicans in the Tea Party faction. Secondly, however, the US already carries a lot of the water for ‘the free world’, and it’s cost us quite a bit. I, personally, see why we do what we do and why it benefits us to spend the money we spend, but some coal miner in West Virginia or blue collar worker who lost their job in the rust belt isn’t going to get it…and those people get to vote too.
As for this, I don’t think we should have pulled out…but I also think a lot of fuss is being made about what is basically fluff and smoke. If The World™ was expecting the US to be the one to cripple itself first to make it happen completely voluntarily, well…I doubt that would have happened even if Obama, hell even if Sanders had been elected. We would, at best, have paid lip service to it and pretty much continued as before. Our CO2 emissions have been pretty flat for a while now, even trending down, and I expect that trend to continue regardless of who is in office. It’s not going to suddenly spike up under Trump, nor would it dive under Clinton/Sanders or whoever. Technology is going to have more of an impact than accords signed in Paris, IMHO, and there is nothing stopping US companies from doing whatever they want wrt CO2 emissions. They could build Tesla battery farms and solar or wind farms or harness unicorn farts and dragon dreams if they can make that work…and if it will save them money or create green jobs (or green cash) then more power to them. If Europe wants to take the lead on this and show us how much we will lose out on, I’m all for that as well…more power to them.
Its power is its symbolic commitment to tackle carbon emissions and the show of solidarity that one or more major industrial economies will not try to encourage everyone else to make sometimes painful or onerous economic measures while doing nothing themselves. Withdrawing is a “make no mistake” indicator that Trump will not even attempt to introduce legislation to reduce carbon emissions, will not likely offer tax or other federal incentives for green/renewable energy versus carbon sequestered energy sources, and especially will not use the EPA to make any new carbon-related regulations or enforce any existing regulations that could even remotely reduce carbon emissions except as a completely unintended consequence. In addition, withdrawing so publicly might make it more likely that other countries either withdraw themselves (somewhat unlikely) or take minimal or no steps to actually implement the accord’s targets, knowing that the 2nd biggest carbon emitter in the world will more than offset whatever modest measures they could achieve in reducing emissions.
Trump’s and EPA Director Pruitt’s mandate for the EPA already seems to be “do nothing,” so the withdrawal merely underlines that and formalizes it on the world stage.
Catering to the ignorant is no way to run a country. Wait…
I agree that pulling out will not have an immediate impact on climate change. Perhaps not even a long term one. Like most agreements of this type, it’s only as good as the willingness of the various parties to honour its terms.
But this is much more about optics on the world political stage. If the leading economy in the world opts out, this gives license for others to opt out as well. Or for someone else to step up and take the lead. What would be the fallout for the US, well, hypothetically, when Burundi decides to put up a solar powered generation plant and considers the various solutions, it may not be able to choose the EnergyAmericaCo solution because it’s not part of the PA and the subsidies that the PA provides to Burundi will not apply in purchasing from EnergyAmericaCo. But EnergyChinaCo can and will bid on it and get the contract.
I see what you did there. 
[QUOTE=QuickSilver]
Catering to the ignorant is no way to run a country. Wait…
[/QUOTE]
Well, that’s the thing. In our system, you can’t simply dictate what you want to happen and have it happen. I get from a symbolic perspective having the US on board gives a great impression and having us pull out a bad one, but, realistically, it won’t change much.
As for the broader point, there has been a large backlash wrt Trump and his resonance with the ‘ignorant’ because those people have felt like they didn’t have a voice and things were moving against them. The reality is that, as with buggy whip makers and telephone operators, what was REALLY happening is that the world had moved on, but like I said, to the folks left behind or who suddenly saw their towns or jobs dry up it seemed the fault lay with the elites and The World™. Trump, of course, has capitalized on this and fed it. I’m not sure whether he did this because he’s just an idiot and doesn’t know what’s wrong with this picture (this is my vote) or he’s manipulating people in some Machiavellian way for his own gain (I don’t think he’s that smart). The point, though, is to REALLY shift the US we would need to address this stuff, not just try and dictate what is best for them and the world, we all need to make sacrifices, blah blah blah. Obviously, there is a large segment of the population who don’t think it’s happening or that the US needs or should take the lead on this…and those people vote.
I think it will have an overall negative impact on the goal of lowering CO2 outside of the US, because of the symbolic effect of having the US, a country that contributes over a quarter of all greenhouse gasses with less than 4% of the population and who is seen as a leader withdrawing from the accords. But elections have consequences, and this is one of them…and, pretty obviously, there is a large segment of America who believes the way we were going was the wrong direction. I disagree with that, but it is what it is.
That said, to the second part of your quote, private companies can do a lot…the largest ones can look to make their power consumption more efficient or build their own solar or wind. States, equally, can do a lot of things themselves. And, I think, we are seeing states already saying they will honor the accords. Ironically, the US was actually on target already to meet the rather uninspiring goals by 2025…just the switch from coal to natural gas was basically getting us there. And, IMHO, we probably will still be there, since I can’t see how Trump can roll back the economics of coal verse natural gas.
I think you are the first 'doper to ever read my posts enough to get one of my inside jokes.
Attacking the cite is attacking the argument.
The indications the decision doesn't matter much are rather telling. That the Paris pact is a pledge, not a legally binding agreement, and that a fair amount of awareness and concern over climate change is already "baked in" to the American outlook--from individuals to companies and cities and states, so he can be relatively confident they will now assume all the hard work, given his punting at the federal level.
So why, if it doesn't matter that much did he do it?
For one, a publicity stunt. This is SOP for Trump. Stir up controversy and get loads of press, which time and time again has proven to be money in the bank for him--think of it, his name all over not just the American press, but the world press. Meanwhile the risks to him are relatively slight--any action/inaction will get muddled with efforts at the US state etc levels, and with those of other countries, so it's easy to dodge responsibility. That and the fact consequences aren't discernible for another 50-100 years.
For another, this helps keep the emotional populists happy. He throws them a bone. Meanwhile he can continue to play ball with the Republicans, where the real power is.
Heh especially when we own the whole fucking bakery.
Unfortunately, Trump and his Republican cronies get to determine what the country does in the world. And until at least 2018, that’s the way it will stay.
As for ‘leader of the free world,’ I refer you to Politico: