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Is that true or false? I didn’t know, and he didn’t offer much in the way of specifics, so I decided to go do some research. Here is what I found: CNN: Trump’s right and NPR. It seems that he was referring to the Acosta Deep Mine, in Jennerstown, PA, set to open on June 8th. Now, the 70 or so jobs it creates aren’t going to single-handedly save the industry, but this claim seems to be mostly true. Agree?
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The thing about spin is that you use a fact to create an impression, usually in the same way a magician will use a waving hand or fluttering cape to hide the bird he’s pulling out of his sleeve. True, what he’s saying here is ‘accurate’…but it’s tossing out an accurate fact to create a false impression. From your CNN article:
NPR says something similar in their ‘long answer’ section:
So, yeah…I agree it’s true that the mine he mentioned is reopening. But the overarching point he’s making by using that is false. And to me, his whole speech is like that.
This seems strange to me. It is within your power to argue from a position of factual accuracy, if you quantify the number of truths and untruths in the speech. Yet you decline to do so, instead preferring to argue from a position of admittedly self-imposed ignorance. Why would you not seek to dispel the notion that there are more untruths than truths in what you are advocating for? Surely that would render your arguments that much more effective?
There is a slight amount of truth to it, but it is entirely deceptive in nature, along with a decent helping of lies.
Break it down…
Lie
Slight truth, 1 mine is opening up.
Deceptive. Big? I dunno about that . Quite a bit of pomp and circumstance for 70 jobs.
This coal from this mine will not be used for producing electricity, and as such, is a much more limited market that has very limited growth.
This mine is not opening because he pulled out of the paris climate deal, it has nothing to do with that, and would have been opened if Clinton was president.
Do you truly feel that there was anything in that statement that was not meant to be deceptive?
He is trying to give the impression that this mine is opening because of his actions in pulling out of the climate change agreement, or even due to his actions at all, when nothing could be further from the truth.
I don’t know that I could rate the statement 100% false, as he did use a couple of actual facts there, but to label it “mostly true” is a more than a bit generous.
In discussing the accuracy of Trump’s speech trying to come up with reasons for withdrawing from the Paris accord, the fact that a coal mine is opening somewhere is completely irrelevant; it’s simply the result of misguided policies that are going to ramp up fossil fuel use again and accelerate the damage of climate change. What we are discussing is whether or not Trump ever provided credible reasons for this extraordinary action that defies every other major country on earth and threatens to undermine critically important international progress on climate change.
And we already had that discussion in this thread in which you participated, so it’s a bit of mystery why you’re asking again now. To remind you, you started off cited misleading statistics from climate denialist Bjorn Lomborg on how little effect the Paris accord would have, which were appropriately refuted. We then went on to discuss one of Trump’s few tangible claims, the one about the alleged loss of 2.7 million jobs, which turned out to be from the National Economic Research Associates who, as pointed out in that thread, are basically lying shills for the fossil fuel industry.
And as also discussed over there, Ted Cruz had made all the same points in an op-ed on CNN, including quoting the NERA job loss figure, and the whole of it was debunked by several prominent scientists as documented here, thus demonstrating that Trump’s stated rationale for withdrawing from the Paris accords was basically a pack of lies.
Because of the time involved. I have very little desire to fact-check every single line of Trump’s speech to see if I come up with more trues than falses. Such an exercise would be extremely time-consuming, and not particularly interesting to me. Maybe if I’m bored later this week I’ll take the time to do it, but I doubt it.
It’s more than a single mine, although he gave additional detail about one particular mine in the immediate future. According to the NPR article I linked to:
That would certainly seem to qualify the “mines are starting to open up” as more than a “slight” truth, don’t you think?
I don’t know if it’s “big” either, and it’s probably typical of Trump’s penchant for grandiose statements (“bigly”), but before we run off and label it “deceptive”, I’d like to see a bit more of your analysis than “I dunno about that”. How many people are typically employed in coal mines? Is 70 on the high or low end of that range? Are there other ways of measuring the size of the mine besides the # of employees that would support the adjective “big” (like, amount of coal produced)? I don’t know either, but I’m not yet willing to hang the “deceptive” label on the adjective if we’re both operating from ignorance on the subject.
This. In response to RickJay previously stating that “… most of what Trump said about the Paris agreement were flat-out lies” you responded “Rather than turning to John Oliver, someone I consider to be a good ways off from a neutral arbiter of facts, why don’t you work from the primary source material and craft your own arguments?”.
You seemed to be asking for arguments concerning the accuracy of Trump’s statements to justify the withdrawal. Was that not an accurate interpretation? I found it unnecessary to do so since a number of prominent scientists had already done it. I provided a link to their analysis. Again.
I already stated the reason, but maybe if you ask it a third time, you’ll get … the same answer again.
“The time involved”. I’m not going to spend hours and hours fact-checking every single line of Trump’s speech, and I wouldn’t expect RickJay (who made the original “most of what Trump said about the Paris agreement were flat-out lies” claim) to either. If you’ve got that kind of free time, why don’t you dive in and report back to us what you find? You’ll also have the benefit of “know[ing] whether or not your impressions of Mr. Trump and his truthfulness are accurate”.
Ok, so of course, let us look at two key facts: Global warming is a fact. The Paris Climate Agreement alone will not solve the climate change problem.
The Agreement is voluntary with no enforcement actions or authority. So, altho many nations signed it, few will comply.
The Western Democracies will, by and large- attempt to comply. Some will succeed, some will come close, some will fail. This will help the GW problem.
The 3rd World Dictatorships and near Dictatorships will- by and large- not even make the attempt. A couple are likely sincere and will proceed until deposed. Most will assign a budget to some Brother in law, who will promptly steal and pocket 90% of the funds. Nothing substantive will be done. *To think otherwise is naive. *They sign treaties about Human trafficking etc and blithely ignore them, while meanwhile pocketing profits from such. Counting on them to make the numbers is wishing for Unicorns.
The Elephants in the Room are China and Russia. Are they sincere? Who knows? China’s promises are far off and vague. I am inclined to be skeptical.
The USA is different. If this Treaty was actually ratified (not gonna happen) it would be Law. The USA is actually quite good on following it’s ratified treaties. (Those “treaties” with the Native Americans were by and large only written agreements, not actual *ratified *treaties).
These would have been great points for Trump to make.
**But he didnt. ** (well, sorta but not the main points)
The GOP (by and large) doesnt ‘believe’ in Global Warming (as if *closing your eyes and putting your fingers in your ears and wishing *will make it go away).:rolleyes:
jobs? Sure, it will cost jobs. But in the net, likely it would have led to higher paying and certainly better working condition jobs in the Alternative Energy field. Maybe we would lose 70 Coal miner jobs but gain 35 white collar jobs in Silicon Valley. To me, that’s a new gain, not a* loss*. But Silicon Valley voted for Hillary while Coal miners voted for trump (more fools they).
I was thinking RickJay might offer up a defense of his use of the word “most”, perhaps some statistical analysis or scorecard that X statements in Trump’s speech were true, and Y statements were false. As I’ve noted with Snowboarder Bo, I don’t really expect him to (although I’d be delighted if he did), but it was intended to highlight the non-factual nature of the “most” claim.
As for your points about some of the claims by NERA and other things stated in Trump’s speech, I don’t mind continuing our discussion on that here. I propose we start with the real-world effect the Paris Agreement was going to have on climate change (longer post on this subject to follow shortly).
Well, for one thing, I already know that my impressions of Mr. Trump and his truthfulness are accurate.
Okay; you don’t have the time, you say. I just find it odd that you spend so much time posting here about this subject, yet your priority isn’t in finding out whether or not your position is supported by facts.
I do understand that we all have to set our own priorities, tho.
Before you spend too much time on that, I want to make sure that you’ve read this, which you may not have seen. I’m not sure if there’s really a great deal more to be said at this stage of the agreement, except how important it is that every nation move forward from that baseline. ETA: At last report, 149 of the 197 parties to Paris COP21 have ratified the agreement.
1 ) Would this be a NATO-like treaty where the USA pays 20%+ while other nations pay 1%
2 ) Who tells China and India, two nations not exactly known for being honest to comply?
3 ) I read the plan is to reduce heat by 2/10 of degrees by 2100. Are you kidding me, that’s it. By then the combustible engine was we know it for cars will be replaced.
4 ) Might some smaller nations barter their carbon use for $$$
(3) is wrong. The objective isn’t to “reduce” temperature, but to limit its rise by reducing emissions on a graduated trajectory, and the target is to limit temperature rise to well below 2°C. Either someone misplaced a decimal point in what you were reading or it’s some of Lomborg’s fudged numbers again.
(4) you’ve got cap and trade backwards.
For more information on (5) and other related matters, see the link in my post immediately preceding yours.
You can’t ignore India, and China staying in compliance, or any dictator for that matter.
A target is different than the realist goal, is it not? When I hear 2/10 of degrees by 2100, that is a tiny amount.
The earth has had warm and cool period long before carbon machines. There is limited data on sunspot activity and the ozone layer itself seems to fluctuate. For example, the hole in the ozone layer 1-2 decades ago in the Antartica region seems to be back to normal.
Sooner or later, there will be a cleaner more efficient fuel cell.
Finally, if the other nations are for it, that’s great, let them do it.
Not so fast there wolfpup. Trump stated in his speech:
Let’s start with an easy one: Is this a true statement or not? Is it estimated that the Paris Agreement would only produce a 0.2 degree Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100? It appears to come from this MIT report from 2015 (PDF):
At least at some level “it is estimated that …” is an accurate statement. Although I’m sure you’ll find fertile ground to quibble with the significance of the claim. To get you started, let me add this:
I largely agree with MIT and PolitiFact that some additional context is best for fully understanding the statement, but I don’t think it’s accurate to flatly call it a “wrong”. Trump didn’t pull the 0.2 number out of his ass, he read it in a report, from MIT (or, more likely, some staffer did).
I have read a lot of the information out there and the thing is that those 2 degrees were an acknowledgment that we can not go cold turkey; that indeed, no matter how much the contrarians out there are telling you, the proponent of change are not against civilization as we know it.
In any case as wofpup mentions it, the numbers are not like that and even if that was the case a small amount is a big deal as it means that then the increase in temperature can be first limited and then the updates that will be made should allow the start of controlling or reversing the increase.
Well thanks for pointing at an international effort were the USA did not make the mistake of dropping off.
Perhaps, but it is mostly wishful thinking right now.
Here one has to notice that many contrarians out there made the point that others were not doing doing enough, therefore we should not do it, now they are saying that when others will do it we should not.
