Great! You can “deem” it whatever you want. IDGAF. I’m interested to know if anyone else has done any actual analysis of the anticipated effects of the Paris Accord and if they reached a different conclusion. That information would be very useful to me. Do you know if anyone has?
Being a leader in environmental protection will mean your country’s energy is not dependent on green house emitters. Let alone the fact china now is going to be the most technological energy consumer in the world. Other countries that also agreed to the paris accord, will look towards china as a way to become more self dependent on energy. Not needing to rely on big oil, or fossil fuels. Plus when you’re investing in NEW technology that will pay for it’s self 100x over in the future, then you’re overall increasing your economy and production.
I know you may not be capable of grasping this but being technologically and scientifically conservative makes you an ape. Humans are capable of progressing and comprehending new subject matter. They’re capable of evolving the way they use tools, where as apes repeat the same thing over and over until they accidentally do something new that’s useful, or someone else shows them.
That’s an analogy for conservatives specifically Republicans in America choosing to stick with energy sources that pollute the environment on a mass scale. It is presently profitable for them to do so, and only benefits the present interests of a few people. Where as the long term effects greatly outweigh their short term pleasures. Instead of taking climate change as serious of a threat as it is, america has chosen to ignore it and be primitive.
Once more shit hits the fan and the climate change is affecting everyone directly, then maybe the apes in office will follow china’s lead and probably invest in chinese technology to improve our own conditions. China without a doubt along with the rest of the world will invent new and more sustainable based energy technology. Where as america is going to roll around in it’s own filth until we’re miles behind everyone else like we are in Education today.
Nevermind, you don’t seem to have the information I’m seeking. I’m not sure it even exists.
Lomborg is not exactly a particularly credible source given his history of simple errors* on the subject of climate change.
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- Whether deliberate or not, and honestly, I think it not deliberate. I think Lomborg is just a fairly poor scientist and likes being a personality and the best way he can do that is to be controversial.
The conclusion is fucking irrelevant to you if you knew what you were talking about.
If 2 degree increase will cause all the shit it’s going to cause, then why would you pull out a deal that can even decrease the projected tempature. Why would you rather do nothing at all about it? What do you think trump is going to do? How is he going to make America the leader of enviromental protection, how is he going to give us the cleanest air. Do you even listen to what he says, understand what he does, or comprehend what you’re talking about?
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My answer would depend on what the costs / side effects of the agreement are. Trump seems to have reached the conclusion that it was too much cost for too little benefit. That’s not, on it’s face, a wholly unreasonable conclusion.
Just for starters, what the US does will certainly have impact on the more than 5 billion tons of CO2 it spews into the air every year. It will not likely have much impact on what the EU does but the EU has already been proactive on this issue for a long time. China and India are on board with the Paris accords but their commitments are likely to be undermined by the US withdrawal, which is a significant blow to a global agreement that necessarily requires international solidarity.
The global warming reduction you quote and the “handy picture” are both strangely at odds with the actual goals of the Paris agreement, wherein the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has clearly stated that the objective was to “reaffirm the goal of limiting global temperature increase well below 2 degrees Celsius, while urging efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees”.
Perhaps this disconnect between the scientifically based goals of the Paris COP21 agreement and your allegations can be explained by the fact that both your cites come from a website run by Bjorn Lomborg, with whom many of us are familiar. Lomborg is a borderline climate change denialist and defender of industrial emissions, and is notable for having been investigated for scientific fraud, and found guilty by the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty, but partially excused in at least one instance because, having no background whatsoever in climate science, it was deemed unfair to accuse him of scientific dishonesty on a subject that he knew nothing about.
Trump is not qualified to reach such a conclusion. The job of any responsible political leader is to take advice on scientific matters from scientific experts, and not put ideology before science. That’s why institutions like the National Academy of Sciences exist – to act as expert advisers to the legislative and executive branches of the federal government on matters of science. And the NAS, along with the national academies of every major country in the world, has for decades been advising of the urgent need for emissions mitigation to address climate change. A conclusion that ignores the scientific consensus on a major problem is, on its face, a wholly unreasonable conclusion. Coming from the guy who called climate change a “hoax”, it is not, however, much of a surprise.
For starters, a lot of the new jobs thanks to cars that Ford and Fiat/Chrysler are going to make (and claimed to be saved/created by Trump) rely on the long run on low to no emission standards that are going to be dropped by the Trump administration now. They are less likely to be successful and Ford just announced they did not had a good year, they were counting on new standards and regulations (related to the climate accords) to be in place.
What Trump did is not only unreasonable, but stupid.
Trump is a man who creates entire news stories over a typo. He demonizes others, and praises authoritarians. He’s displayed levels of ignorance that nobody thought he could realistically win even the primaries.
Because trump thinks the sacrifice isn’t worth saving the world, you’re going to jump all over him and full heartedly agree? Are you a person or a robot? People have free will and can think on their own. Now tell me how reducing the impact climate change has on the entire world, doesn’t justify the costs of investing in renewable energy?
Let’s consider the education, and competency of who we’re dealing with. Almost every country in the world has signed onto this agreement. Trump, who just so happens to be the most incompetent world leader, is the one who decides to pull out the paris agreement.
Obama the previous president, wanted the paris accord. The big oil companies, understood and accepted the paris accord. Trump is the only delusional man baby who thinks he’s doing something productive by pulling out the accord and continuing to rely on green house emitting energy sources.
When everyone in the village tells me the town drunk is an idiot, then I see the town drunk acting like an idiot, why the fuck would I not conclude the town drunk is an idiot? Trump’s decision was utterly ignorant, incompetent, and self destructive. We would of been 100x better off financially if we invested in renewable energy sources and invested in environmental protection innovations. We could of had the next half century 100% under our control had we been the ones to first start producing renewable energy technology.
We can do it, but with trump in office we’re not going to. The only people who will do a single thing that will actually help the economy, help job growth, and help the climate is a progressive. Someone who isn’t going to play patty cake with people trying to stay in their safe space. Those snowflakes in washington are going to have to get the fuck out, because we’re losing so fucking much thanks to this idiot in office. We’re not only losing our position, we’re losing our fucking lives.
Has the National Academy of Sciences done the sort of cost-benefit analysis we’re discussing?
I’m no fan of Trump these days but this silly accord needed to be withdrawn from. It was an accord of hot air and wishful thinking; it had zero chance of being ratified by the Senate and would have had zero effect on global warming. If the US withdrawal kills the whole thing then it’s none too soon. Just maybe they’ll all eventually hammer out an effective way to combat global warming in the future.
I think they are not much related to what to do about the issue, they just report on the phenomenon and the basics of what needs to be done to control it. Now, what you are talking about is about how do it and why is that we have to get going. Economists like the former president-elect of the American Economic Association, already did it; and many others before.
Come to think of it, this is about the 10th time I cite Nordhaus and his analysis. As said many times, it is taking longer than we thought.
Knowing the deniers in Congress and what Trump said before, their way to combat global warming will never show up.
Great opportunity for China to take the global lead and moral high ground, and why wouldn’t you:
It’s like the USA is moving back in time to the last century, alone.
Suppose we went for it, worldwide commitment to sustainable green energy. And suppose it works.
Not that hard, wasn’t that long ago that the whole notion of solar energy as viable did look impossible. Where are we now, one genius away? Couple of breakthroughs, harnessed together by us clever monkeys? Then even the subsistence farmer has access to energy equivalent to two water buffalo, three donkeys. Cheap, sustainable green energy from as many local sources as us clever monkeys can make. Maybe “golden age” is an exaggeration. Then again, maybe it isn’t. Imagine.
And then we find the new and conclusive evidence that proves we were wrong all along, that global warming is not the ultimate Big Hairy Ass Deal. And there we are, stuck with this huge leap forward. What a fucking disaster! We achieve a galactic level blessing by being wrong!
Terrible, huh? Imagine!
Thanks for the cite. It’s lead me to something to read. Nordhaus seemed skeptical of the efficacy of the Paris Accords last fall:
Yes. Has Trump?
Some of the NAS reports dealing with such policy issues can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here, just for some examples. Also, the IPCC regularly assesses mitigation costs and options.
Furthermore, if any federal policymaker or agency requires a specific type of cost-benefit analysis and policy recommendation above and beyond what NAS is already doing, NAS is chartered for the specific purpose of responding to just such science-based requests, as for example they did in response to the challenges made against Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” temperature reconstructions. Did Trump ask them, or did he just blunder ahead with his embarrassingly ignorant belief that “climate change is a hoax” to the delight of the stupid rubes who voted for him? To try to defend this knee-jerk nonsense as a reasoned cost-benefit analysis is so obviously unsupportable that it’s absurd, since no actual facts were involved or cited – this decision was effectively announced early in the campaign, and was a major draw for many of the ignoramuses who voted for him.
Did you actually listen to / read Trump’s announcement? This much at least seems fairly straightforward to refute.
I suppose you could argue that the National Economic Research Associates are mistaken, but it seems pretty clear that Trump gave at least this one citation.