Trump, the environment and big business

Great Debates
1

It appears that the Donald intends to dial back environmental regulations in order to allow oil companies, coal companies and other heavy industries to prosper and create more jobs. Or something.

In order to take advantage of weaker regs, businesses will need to invest substantial amounts of money with construction that could take years. Given Trumps dismal approval ratings and his inability to see the truth when its staring him in the face, what is the likelihood that companies will make such investments? Why would they dump huge amounts of money into projects when there exists a very good chance that voter backlash will result in a one-term president (and maybe mid-terms that change the numbers) with the next president re-doing everything he just un-did?

2

Moved from Elections to Great Debates.

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3

One heavy industry that I think it will not be as compliant as many think: Car companies.

As I noted in a different thread, I do think that the big automakers just gave a huge “poison” pill to El Trompo.

“Poison” in the way that he is either forced to continue with some if not most of the environmental regulations or he will be shown as the big saboteur of American jobs.

You may had heard that Trump tooted his own horn because thanks to his “great” efforts Ford, FIAT/Chrysler and others are going to make more cars in America.

Never mind that almost all was planned during the Obama years, but the biggest contradiction/poison pill (for the Trump crew) is that most of the new cars that will be built are electrical or very low emission ones.

Meaning that unless Trump drops the idea of removing EPA regulations all those new car manufacturing jobs will be in danger because it was thanks to current or new regulations that the automakers were planning for. If regulations are gone, and no tax for carbon put in place and that subsidies for electrical vehicles are gone, then it is not likely that the new cars will be sold in enough quantities to keep the plants open in the long run.

What I do think is going on is that the automakers did "praise” Trump and let him have some credit because of what is coming next: The automakers will let Trump and the public know that Trump’s efforts to remove environmental regulations will likely lead to the loss of all those new jobs that he praised as his magnificent victory.

4

Often things are grandfathered in when they met the existing rules. If the Keystone pipeline is built during the Trump administration no future administration is going to make the company tear it up.

5

But if it is not done by then, the next administration may not approve its completion.

6

Well, so far it looks like sabotage is the order of the day. I think ignorance is also on that part about states finding that they will be short of money if the EPA is cut or prevented from doing its job.

7

I’m an enviro sci major. ( 40+ returning student)

Some of what he has done is unsettling. (not in regards to resuming control of the .gov’s social media) He went pretty far. The problem is that for the last 8-30 years the EPA has been used as both an attack dog, and unethical influence peddler.

It’s lost credibility. Just like the “scientists” and .gov branches that have tweaked data to push an agenda, ironically the same sort of “adjusted facts” you accuse Trump of…

The EPA and many fed agencys needed a rollback. well they got one.

I hope when the dust settles they can get back to looking out for PCBs and contaminants from fracking, and stop claiming jurisdiction over every puddle in the country.

We do/did need some idealistic Anti American stifling regs rolled back. If you want any growth in this country, as well as the crime reduction and funding for good things, we need to be able to compete.

8

Wrong, Wrong.

[QUOTE=Phil Plait]
The theme of the article is that scientists “manipulated” the data on purpose to exaggerate global warming.

This is nonsense. The claim is wrong. The scientists didn’t manipulate the data, they processed it. That’s a very different thing. And the reason they do it isn’t hard to understand.

Imagine you want to measure the daily temperature in a field near a town. You want to make sure the measurements you get aren’t affected by whether it’s cloudy or sunny—direct sunlight on the thermometer will increase the temperature you measure—so you set it up in a reflective box. Look: Right away you’ve adjusted the temperature, even before you’ve taken a measurement! You’ve made sure an outside influence doesn’t affect your data adversely. That’s a good thing.

So you start reading the data, but over time someone buys the property near the field, and builds houses there. Driveways, roads, houses leaking heat … this all affects your thermometer. Perhaps a building is erected that casts a shadow over your location. Whatever: You have to account for all these effects.

That’s what scientists do. That’s what scientists did.
[/QUOTE]

9

I’m not going to devolve into a climate change discussion in this thread.

Here you give me “lol” Slate, I’ll give you the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/26/us/us-data-since-1895-fail-to-show-warming-trend.html?src=pm

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-sues-for-documents-withheld-from-congress-in-new-climate-data-scandal/

Here is the problem. Tweaking “Data” to “adjust” for other factors is bullshit. If you have a theory test it. That is how science works, test it again. variables? Test.

you do not "adjust"data to fit a narrative.

10

A report from 1989, kind of sad, but typical to push from contrarians, it is just an effort to hide the trend that has been observed for decades. The article is not bad, just dated. What it is bad is how science is cherry picked to mislead others.

Judicial Watch got what it wanted, so where is the evidence that it was tweaked for no reason?

Nowhere, that is because as it is usual you fell for the accusations and never bothered to see if anyone did check were the chicanery was, that misdirection from right wing (and denier) sites is precisely what the many Republicans have been doing with this issue. The accusation was the product, not checking the science. That is the hard part that the contrarians do not bother do check.

11

And a few more items, you are indeed using the fallacy of killing the messenger regarding Slate, the writer was Phil Plait, ACA doper The Bad Astronomer, a real scientist BTW,

And Speaking of the New York Times that you accept as reliable, lets look at what are they reporting now: it is clear that whatever Judicial Watch got more than a year ago has not changed what other scientists continue to report, it is not just NOAA.

12

1989? Really?

I give you the New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/science/earth-highest-temperature-record.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/science/2016-global-warming-news.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/climate-change-extreme-weather-global-warming.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/17/science/earth/2014-was-hottest-year-on-record-surpassing-2010.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/magazine/are-we-missing-the-big-picture-on-climate-change.html

And so on.

13

If you’re seriously studying to become a scientist then you should get out of the habit of getting scientific information from a newspaper. Any newspaper.

You’re university should have subscriptions to an array of journals and conference papers. You should read those instead.

Here some examples:
Collins, Matthew, Reto Knutti, Julie Arblaster, J-L. Dufresne, Thierry Fichefet, Pierre Friedlingstein, Xuejie Gao et al. “Long-term climate change: projections, commitments and irreversibility.” (2013).

Melillo, Jerry M., T. T. Richmond, and G. Yohe. “Climate change impacts in the United States.” Third National Climate Assessment (2014).

Rosenzweig, Cynthia, Joshua Elliott, Delphine Deryng, Alex C. Ruane, Christoph Müller, Almut Arneth, Kenneth J. Boote et al. “Assessing agricultural risks of climate change in the 21st century in a global gridded crop model intercomparison.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 9 (2014): 3268-3273.

Schewe, J., Heinke, J., Gerten, D., Haddeland, I., Arnell, N. W., Clark, D. B., … & Gosling, S. N. (2014). Multimodel assessment of water scarcity under climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(9), 3245-3250.

I’m being very serious, if you really want to be academically minded you should be reading about science from scientists. Ones like these are especially important if you want to work in environmental science. It will help you learn a lot more about your field.

14

I’m not an enviro sci major but even my weak Google skills might lead me to climate change info more current than 1989.

arfurvirus, are you auditioning for a writing job at The Onion?