President 'The Donald' Trump and Surprising Consequences - Mod warning in OP

ThisRegard

Lol, Mary Robinson, under her guise of UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, labeled the US as a rogue state for reneging on its commitments.

The US will be isolated.

jooksavage

ThisRegard wrote: »

Lol, Mary Robinson, under her guise of UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, labeled the US as a rogue state for reneging on its commitments.

The US will be isolated.

And for nothing. The Paris agreement gave the US plenty of scope to set their own targets. He's turned his back on the world and condemned his legacy. He'll get a short term bump from his base but that will fizzle out when the promises the coal jobs amount to nought.

aloyisious

Pittsborough's mayor has said his city will stand by the Paris accords. There was mention of Pittsborough by Don in relation to the Paris agreement....

Excerpt from his speech in link below. In condemning the agreement, Trump talked about his commitment to the “citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” to coal miners, and to cement workers. He also assured the nation that he “cares deeply” about the environment.

Trump: I was elected to represent Pittsburgh, not Paris.

...................................................................................................................................................

Pittsburgh: Uh, we’re with Paris.

The link below with Don's reasons for opting the US out of it's Paris agreement obligations runs to several dozen Paras. It seems Don knows he will have to come to some agreement with the other co-signees to get out of the deal and it may not be done before his term in office is over..... Hopefully he may live long enough to see he failed again.

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiJheG25p3UAhUsAcAKHUdKBFYQFgg4MAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2017%2F6%2F1%2F15726638%2Ftrump-withdrawing-paris-climate-agreement-full-transcript&usg=AFQjCNE31pHQyC-YGc1iq4A7JN7judd_Pw

Professor Moriarty

aloyisious wrote: »

Pittsborough's mayor has said his city will stand by the Paris accords.

Fair play to him. All that is necessary for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing.

Mr.Micro

Did we expect anything good from Trump, as in this case the right decision re climate change?Is everybody going to be mining and digging coal, clean coal? That must be a new type, lol. Trump will always do the opposite to what's normal or right. What sort of people believe his utter rubbish? Too many it looks like. The Americans deserve him and they can keep him.

Hazys

“I believe there’s climate change, I believe there’s been climate change since the beginning of time. I think there are cycles. Do I think man has some impact? Yeah, of course. Can man change the entire universe? No.”

“Why do I believe that?. Well, as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.” - Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich.

Don't worry lads, God will sort out this global warming madness if it happens, just like he did for Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, etc.

aloyisious

I like Mr Putin's attempt to muddy the waters further with his "it might have been patriotic Russians who were behind what happened" not the Russian Govt. He must be laughing up his sleeve with that one.

If I was a US Citizen, i'd be worried about my president if the reason he gave for pulling out of an international agreement is because he didn't want people laughing at him.

Calina

ThisRegard wrote: »

Macron's speech about it is live on CNN at the moment, he's calling on the scientists over there to come work in France on solutions to this. Short and sweet in English, but damning.

Macron has issued similar invites even before he was elected in the context of US budget and policy changes. This is clearly something he has been thinkibg about for some time.

Saw a sarcastic comment on twitter last week too highlighting that Germany was getting a high proportion of its power from solar obviously from its square miles and miles of sandy desert. The subtext was that the US had scope and advantage to do better than a northern European country but wasn't tryng enough.

Calina

For Forks Sake wrote: »

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/870369915894546432

Musk is despised and attacked by a lot on the alt right who perceive his companies as requiring government business to survive. Reading WSJ BTL comments on him show incredible toxicity on occasion. I have often wondered where the vitriol comes from but suspect some of it is rank obnoxious jealousy looking for any justification. Peter Thiel doesn't get the same trashing despite Palentir needing a whole lot of government business too.

Hank Scorpio

Is it true that if everyone in the agreement including China ( they're not obligated until 2030 afaik ) adhered to the emission restraints right this moment, Scientists estimate it would produce a 0.2 C reduction in Global temperature by the year 2100?

Hank Scorpio

Travel ban has gone to the Supreme court, another big story.

Peregrinus

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Is it true that if everyone in the agreement including China ( they're not obligated until 2030 afaik ) adhered to the emission restraints right this moment, Scientists estimate it would produce a 0.2 C reduction in Global temperature by the year 2100?

No, and whoever told you that I think misunderstands the whole nature of the Paris agreement. It doesn't set fixed emission restraints for states and then allow the temperature outcome to fall out as a consequence; rather, it targets temperature outcomes, and states commit to emission reductions necessary to achieve that target. But the emission reductions are dynamic, as in they need to be kept under review and adjusted in the light of events occurring, and processing unfolding, between now and 2100. (And in fact the temperature outcomes are also dynamic, and subject to review.)

I suspect the calculation you describe was done by somebody taking the initial emission restraints and assuming that they would continue unchanged under 2100. But since that's not what the Paris agreement provides for, what they are modelling there is not the effect of the Paris Agreement.

Furthermore, given the dynamic nature of the climate, any scientifically plausible model constructed in this way must generate not a single outcome, but a range of outcomes ("between X and Y degrees") or outcomes expressed as chances ("a 50% change of X degrees and a 66% chance of Y degrees"). Whoever told you about a model that produced a single outcome is almost certainly not giving you the full picture. They'll have given you either the most optimistic projection, or the most pessimistic projection, depending on whether they want to you to support the Paris agreement or oppose it. Either way, they're trying to manipulate you by giving you incomplete and biassed information, and you should stop paying any attention to them.

And, for what it's worth, a third reason for discounting this source is that most attempt to model the effects of the Paris Agreement do not project any reduction at all in global temperatures. The object of the agreement is not to reduce global temperatures, but to limit their increase. That's obviously a nuance that has escaped whoever is your source.

Calina

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Is it true that if everyone in the agreement including China ( they're not obligated until 2030 afaik ) adhered to the emission restraints right this moment, Scientists estimate it would produce a 0.2 C reduction in Global temperature by the year 2100?

No, Hank, it is not.

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/trump-said-crazy-thing-during-paris-exit-announcement/all/

It is a bit more complicated than that.

Fwiw, btw, where I live set two temperature records in May both of which were a full degree plus above the previous record. And April was the driest on record with cumulative rainfall that was 93% below the long term average.

When I see an elected leader in the US suggesting God will take care of things if their is a problem, I want to spit. At some point if you take the God route he was into personal responsability. This stupidity of I dont like so we just go back and renegotiate is typical Trump. It might work against a few small suppliers. Against 180 pissed off countries who mad all sorts of sacrifices to get one of the biggest if not the biggest multilateral agreement through, well....

Calina

Peregrinus, I believe Hank got that figure from comments Trump apparently made in justification for pulling out.

Hank Scorpio

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, and whoever told you that I think misunderstands the whole nature of the Paris agreement. .

I know it's a complicated issue. I read it on Politifact which went over what Trump was saying earlier in his address.

Trump: "Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree -- think of that; this much -- Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100. Tiny, tiny amount."

Trump’s statement about the amount of temperature reduction expected under the treaty is broadly accurate but needs some additional context.

According to John Reilly, who co-directs the Joint Program on Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT, the Paris agreement would reduce global temperature by two-tenths of one degree Celsius compared to earlier climate treaties.

So it basically needs to take prior agreements into consideration is what I'm taking from it.

Hank Scorpio

Calina wrote: »

Peregrinus, I believe Hank got that figure from comments Trump apparently made in justification for pulling out.

Yap I googled his statement and that Politifact page was the first thing that popped up.

I don't deny that there is surely some kind of an environmental impact since the Industrial revolution and beyond fwiw. I need to read more about the financial implications and restrictions and so on.

Calina

Tbh Hank, maybe you should read up on the science first. Money is the grand total of irrelevant if we are extinxt.

Hank Scorpio

Calina wrote: »

Tbh Hank, maybe you should read up on the science first. Money is the grand total of irrelevant if we are extinxt.

I would if they'd stop changing their prediction model every couple of years. Kidding..

I do hope they figure out an agreement that works on both sides, at least he was open to that in the address.

Calina

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Calina wrote: »

Tbh Hank, maybe you should read up on the science first. Money is the grand total of irrelevant if we are extinxt.

I would if they'd stop changing their prediction model every couple of years. Kidding..

I do hope they figure out an agreement that works on both sides, at least he was open to that in the address.

He is open to a deal that works for whoever is pulling his strings. He gives no toss about anyone else as otherwise he would not have pulled out of a deal that works for America and the rest of the world. Given C40 and the big states have decided to adhere to Paris it is unlikely you can argue he has US interests as a whole at heart here. Based on his reported comments I doubt he intellectually understands the ramifications in all directions here.

You might want to read up on Bayesian modelling. You might understand why the models get updated.

Peregrinus

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

I know it's a complicated issue. I read it on Politifact which went over what Trump was saying earlier in his address.

Trump: "Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a two-tenths of one degree -- think of that; this much -- Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100. Tiny, tiny amount."

Trump’s statement about the amount of temperature reduction expected under the treaty is broadly accurate but needs some additional context.

According to John Reilly, who co-directs the Joint Program on Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT, the Paris agreement would reduce global temperature by two-tenths of one degree Celsius compared to earlier climate treaties.

So it basically needs to take prior agreements into consideration is what I'm taking from it.

I'd take a little bit more from it, if I were you. In support of his decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, Trump is quoting someone who argues that the Paris agreement does not go far enough; that a much more ambitious agreement is required.

Logically, if Trump's position is informed and influenced by Reilly's analysis, Trump should be endorsing the Paris agreement and encouraging the international community to move on to a more ambitious agreement (in much the way that the Paris agreement was a move on from the Copenahagen agreement).

Since that's petty much the exact opposite of Trump's position, we must conclude that he doesn't share Reilly's analysis, and in using material drawn from Reilly he either (a) fails to understood what Reilly has said, or (b) understands what Reilly has said, doesn't like it, and is cynically quoting distorted snippets of it in support of a policy diametrically opposed to the one he would adopt if he took Reilly seriously. The second reading is encouraged by the fact that Trump omits an important part of what Reilly said, in order to make it appear as though Reilly said something radically different.

("Trump" in the paragraph above is, of course, a shorthand for "whoever wrote Trump's speech". A likely scenario is that Trump told staffers that he wished to withdraw from the Paris agreement, and to write a speech which would support and justify this policy. Trump's own rationale for the policy is that he believes global warming is a fiendish Chinese plot; obviously that's not going to fly. So, basically, the staffers were charged with inventing a colourable justification for Trump's policy. It was some speechwriter's decision, when they couldn't find any credible climate scientist whose work would support Trump's decision, simply to distort material taken from someone whose work would oppose it.)

Hank Scorpio

Peregrinus wrote: »

I'd take a little bit more from it, if I were you. In support of his decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, Trump is quoting someone who argues that the Paris agreement does not go far enough; that a much more ambitious agreement is required.

Logically, if Trump's position is informed and influenced by Reilly's analysis, Trump should be endorsing the Paris agreement and encouraging the international community to move on to a more ambitious agreement (in much the way that the Paris agreement was a move on from the Copenahagen agreement).

I'd argue while agreeing with you on the point that climate change is real, there is another point to be made if what Rand Paul and other Republicans have said are true. The main counter points I hear is that China who account for around 1/3rd of the worlds harmful emissions, don't have to adhere to the same restrictions for the next 15 years or so whilst the US has to contribute 3 billion and more whilst reducing their own emissions substantially. That in turn would cripple everything Trump ran on and China would gain an even huger manufacturing lead killing potential American manufacturing jobs. Is that a wholly inaccurate take on the situation, because to be honest with you, it's not something I knew much about prior to the US elections.

listermint

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

I'd argue while agreeing with you on the point that climate change is real, there is another point to be made if what Rand Paul and other Republicans have said are true. The main counter points I hear is that China who account for around 1/3rd of the worlds harmful emissions, don't have to adhere to the same restrictions for the next 15 years or so whilst the US has to contribute 3 billion and more whilst reducing their own emissions substantially. That in turn would cripple everything Trump ran on and China would gain an even huger manufacturing lead killing potential American manufacturing jobs. Is that a wholly inaccurate take on the situation, because to be honest with you, it's not something I knew much about prior to the US elections.

So but the only person crippling the us here is Trump and his rag tag Christian deniers.

China is soaring ahead because of its focus on renewables the us on the other hand under Trump wants to focus on goal and oil line's. China it's building massive wind producing hardware factories. The us is beating native Americans off their own land.

The policies that trump is promoting is going to hurt the US far more than a pittance 3 billion dollars and that is all it is in the context.

But you choose to source your information from the same money hungry website's who are run by people who spread nonsense about how god will fix it all when in fact they don't believe that guff themselves they are shielded from climate change impact by their money.

ThisRegard

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Is it true that if everyone in the agreement including China ( they're not obligated until 2030 afaik ) adhered to the emission restraints right this moment, Scientists estimate it would produce a 0.2 C reduction in Global temperature by the year 2100?

You got that from Fox I think, I saw they were pushing it at one point anyway. The plan was to limit the rise in temperatures to 2 degrees c, it's all about limiting the affect on temperature rises we have.

Christy42

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

I'd argue while agreeing with you on the point that climate change is real, there is another point to be made if what Rand Paul and other Republicans have said are true. The main counter points I hear is that China who account for around 1/3rd of the worlds harmful emissions, don't have to adhere to the same restrictions for the next 15 years or so whilst the US has to contribute 3 billion and more whilst reducing their own emissions substantially. That in turn would cripple everything Trump ran on and China would gain an even huger manufacturing lead killing potential American manufacturing jobs. Is that a wholly inaccurate take on the situation, because to be honest with you, it's not something I knew much about prior to the US elections.

Check the link mentioned before from the ifls page. It gives a good description of it. Countries have a lot of freedom to meet their targets as they like. Even then there is no serious penalty for failing (what penalty could they force upon the US realistically).


Another fact check
https://www.google.ie/amp/www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/amp/fact-checking-trump-s-paris-agreement-speech-n767331

Hank Scorpio

listermint wrote: »

So but the only person crippling the us here is Trump and his rag tag Christian deniers.

China is soaring ahead because of its focus on renewables the us on the other hand under Trump wants to focus on goal and oil line's. China it's building massive wind producing hardware factories. The us is beating native Americans off their own land.

The policies that trump is promoting is going to hurt the US far more than a pittance 3 billion dollars and that is all it is in the context.

But you choose to source your information from the same money hungry website's who are run by people who spread nonsense about how god will fix it all when in fact they don't believe that guff themselves they are shielded from climate change impact by their money.

Full of personal and religious insults, the only thing I quoted was Politifact and an interview Rand Paul gave on CNN, not worth a response to be honest.

Calina

China's per capita emissions are roughly a quarter of those of the United States. If they were higher per capita, Rand might have a point but...

Peregrinus

The Rand Paul/Republican critique essentially assumes that every country's emission levels at the inception of the Agreement are to be taken as a given, and that everyone should make proportionate reductions from that base level. But of course the US has far and away the highest per capita emissions in the world; this approach is designed to entrench a permanent US advantage in the allocation of emission capacity as between nations.

That's not the way the Paris Agreement negotiations proceeded (unsurprisingly; the Rand Paul approach will only appeal to the very high-emitting nations). The Paris agreement basically takes the approach that the highest-emitting nations - those who have increased their emissions the most up to now - need to do more to reduce emissions than the lowest emitting-nations. There's an obvious fairness argument at work there, but also a common-sense economic one; the highest emitting nations are also the richest ones, and they have more resources to fund the changes needed to reduce emissions, and more capacity to do so without reducing people to poverty. Plus, the law of diminishing returns; the highest emitting nations can more easily achieve reductions than the lowest emitting nations. (It's easier to deal with your income reducing from one euro to 99 cents than it is to deal with your income reducing from 10 cents to 9 cents, even though the reduction in both cases is the same.)

It's not true, or at least it's misleading, to say that China "doesn't have to adhere to the same restrictions". Under the Paris agreement no country has to adhere to the same restrictions as any other country; restrictions for each country take account of that country's targets and that country's current position. Under the Paris Agreement, there's a "Nationally Determined Contribution" for each country. The country's government actually workd out its own NDC, but applying agreed principles and methodology. Then they develop a strategy intended to ensure that they will meet their NDC.

For more developed economies with very high per capita restrictions, that tends to mean that they need to start reducing per capita and overall emissions fairly soon (if not actually immediately) in order to meet their NDC. For developing economies with lower per capita emisssions (like China) there's more scope to stabilise existing per capita emission levels and meet their NDC by ensuring that future development is oriented towards low emissions.

This approach produces a "curve" for each country, showing how it will move towards its long-term target for the NDC. For the USA, because of its high per-capita emissions and developed economy, that curve peaks round about now. For China, it peaks round about 2030. That doesn't mean that the Paris agreement doesn't restrict China until 2030; every country is supposed to stay within its curve at all points along the curve. The point is that the China curve does allow them to increase emissions to some degree up to 2030, and still meet an NDC calculated on the same basis as was used to meet the US's NDC. They have this headroom, essentially, because in the past they didn't increase emissions at anything like the rate that the US did.

B_Wayne

Trump has actually setup his own export markets to be crippled by this. So by default, China will take a lead. Also China have been making a fair amount of progress in relation to green energy as of late.

Hank Scorpio

Peregrinus wrote: »

This approach produces a "curve" for each country, showing how it will move towards its long-term target for the NDC. For the USA, because of its high per-capita emissions and developed economy, that curve peaks round about now. For China, it peaks round about 2030. That doesn't mean that the Paris agreement doesn't restrict China until 2030; every country is supposed to stay within its curve at all points along the curve. The point is that the China curve does allow them to increase emissions to some degree up to 2030, and still meet an NDC calculated on the same basis as was used to meet the US's NDC. They have this headroom, essentially, because in the past they didn't increase emissions at anything like the rate that the US did.

That makes the most sense, thanks. I guess data like below can be somewhat misleading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

Drumpot

Calina wrote: »

Tbh Hank, maybe you should read up on the science first. Money is the grand total of irrelevant if we are extinxt.

Agreed . .

This reminds me of that statement in the movie "The day after tomorrow" just before the world starts falling apart. When the Trumpesque vice president is warned of climate change and he says "Professor Hall, our economy is every bit as fragile as the environment. Perhaps you should keep that in mind before making sensationalist claims."

Difference between the ficticious "Day after tomorrow" and Trump is that if we started to get tidal waves and even more savage crazy weather, he would not apologise like the President in the movie!

I think his behaviour is getting more and more dangerous. He's like an ill informed, old man just pressing random buttons to make crowds clap or take the focus off how hopelessly out of his depth he is.