US quits Paris climate pact • Hacker News Board

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#121

Post by mcphage » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #102

scarmig wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling out of it is indication that the USA's politics is primarily driven by virtue signaling among different segments of its governing elite, not by policy or objective reality. If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end.

> If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end. The belief that the U.S. needs to be involved in the international stage is based on the fallacious assumption that international cooperation can fix climate change. There is no scenario in which that happens. Without fundamental technological leaps, we'd have to decreas…

> The U.S. doesn't need to be involved on the international stage.

Yeah, it really does. The US might be a big economy, but not-US is an even bigger economy.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#122

Post by rocgf » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

datamingle wrote: post #81

scarmig wrote: post #51

This is one of those situations where you should be shaking your head, even if you're a climate change denying conservative or a fussil fuel industrial interest. The Paris pact was pretty toothless: it was a step forward, but heavily aspirational. Indeed, one of the stated complaints of conservatives was that it did nothing to enforce compliance. The Trump Administration could have just as well ignored it without for…

US has a long history of upholding its agreements compared to other countries. Germany & France cannot even uphold spending 2% of GDP for NATO: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/nato-funding-explained-... Agreed in 2006 of 2% target, then had to reiterate the target in 2014 since many members did not meet 2% target. "Members that fell short at the time promised to meet their obligations by 2024" .. it is an obliga…

Congrats to the US, but this is not a fair comparison. This is not a US vs Germany/France thing, this is a US vs the entire world thing. Maybe if the USA would pull out of NATO, that would be fair, but even so... the 2% is a guideline.

The US has released a huge percentage of the total CO2 released into the atmosphere in the past 150 years. Donald Trump is not a believer in climate change, and that is why he wanted out, which is frankly insane from the president of the most powerful country in the world.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#123

Post by sqeaky » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #102

scarmig wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling out of it is indication that the USA's politics is primarily driven by virtue signaling among different segments of its governing elite, not by policy or objective reality. If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end.

> If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end. The belief that the U.S. needs to be involved in the international stage is based on the fallacious assumption that international cooperation can fix climate change. There is no scenario in which that happens. Without fundamental technological leaps, we'd have to decreas…

It is hard to implement a technological fix without political will.

Politcal can reserve funding, can align businesses and academics, can make that technological windfall we haven't yet invented a little mote likely.

What if there is no technological solution, or we fail to find it? Having political agreement and unity to fallback on is a good thing. Even if we do something terrible to the planet, we can mitigate that together, instead of ignoring it or making it worse.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#124

Post by comicjk » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #102

scarmig wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling out of it is indication that the USA's politics is primarily driven by virtue signaling among different segments of its governing elite, not by policy or objective reality. If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end.

> If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end. The belief that the U.S. needs to be involved in the international stage is based on the fallacious assumption that international cooperation can fix climate change. There is no scenario in which that happens. Without fundamental technological leaps, we'd have to decreas…

> Without fundamental technological leaps

Sounds like we'd better get working, then? Emissions controls to stimulate private innovation, plus public research grants to help longer-term innovation. We need to set up incentives wherein fundamental technological leaps are the goal.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#125

Post by wonderwonder » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

datamingle wrote: post #81

scarmig wrote: post #51

This is one of those situations where you should be shaking your head, even if you're a climate change denying conservative or a fussil fuel industrial interest. The Paris pact was pretty toothless: it was a step forward, but heavily aspirational. Indeed, one of the stated complaints of conservatives was that it did nothing to enforce compliance. The Trump Administration could have just as well ignored it without for…

US has a long history of upholding its agreements compared to other countries. Germany & France cannot even uphold spending 2% of GDP for NATO: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/nato-funding-explained-... Agreed in 2006 of 2% target, then had to reiterate the target in 2014 since many members did not meet 2% target. "Members that fell short at the time promised to meet their obligations by 2024" .. it is an obliga…

The agreement does not even call for European nations to spend 2% on NATO, it calls for them to simply spend 2% of their GDP on building up their armed forces. When Trump claims that the failure to meet this future goal means that they owe the US billions of dollars simply illuminates how little he understands about NATO in general.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#126

Post by scarmig » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

datamingle wrote: post #103

scarmig wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that Trumpian factoid has long been debunked. Formally true, but 2% is also an aspirational goal, to be met a decade from now. That parallels, at worst, Trump making it harder to meet the Paris pact's requirements a decade from now. But of course you know all that already.

Time magazine: http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ Economist: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/daily-c... WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-... All disagree with you, but of course you must know better sources and just did not add them. I'm sure.

From your own source:

"At a summit in 2014, NATO reiterated its commitment to the 2% target. Members that fell short at the time promised to meet their obligations by 2024."

But, again, even in the worst light possible, a country not spending enough on military spending to meet some stated target doesn't compare to tossing out treaties based on a whim.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#127

Post by gonvaled » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #48

upofadown wrote: post #35

That seems... very not clever... Why deliberately try to piss everyone off? Why not just follow the popular approach of agreeing to some environmental agreement and then entirely ignoring it?

> Why deliberately try to piss everyone off? The best way to sell authoritarianism is the fear of outside enemies. The best way to build a fear of outside enemies is to have outsiders actually hate you, for things you've already sold as necessary for the good of your own people.

And this diverts attention from the last N scandals.

Pretty sad to think that humankind was not moved from a dangerous path to cover a pussy grabber.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#128

Post by rosser » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #84

scarmig wrote: post #51

This is one of those situations where you should be shaking your head, even if you're a climate change denying conservative or a fussil fuel industrial interest. The Paris pact was pretty toothless: it was a step forward, but heavily aspirational. Indeed, one of the stated complaints of conservatives was that it did nothing to enforce compliance. The Trump Administration could have just as well ignored it without for…

I don't understand how you think the NATO meeting was bad. Countries should pay their fair (and agreed to!) share towards NATO.

Repeating this falsehood only demonstrates the extent to which someone materially misunderstands how this works.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#129

Post by neaden » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #112

sergiotapia wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how you think the NATO meeting was bad. Countries should pay their fair (and agreed to!) share towards NATO.

NATO isn't a pool of money, no one "pays" anything for it. It's a mutual self defense treaty (and a command structure for executing such an operation). Trump did nothing to squeeze money out of anyone at that meeting, nor would it have made any sense for him to have done so. By very conspicuously refusing to endorse Article V in his speech, however, he called the US commitment to NATO self-defense into question (ques…

That is true but every country is supposed to spend 2% of GDP on defense, and only the US and 4 others actually do. How Trump handles this and talks about this is asinine, but there is a basis for it.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#130

Post by fusiongyro » Thu, Jun 01, 2017, 9:00 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #102

scarmig wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pulling out of it is indication that the USA's politics is primarily driven by virtue signaling among different segments of its governing elite, not by policy or objective reality. If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end.

> If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end. The belief that the U.S. needs to be involved in the international stage is based on the fallacious assumption that international cooperation can fix climate change. There is no scenario in which that happens. Without fundamental technological leaps, we'd have to decreas…

Even controlling for the harm to the environment, you have to consider the harm to our foreign policy if we become unable to uphold any agreement for more than 4 years.