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US quits Paris climate pact

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Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#151

Post by tephra »

neaden wrote: post #129
ajross wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To clarify, the NATO countries all agreed to spend 2% of GDP _by_ 2024.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#152

Post by throwaway-1209 »

vowelless wrote: post #2

Can someone give me pros and cons of this move (serious responses only)? Thanks

Pros: the US was signing up for a _minimum_ of $100B/yr in foreign aid to help others implement the accords. When you're up to your ears in debt that's kind of stupid.

Cons: estimates say that the climate will be warmer by 0.3 degrees Celsius by 2100. Assuming estimates are in fact right (which they historically haven't been) this could have devastating effects elsewhere in the world.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#153

Post by sqeaky »

diafygi wrote: post #64

I have a cleantech startup, and in the industry we see this decision as only having a negative impact on deep red states. Most other states will implement mandates in line with Paris on their own, which will grow their local energy economies (the transition means lots of jobs). Deep red states that try to slow the transition will just get left behind. Trump is hurting his own base, while not slowing anyone else down.…

> Trump is hurting his own base, while not slowing anyone else down.

Whether it hurts them or not this is what many of them voted for. This is what many want.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#154

Post by threeseed »

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…

> fallacious assumption that international cooperation can fix climate change

ITER for example is an international project which if it were successful would change the energy landscape and by extension the climate change issue dramatically.

This and projects like this requires international cooperation.

Also look at when the world united to outlaw HCFC refrigerant. That made a huge difference to the planet's outlook.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#155

Post by yongjik »

rayiner wrote: post #76
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…

Yes, the Paris pact was toothless. It was never going to work, just like Kyoto didn't work. So what's wrong with pulling out of it? Consternation over the Paris accord is, in my opinion, elitist liberal virtue signaling. (Here in the DC/MD/VA area, everyone will complain about this move at Starbucks sipping on lattes while driving one hour each way to work from their McMansion in the exurbs. God forbid we do anything…

But Trump did not pull out of Paris because it's toothless. He pulled out because even a toothless, largely symbolic agreement about climate change is against the core tenets of his supporters, i.e., that climate change is a liberal hoax.

I know it, Trump knows it, and we all know it.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#156

Post by walshemj »

waqf wrote: post #42
davesque wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly. I've seriously begun to consider ways in which I could get set up over seas. I've always wanted to spend some time abroad anyway. It's very hard for me to see a way that the US can get back on track at this point. Most of Congress doesn't seem to really care about the damage that Trump is doing to our reputation. Furthermore, Republicans have successfully neutered (through gerrymandering) the system that wo…

It would be optimistic to count on it, but one of the few ways the US political system could get back on track is through the scale of crisis we may be heading for.

I could see post Trump the POTUS having powers taken away by the slightly more grown up house and senate.

Dropping the 18th century method of nominating candidates and moving to a OMOV where only paid up members vote would make sense and eliminate the "Nutter" problem and that's using Nutter in its political sense, it would reduce the waste of money involved in the electoral process.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#157

Post by harryh »

sqeaky wrote: post #123
rayiner wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 tha…

What if there is no technological solution, or we fail to find it?

Then we're going to see a dramatic transformation of the planet due to significantly rising global temperatures. That is the grim reality.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#158

Post by maxerickson »

devnonymous wrote: post #55
muninn_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. If it stays like this for 20+ years, then definitely.

Umm, I think people who say things like "20+ years..." haven't been paying attention to the change in rate of large scale social change over the last few decades. Do you really think anyone could have predicted today in 1997 ? (today as in, Brexit, Trump, Nsa/Privacy, Fb...etc)

There were people not using cell phones in 1997 because of the privacy implications.

I guess they were making some assumptions that they would likely apply to modern tech.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#159

Post by NicoJuicy »

maxerickson wrote: post #150
beart wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As to why he is now the president, it is far from being that simple. Him winning really had very little to do with his qualifications as a candidate.

I would phrase that differently. He was incredibly qualified as a candidate. Huge name recognition, a particular sort of charisma, shameless. It's the office that he isn't qualified for.

To be honest, when your starting a business. I think to have him as a "business partner" would be a very bad idea also.

Re: US quits Paris climate pact

#160

Post by twoodfin »

fusiongyro wrote: post #130
rayiner wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'd hope our counterparts from other nations would be sophisticated enough about our Constitutional system to understand that what one President can agree to without enshrining it in law through Congress, a later President can just as easily disregard.
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