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WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

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Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#151

Post by lacampbell »

jacquesm wrote: post #108
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm happy that the states are picking up the slack, are you really insinuating that the Red states are leading to their own self-destruction, going on to "languish"? I'm saddened that people have this viewpoint over such a large swath of the country.

It's not really their 'own self-destruction' in so much as that the world over coastal regions tend to be a lot richer than inland areas. If you took a 300 Km swath of all the land bordering the oceans world wide you'd have captured a very large portion of the wealth. Of course there are some exception (Switzerland comes to mind) and large inland cities tend to be at least a lot wealthier than the surrounding country…

I think a lot of left-wingers have difficulty reconciling the fact that poor people often don't vote left - and in the case of their two largest recent defeats, Trump and Brexit - they overwhelmingly did not.

The barely concealed contempt against those ignorant working class people who didn't vote the right way is fascinating - especially since the left consistently takes the moral high ground on the working class.

Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#152

Post by techsupporter »

jorblumesea wrote: post #120
vmarsy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WA state has strong protections and environmental standards, but I wouldn't consider it high tax (no income tax for instance). Is it an outlier?

We have higher sales tax than most, which is regressive and disproportionately impacts lower incomes. Property taxes in certain areas (Seattle) can be higher as well. But the lack of income tax and higher wages make up for it. My tax burden is about 30% of my income, whereas in other states, Red and Blue alike, it would be anywhere from 30-40%. In general it's a low tax state, which is great for high income earners b…

A point: Seattle, City of has a lower total property tax rate (9.9%) than over half of the other cities in King County.

[0] - http://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/assessor/Reports/annual-repo...

Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#153

Post by seanmcdirmid »

glitcher wrote: post #124
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global warming might be a bad deal for Arizona. But most big city governments are going to be run by liberal Democrats because...they are big cities. Not that they are wrong, just pointing that out.

> Global warming might be a bad deal for Arizona. Global warming might be a bad deal for the globe. > But most big city governments are going to be run by liberal Democrats because...they are big cities. Not that they are wrong, just pointing that out. You are pointing this out why? Obviously the lead in to "just pointing that out" was circular logic that means nothing, and I feel there is a deeper message you wanted…

> Global warming might be a bad deal for the globe.

Canada and Russia might benefit from it in a perverse way, but I otherwise agree.

> You are pointing this out why? Obviously the lead in to "just pointing that out" was circular logic that means nothing, and I feel there is a deeper message you wanted to convey but then it's just so easy to type dot dot dot... instead.

Most big city executives are not going to like pulling out of the Paris agreement, so you might as well talk about the mayor of Atlanta, Houston, Salt Lake City...they are going to express support for it. So why not mention them all? It doesn't matter if the big city is in a red state or not.

Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#154

Post by jorblumesea »

techsupporter wrote: post #152
jorblumesea wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have higher sales tax than most, which is regressive and disproportionately impacts lower incomes. Property taxes in certain areas (Seattle) can be higher as well. But the lack of income tax and higher wages make up for it. My tax burden is about 30% of my income, whereas in other states, Red and Blue alike, it would be anywhere from 30-40%. In general it's a low tax state, which is great for high income earners b…

A point: Seattle, City of has a lower total property tax rate (9.9%) than over half of the other cities in King County. [0] - http://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/assessor/Reports/annual-repo...

I live in the city and actually didn't know that, good to know.

Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#155

Post by joshualross »

xienze wrote: post #115
toisanji wrote: post #90

I would read the full speech from Trump, he makes some good points, although im sure some of it is false and not sure how it compares to other factors. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/politics/trump-paris-agreement... "For example, under the agreement, China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years -- 13. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. Not us. India makes its participation…

Yeah that's my biggest beef with the Paris Agreement. If it's about the global environment, why are all countries not compelled to participate equally? Don't let China off the hook and I think a lot of people would be less skeptical of the whole arrangement.

A couple thoughts - what is equally? The US is the historically the largest contributor of greenhouse gases by a wide margin[1]. And last I checked, a vast majority of people support the agreement[2], including half of trump supporters.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/21/countrie... [2] http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/paris_agre...

Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#156

Post by swampthing »

toisanji wrote: post #90

I would read the full speech from Trump, he makes some good points, although im sure some of it is false and not sure how it compares to other factors. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/politics/trump-paris-agreement... "For example, under the agreement, China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years -- 13. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. Not us. India makes its participation…

I think what this misses is that the per-capita emissions matter too, not just overall emissions. It's kind of unrealistic to ask a country to lower its emissions when its per-capita emissions are already just a fraction of yours.

To give a more concrete analogy - suppose there are two countries, A and B. People in both countries like eating tuna. A has far fewer people than B, but the average person in A eats 10x more tuna than the average person in B. As tuna supplies dwindle, would it be reasonable for A to ask B to reduce their consumption of tuna?

Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#157

Post by xienze »

s0uthPaw88 wrote: post #132
toisanji wrote: post #90

I would read the full speech from Trump, he makes some good points, although im sure some of it is false and not sure how it compares to other factors. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/politics/trump-paris-agreement... "For example, under the agreement, China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years -- 13. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. Not us. India makes its participation…

Here is a fact check for many of these quotes: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/jun/01/...

I think you might want to take a look at that, it supports what he's saying but as is typical of these fact checking sites, couches it in lots of "well yes but" or "broadly correct, but 'needs context'". I mean look at his statement on India:

> Trump: "India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Think of it. India can double their coal production. We're supposed to get rid of ours."

> India does have plans to nearly double its coal production, and the agreement does not prevent that. But the Paris Agreement does not even mention the word coal, nor does it do anything to put a global moratorium on coal.

Oh the Paris Agreement doesn't mention coal so what he's saying isn't correct? The point Trump was making is that the Paris Agreement isn't stopping India (and China) from polluting. It stops _us_, but it doesn't stop _them_.

Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#158

Post by btmiller »

xienze wrote: post #134
angrydev wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your strawman is showing

Which would be what? The fact that the earth goes through natural warming and cooling periods?

We're talking about the difference between linear fluctuations and order-of-magnitude changes. For visual aid, please refer to this relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1732/

Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#159

Post by cderwin »

michaelchisari wrote: post #82
larsiusprime wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not 'blue' and 'red' states -- this is an artifact of the electoral college. There are huge 'red' zones mixed throughout 'blue' california. Usa on the whole is purple. EDIT: Yes, I'm aware of distortions in the electoral college. My point is that some people seem to think that California is this massive blue block and that rural population you know, doesn't matter. The divide is not "red state" vs "blue sta…

There are huge 'red' zones mixed throughout 'blue' california. Geographically, yes. But land doesn't vote, people do. By population, it's a huge spread. Hillary beat Trump by over a 30% spread. 61.73% vs 31.62%. Most of the big "blue" states are similar. In Illinois, it was a 17% spread. Over 22% spread in New York.

That doesn't change the fact that nearly one out of three Californians voted for Trump (of those who voted, anyways). It's a huge spread politically, but 32% of the population isn't something that can just be handwaved away.

Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

#160

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jjawssd wrote: post #112
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global warming might be a bad deal for Arizona. But most big city governments are going to be run by liberal Democrats because...they are big cities. Not that they are wrong, just pointing that out.

The fact that many larger cities are controlled by Democrats is a very interesting phenomenon that I do not fully understand.

Large societies and contemporary conservative ideology just don't mix. You can't have a big city and a politician who is anti immigrant, anti gay, anti abortion, anti welfare, anti schools, because being positive on all of those issues is key to the success of that society in the first place. It's like being the executive of a coffee company while hating coffee, it just doesn't work out.
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