WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by kenhwang » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:13 AM UTC

iamacynic wrote: post #145

tmh79 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Background: I am a [former] republican, grew up in flyover country, from a family full of trump supporters, now I live in California. I believe that the red states are going to languish for the following reasons: 1) Brain drain as young ambitious people leave 2) Public services (education, roads, etc) decrease in quality, increase in expense 3) Older folks increasingly capture all of the economic gains allowed in sma…

do you think your analysis applies to states like texas, virginia, arizona, north carolina, georgia, utah, etc? even the in-between states such as colorado and florida were doing fine before the blue takeover of 2005+. i've been to all of these places in the last 10 years and they're all doing more than fine. it seems to me only a handful of states over-whelmingly tied to particularly depressed sectors of the economy…

Interesting you picked those states, of those states, all but North Carolina have been becoming bluer. Using 2012 vs 2016 presidential margin of victory, with blueness being positive, Texas went −15.78% to -9.00%, Virginia went 3.87% to 5.32%, Arizona went −9.06% to -3.55%, North Carolina went −2.04% to -3.66%, Georgia went −7.82% to -5.13%, Utah went −48.04% to -18.08%.

I think you can interpret that as, prosperity leads to bluer policies, or bluer policies causes prosperity, or possible a little of both.

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

#222

Post by rjdagost » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:13 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #135

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.

Well if you sort the states by per-capita income and compare electoral votes in the last election: * Top 25 states 213 D / 52 R * Bottom 25 states 11 D / 252 R so it might seem like there's believable evidence that red states are behind and it correlates with political affinity.

If you adjust incomes for cost of living, the notion of which states are "behind" has much less correlation to political voting patterns. Here's a comparison from the Bureau of Economic Analysis: https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/10/05/which-stat...

According to this comparison, after accounting for cost of living the average Arkansas resident has more disposable income than the average Californian. Having lived in both states, I agree with this (but my friends in California can't fathom this).

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

#223

Post by tmh79 » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:13 AM UTC

iamacynic wrote: post #145

tmh79 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Background: I am a [former] republican, grew up in flyover country, from a family full of trump supporters, now I live in California. I believe that the red states are going to languish for the following reasons: 1) Brain drain as young ambitious people leave 2) Public services (education, roads, etc) decrease in quality, increase in expense 3) Older folks increasingly capture all of the economic gains allowed in sma…

do you think your analysis applies to states like texas, virginia, arizona, north carolina, georgia, utah, etc? even the in-between states such as colorado and florida were doing fine before the blue takeover of 2005+. i've been to all of these places in the last 10 years and they're all doing more than fine. it seems to me only a handful of states over-whelmingly tied to particularly depressed sectors of the economy…

I would limit my "expertise" to rustbelt/midwestern areas, but from what I've seen in both data and experience, things tend to be more correlated with overall density metrics than specific location, and there are a lot of microscale effects. For instance, many ambitious people in the midwest are relocating from [small town they grew up in] to [regional center], like moving from avondale MI to Grand Rapids MI. The macro effects of outmigration from MI en mass show little info, but on a micro scale, people are leaving their smaller counties and moving to more dense ones. Over time, smaller regional centers like Grand Rapids grow, but the 200 miles of 'small town America' surrounding it grow older, more disconnected, less healthy, and less educated.

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

#224

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:14 AM UTC

xienze wrote: post #201

kuschku wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: I'll just quote this here: > The fact that the agreement only commits governments to keeping warming below an increase of 2 degrees, rather than a much safer firm target of 1.5 degrees, was lobbied for and won by the United States. > The fact that the agreement left it to individual nations to determine how much they were willing to do to reach that temperature target, allowing them to come to Paris with commit…

> Their talking point is that the west gained its position of power through dirty tactics What, generating pollution when its effects on the planet weren't understood? Now we know better, right?

[deleted]

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

#225

Post by dkhenry » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:14 AM UTC

azernik wrote: post #161

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…

1. Poor countries are allowed to increase their carbon emissions because their current emissions are already low per person, and requiring then to lower emissions would basically be telling then they're not allowed to become developed countries. They will not sign on. 2. We're paying poor countries to mitigate these effects, by subsidizing their use of cleaner energy to industrialize. And to compensate them, since th…

1. I don't think global warming cares who emits the carbon. If climate change is really as big and life changing an issue as everyone knows it is they will sign on, there is no reason to sign away the livelihoods of Americans to benefit China, what happens when you do that is those people whose jobs you have just ended do in fact have opinions and votes.

2. We are subsidizing them with no benefit to us at all, and in turn we are also giving them the ability to outperform us in manufacturing the capability to create clean energy, if you want to help them use clean energy mandate that it comes from local companies. No one will like someone else showing up with bags full of sovereign wealth and tipping the scales. These countries per capita might be poorer, but from a global markets level they are right on par with their American counterparts.

3. Debate? We are by far the largest foreign aid donor.

4. The Paris Agreement was signed by the President without the consent of congress, partially because it didn't win over right-wing Americans.

At some point we need to be adults about this and do something, the country is not supposed to be run as a Dictatorship by either party, all its doing is slowly killing everyone

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

#226

Post by nostrademons » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:14 AM UTC

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…

If you're a U.S. citizen who doesn't work in coal, why would you ever want more coal plants to be built here? Even besides global warming, there are some very real externalities to coal - acid rain, smog, increased asthma & respiratory illnesses.

I live in California and have been to China, and I know which air I'd rather breathe, even despite California's terrain & wind patterns being very conducive to catching air pollution in a bowl. Let them fuck up their own atmosphere...it'd be better if they didn't fuck up ours too, but if somebody's gonna pollute, I'd rather it be them.

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

#227

Post by hangonhn » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:14 AM UTC

babyrainbow wrote: post #209

conception wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. If any of this gets a bit heated, totally not directed at you. There's a lot of false dichotomies in this. I haven't fact checked anything either but just addressing the points: 1) China: China is a developing nation, not on par in the US on any quality of life indicator. They still plow fields by hand or with oxen in a large area of the country. We are the most powerful nation on the planet.…

> They still plow fields by hand or with oxen in a large area of the country. We are the most powerful nation on the planet. Obviously, there should be differences. What is that specific thing or infrastructure that china and other developing countries are missing, that makes them unable to do this (stop polluting)?

Where they can't afford the more efficient methods of industrialization and must resort to the dirtier methods? Powering a country by coal is one such example. China has huge reserves of coal but little oil and natural gas. So what are they suppose to do? Renewables are expensive, although it is dropping in price, but they are also not useful at all hours and their production varies on conditions. Not all of China have plentiful sunshine. Coal is cheap, plentiful, and reliable. That's an easy choice for China.

Are you saying poor countries should NOT industrialize to help save the world after the industrialized nations have had 100 years to pollute all they want and generate enormous sums of wealth in the process? Why would any developing nation sign on to that?

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

#228

Post by sondr3 » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:15 AM UTC

idibidiartists wrote: post #163

legostormtroopr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why replace nuclear at all? Renewables are great but the nuclear energy industry has a great capacity for cleaning generating energy.

Fukushima, Chernobyl, 3 Mile Islant, and in my own state of WA. How many victims of ratiation caused health issues?

Compared to the amount of health issues from coal the amount is minuscule. Personally I think nuclear is a great source of energy so long as the plants are properly maintained... which seems to be an issue.

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

#229

Post by dkhenry » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:15 AM UTC

devindotcom wrote: post #199

ahh wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just echoing the politician's syllogism: we must do something, this is something, we must do this. Your point that we could not get anything better is not an excuse for doing something bad .

Why is the Paris Accord "bad"? A major economic and ecological policy agreed on by nearly the entire planet is no small task. It took years to create and is a compromise - we can do better and that was the plan, to iterate on it.

Its bad because its not a level playing field. Its tips the global economy away from Americans because they are too "Developed". Turns out there are lots of Americans in fly over country who disagree.

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

#230

Post by michaelchisari » Fri, Jun 02, 2017, 12:16 AM UTC

velodrome wrote: post #170

michaelchisari wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a caveat in there about Texas that I decided to remove, should have kept it, but I'll respond here instead. I think Texas' situation is too unique. They're effectively a petrostate right now. Now, they seem to be doing the right thing with things like the PSF and PUF, so I'd say that their approach, like their politics, is deeply purple, and it's not a terrible approach. But it's very specific, and not necessar…

> I think Texas' situation is too unique. They're effectively a petrostate right now. Conveniently ignoring the fact that California is ALSO a petrostate. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/08/03/the...

Yes, California is third on a list where Texas is 1st. I don't think that disproves my point. Texas produces 35% of the country's crude oil.

In March of 2017, California produced 14,907,000 barrels of crude oil. Texas produced 102,443,000. That's 7x more. Play that against the fact that Texas' GDP is 2/3rd of California's. Oil has a massive impact in Texas that it simply doesn't have in California.