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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

#251

Post by xienze »

kenhwang wrote: post #221
iamacynic wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe do a comparison next time there's a more traditional Republican candidate running to get a better idea of how much bluer a state is becoming.

Or compare midterms. Presidential elections can be wonky. Surely you don't think Wisconsin has made a dramatic red shift based on 2012 vs 2016, do you?

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

#252

Post by SapphireSun »

lacampbell wrote: post #151
jacquesm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't forget all that poor people vote at far lower rates than middle class and rich people. Rich & middle class white people and culture war evangelicals with a small but relatively unusually large smattering of poor people in a few key states put Trump over the top.

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

#253

Post by lelandbatey »

dkhenry wrote: post #229
devindotcom wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is true that they disagree. It is not true that they're lives are definitely harder. For every person in the US, there are four in China. Even imagining that China had the same wealth distribution as the US, which it does not, that still means there are vastly, vastly (at least 4x) more people with lives that are empirically more painful, with less medicine, less availability of electricity, and less food. This isn't because China is doing a bad job, it's because there are a lot of people.

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

#254

Post by jlebar »

xienze wrote: post #157
s0uthPaw88 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Unlike the rest of the article, this section doesn't make an explicit summary claim about the truth or untruth of the President's claims. There is no "true but..." header.

If you think some of the facts that they provide -- such as the fact that the accord doesn't mention the word "coal" -- are irrelevant, that's cool. PolitiFact does not draw a conclusion from this fact, and suggesting it does and then blasting it for having done so is pretty frustrating.

I also feel that by cherry-picking this one instance, one misses the larger thrust of TFA. You seem to be frustrated that PolitiFact is saying "yes, but" a lot, but what's wrong with that? If the additional context is not useful to you, that's cool. You're entitled not to care. But to me, it's quite useful, and speaks pretty directly to many of the top-level poster's points.

Trump: The Paris Agreement would result in "lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories and vastly diminished economic production."

PolitiFact: "Take these statistics with a grain of salt." Followed by an explanation of where Trump's claim comes from and why it is weak.

Trump: "China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we can't build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement."

PolitiFact: "China has cut its use of coal three years in a row," with a citation.

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."

PolitiFact: "[The Paris Agreement] shaves 0.2 C of warming if [it's] maintained through 2100, compared with what we assessed would have been the case by extending existing measures (due to expire in 2020) based on earlier international agreements."

IOW Paris gets us 0.2C under the previous agreement, but by pulling out of Paris, we get no agreement, not the previous agreement, which expires. "Needs context."

Trump: "At 1 percent growth, renewable sources of energy can meet some of our domestic demand. But at 3 or 4 percent growth, which I expect, we need all forms of available American energy, or our country will be at grave risk of brownouts and blackouts."

PolitiFact: Nobody seriously expects us to get 3-4% growth.

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

#255

Post by SaintGhurka »

thesmallestcat wrote: post #64
saosebastiao wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Stockton, I know precisely how diverse California is.

Now I'm just plain confused -- how could somebody who grew up in the Central Valley and regularly saw trucks with confederate flags feel that Californians are some bloc that are so dissimilar from Alabamans? I'd argue that San Franciscans are way, way closer to Sydneysiders than Alabamans, but that's besides the point and misunderstands what sets the US apart from other commonwealth nations culturally. While in some…

You're right about your overall point of the common vein, but your statement about Stockton seems a bit uncharitable. I lived in Stockton for 3 years and never noticed all the trucks with confederate flags. Sure, it was 20 years ago but I can't recall even one such truck.

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

#256

Post by hyperdunc »

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…

China and India each have over four times the population of the United States. They have to take some collective responsibility for that so their emissions per person should be lower.

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

#257

Post by mcphage »

ahh wrote: post #240
mmanfrin wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We must do this and more . Do not let perfect be the enemy of the future of this earth.

How, given arguments in GP, does this actually do anything of value? Note that I do not consider signaling how much we care as valuable.

Given we can't actually leave the accord until 2020, Trump's whole speech is nothing but signaling.

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

#258

Post by maxerickson »

alpha_squared wrote: post #234
sacheendra wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a nitpick. According to the list you referenced, the developed country with the highest CO2 emissions per capita is Luxembourg. The US comes second. The US is second, the spirit of your point stands though. Another surprising thing I learned from the list, US emissions have decreased significantly from 19.6 to 16.4 (tonnes per capita) during the obama administration.

> the developed country with the highest CO2 emissions per capita is Luxembourg. The US comes second. You're right, that was an oversight on my part. > Another surprising thing I learned from the list, US emissions have decreased significantly from 19.6 to 16.4 (tonnes per capita) during the obama administration. This may actually be, in large part, due to the EPA. It would be interesting to see data for more recent…

The decrease in emissions is due to increased emissions requirements on coal plants (lots of smaller ones have been shutting down) and fracking.

Fracking makes cheap natural gas which drives electric generation investment towards natural gas which emits about 1/2 as much carbon per unit of energy as coal.

Low gas prices means that the investments required to meet coal regulations won't ever pay off. Plants shut down.

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

#259

Post by ryanobjc »

dkhenry wrote: post #225
azernik wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

2. I'm pretty sure not having oceanic level rise, and drowning out the most expensive real state in the world is a benefit to us! The notion that somehow the developed world gives $100b (over what time frame? That matters a lot) and gets nothing in return is ridiculous. Manufacturing clean energy stuff is not within grasp of most developing countries. So they have to import tools, expertise and goods... from where?

3. The US gave $31b in foreign aid. Which sounds generous, until you do it per capita. In which case the US slips way off. The closest economic comparison would probably be the EU which gave $87b away. I, like many, consider charitable giving and aid a sign of strength, not a reason to whine about how unfair life is when you're the richest.

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

#260

Post by muninn_ »

anigbrowl wrote: post #238
muninn_ wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed his/her point. We go on and on about this difference between the coast and, as those on the coast have dubbed them, the "flyover states" and then people act all smug about how they are leading to their own destruction and what not instead of being responsible and trying to educate and help. It's, frankly, pretty pathetic that this attitude is so pervasive. I'm not sure what you (not you specifically) are t…

While I agree that many coastal liberals are often smug, the notion that people in other areas are groaning in the throes of oppression is not really founded in fact. Large parts of the country have great contempt for the more liberal enclaves on the coast and pour scorn on the people and civic societies established there. Try spending some time reading a conservative forum like freerepublic.com, though you might nee…

>the notion that people in other areas are groaning in the throes of oppression is not really founded in fact

Sure, that's not something I would believe so I don't disagree.

>Large parts of the country have great contempt for the more liberal enclaves on the coast

Wonder why that is?

>who don't want their economies exploited or their dignity insulted

Yet here we are. With their economies being exploited and their dignity being insulted.

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