Are they open to more states joining, I hope? I'd like to petition my own state government to get on board. If the federal government's going to keep shitting the bed, this is the last hope I have left.
I contacted Kasich in an effort to add Ohio.
WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
301–310 of 412 posts
Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
#302In some ways, it doesn't really matter. Regardless of how hard people try to fight against alternative energies, the market forces will seek out inefficiencies. Consumers are driving demand for electric cars, cheaper energy and states are turning away from coal more and more every year. States that adopt alternative energies will see long term advantages and those that don't will eventually be forced to confront it.…
The agreement doesn't per say matter all that much (Trump wasn't going to obey it anyway). But it's hard for me to see how failing to tax externalities of fossil fuels are not making it that much harder for renewables and nuclear to win. I actually find you a bit optimistic; natural gas is extremely cheap these days (in part because the externalities aren't taxed); while it is much better than coal (in many dimension…
Taxing fossil fuels would speed up the process, but the writing is on the wall when it comes to fossil fuels as a whole. You know when Exxon Mobil and other big players are starting to get into the alternative energy business the tide is turning.
Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 mo…
Why don't you exclude the half of the Chinese population that's basically living a medieval lifestyle and recalculate those per-capita numbers, hmm?
What would be the rationale for doing so?
Should we also exclude the half of the US population that uses the least carbon emissions?
I'm not saying that we shouldn't exclude them - these aren't rhetorical questions. I'm just trying to understand your reasoning.
Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
#304Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
#305Earlier 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.
In 10 years regardless of this agreement flyover country will have more renewable energy jobs than manufacturing jobs lol. Iowa, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, North Dakota and Kansas generate 25% of their total energy from just Wind and Texas leads the country in total renewables just from Wind. Yes Texas produces more renewable energy than California. And crazy part, this was almost 90% accomplished in the last 6 years only.
These states will turn blue if federal policies harm them. Farms barely surviving put 5 wind turbines on their land and make 50k a year for 30 years. Counties with nothing going for them happen to have the best Wind in the world.
Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
- US, per capita, has the highest CO2 emissions of any developed country It also has one of the highest GDP (output) per capita. Output requires energy input.
For a developed country, the US has quite low GDP output per emissions. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ratio_of_... Only Australia (another country full of climate change denialism) and Israel fare worse. Canada is rather comparable. On the other hand, some European countries (e.g. France, UK) are nearly double gdp per emissions. Even Germany with its relatively large industrial sector has far…
That's looking purely at CO2. Not energy.
Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
#307Earlier 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…
If these are the best replies to Trump's remarks, I very sadly must agree with Trump. Extremely disappointing.
You've picked one single response that you don't like. Please read the rest in this thread, and then find a better source because there's no reason to think HN commenters are particularly expert in this area.
Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but if you care about the environment it doesn't matter. Reducing the overall emissions is all that matters. And giving the biggest polluter a free pass to keep polluting is insanity.
That's the point, though — you're not actually identifying the biggest polluter. You're drawing a circle around a group of people who are not the biggest polluters by bulk or per capita and are on average way better then the country that just pulled out of the accord, and you're saying, "These people, they're the problem, and the best way to fight the problem of this group of moderate polluters is for the US to reneg…
Please read before replying. I have at no point said "These people, they're the problem, and the best way to fight the problem of this group of moderate polluters is for the US to renege on its commitments to fight climate change." or anything that even implies that.
All that matters is getting the biggest reduction as possible in global emissions. We enter into these agreements as entire countries. Any agreement that gives the world's biggest polluter a free pass to keep polluting is useless. If China cuts their pollution in half, the world wins more than if the next 3 top polluters cut their pollution in half.
Try some dispassionate analysis of your own and you will arrive at the same conclusions as me.
Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
#309I 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. 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.
China's current emissions is at 7.7 T/capita. India's current emissions is at 1.9 T/capita. A fair and equitable solution would be to impose a hard limit at, let's say, 8 or 10 T/capita for everyone, no exceptions. This way everyone plays by the same rules.
If you offered these terms to China and India, I'm pretty sure their leaders will take it, despite the harshness of it.
Re: WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Realistically, poorer countries are going to be able to do almost nothing to help the global situation. The understanding is that richer countries (who, to be fair, have done the majority of polluting historically) will have to grant enormous subsidies to effect change in developing countries if we're going to meet international climate goals. I guess that's a difficult pill to swallow if you espouse nationalist econ…
We're calling China and India poor countries now? In relation to the US every country is poor. But as you stated, it's a global problem. It needs a global solution. Pollute less! Hold everyone to the same standard.
"The law, in its majesty, forbids the poor and the rich equally from sleeping under bridges."