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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

#361

Post by zachwood »

throwaway-1209 wrote: post #197
zachwood wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US was not obligated to pay $100B/yr in the agreement. Obama pledged $3B by 2020. http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/why-trump-seeing...

You guys need to pick which figure to quote. Here's a number from 2015, from NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/12/459502597/... . Quote: "To help developing countries switch from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy and adapt to the effects of climate change, the developed world will provide $100 billion a year". And further: "Developed countries won inclusion of language that would up the ante…

Who is "You guys"?

I'm certainly not going to argue about your personal opinion based on "we all know" versus what the US has actually pledged to give.

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

#362

Post by hyperdunc »

manicdee wrote: post #269
hyperdunc wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

China and India have ¼ and 1/11 the per-capita emissions if the USA. Thus the Chinese could triple their emissions output and still be "cleaner" than the USA. India could increase their emissions by an order of magnitude and still be "cleaner" than the USA. As the 7th most polluting country in the world, the USA should take responsibility to show that their emissions per person should be lower. This is how Trump care…

The USA creates far too much pollution, no doubt about it. If China and India only stop emissions increases when they reach per capita parity with the USA then we're all in a lot of trouble.

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

#363

Post by hyperdunc »

azernik wrote: post #299
hyperdunc wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry, what? They should take collective responsibility for not being divided into a dozen smaller states like Europe is?

Europe is sufficiently integrated to consider it as a bloc with regards to this issue. Europe's population is twice that of the USA and half that of China/India. If Europe's emissions increased to the same per capita level as the USA that would obviously be a bad thing.

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

#364

Post by wand3r »

realityking wrote: post #283
enknamel wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well no it wouldn't. Per capita doesn't matter as much as total emissions. Amdahl's Law. China contributes more than double the next country in terms of green house gasses, and they are contributing more per capita year over year. This is why China curbing their emissions would have a bigger effect than anyone. If they cut their per capita emissions in half, global emissions will be reduced by 1/6th. If US cuts their…

The problem is that you solution would require telling developing nations that they're not allowed to reach the living standard you and I enjoy - how is that fair?

I don't think it is this much of a zero-sum game. You have framed this in an odd correlation != Way; e.g.

As pollution increases so does quality of life.

Uh, what if we plow 100B into battery production and photovoltaic cell system integration? We could build the 5-6 gigafactories to recycle and manufacture batteries...That use solar free energy...To reduce pollution...And cost...To increase quality of life...To cheap to meter

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

#365

Post by vivekd »

alpha_squared wrote: post #177
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…

A few counter-points: - US, per capita, has the highest CO2 emissions of any developed country [0] - It's a little unfair (depending on your idea of fairness) for developed countries to have benefitted from industrialization and polluting the environment only to close the gate behind them and blame other countries for trying to do the same and catch up in development. - It's expensive to force nations barely entering…

See it's stuff like this that makes me suspect that the climate change debate is more about virtue signaling than any actual threat. Because really if we honestly believed that the earth was warming because of carbon and that this presented a serious threat to the planet, we wouldn't be like "oh well fairness dictates that we let some countries keep emitting high levels of carbon." That consideration wouldn't even come up in a situation where we were faced with a serious planetary threat.

The only reason that this is even coming up is because climate change proponents, deep inside, believe that there will be no serious adverse consequences from climate change.

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

#366

Post by aaronbrethorst »

losvedir wrote: post #59
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read some informed speculation that this was done in a fit of pique because of criticism from Angela Merkel: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/paris-and-the-battle-of-...

"informed speculation" aka BS. It couldn't have had anything to do with the 22 senators petitioning him to drop it or the campaign promise he made... Despite that, he was still considering staying in and reportedly has been torn on the subject for weeks now. I wish he had remained in Paris, too, but they link is just utter drivel.

Trump doesn't give a shit what those 22 senators have to say.

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

#367

Post by swampthing »

xienze wrote: post #348
swampthing wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I'm just trying to understand your reasoning. They completely drag down the per capita numbers. You're basically lumping people producing near-US levels of emissions with half the population producing basically nothing. > Should we also exclude the half of the US population that uses the least carbon emissions? Not anywhere close in terms of magnitude.

I don't really understand why the fact that they drag down the per-capita numbers is a rationale for excluding them. Why is it that the people producing no emissions should not be allowed to raise their standard of living to that of people in the US?

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

#368

Post by throwaway-1209 »

zachwood wrote: post #361
throwaway-1209 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys need to pick which figure to quote. Here's a number from 2015, from NPR: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/12/459502597/... . Quote: "To help developing countries switch from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy and adapt to the effects of climate change, the developed world will provide $100 billion a year". And further: "Developed countries won inclusion of language that would up the ante…

Who is "You guys"? I'm certainly not going to argue about your personal opinion based on "we all know" versus what the US has actually pledged to give.

Kinda obvious, though: it's not like Obama could realistically pledge more. He entered into this agreement unilaterally as it is, with no vote of Congress (treaties do require 2/3rds majority), so pledging the "fair share" would be politically risky at the time. The strategy was to get HRC elected, and get democratic majority in the House/Senate, and then pony up the funds. None of those things quite worked out the way establishment was hoping it would.

So now the only avenue available to address the issue is re-negotiation of the agreement. Assuming the world leaders do actually want to save the climate, and not just bilk the US out of $100B/yr, they have no choice but to negotiate.

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

#369

Post by yellowapple »

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…

"requiring then to lower emissions would basically be telling then they're not allowed to become developed countries"

It sounds to me like the effort needs to be in making green energy more affordable than non-green energy. This would benefit all nations.

Money talks. If it's cheaper to go green, even the most die-hard conservative will go green (anecdotal case in point: my die-hard conservative grandfather, who drives a Prius).

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

#370

Post by kuschku »

tropo wrote: post #343
mac01021 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what fraction of those emissions are directly driven by the manufacture of goods produced for us in the developed western world?

Now you are on to something. Perhaps those goods shouldn't be made in China, an ocean or two away from where they are needed, under lax emissions laws. If we held China to the same standard as the US and EU, some of that problem would go away. It wouldn't just make fly-over country happy. Huge container ships do not run on solar power. They burn huge amounts of heavy fuel oil, which is nearly tar and not too far from…

So, you want everything to be ten times more expensive?

China can be so cheap because everything is in the same place. IC production, PCB production, them being combined, device assembly, etc.

It would be far more expensive to ship all the parts separately.

Even more expensive to just ship the raw material from china to where it is needed.

And with expensive I mean both in terms of climate and money.

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