Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

governor.wa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 412 posts

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

#371

Post by Paradigma11 »

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…

But wouldnt you agree that a per capita limit is the way to go.

If not would you give Luxembourg the same carbon emission allowance as india?

I dont think keeping developing countries down by limiting their per capita to a much lower standard will fly in this century.

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

#372

Post by alpha_squared »

vivekd wrote: post #365
alpha_squared wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

> 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.

That's not the case at all. The world isn't really a black/white place. In an ideal world, we'd all stop right now and focus -- concertedly -- our efforts on reverting climate change. Unfortunately, life just doesn't work like that.

You go ahead and tell two large, thriving and growing, economies that "oops, we screwed up the planet, but at least we made a ton of money and our citizens live a nice quality of life! Wait, what? You want to improve your country, too? Well, you see, we sort of screwed up the planet and now you need to bear the responsibility on our behalf. Yes, that means stifling your economy and keeping your citizens in poverty. Yes, this also means the world will continue to view you as poor, undeveloped countries. What's that? For how long? Well, we don't really know, I mean, it could be a while..."

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

#373

Post by rtx »

Paradigma11 wrote: post #371
dkhenry wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But wouldnt you agree that a per capita limit is the way to go. If not would you give Luxembourg the same carbon emission allowance as india? I dont think keeping developing countries down by limiting their per capita to a much lower standard will fly in this century.

As an Indian, I am with Trump with this one. Per capita consumption would be the wrong way to look at it at this stage. If these people really cared about the environment they should have been promoting nuclear or promoting less(zero) meat consumption. India and China should have the same targets as everyone else. We don't need concession to set up coal plants. Removing restrictions on nuclear tech would be better.

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

#374

Post by rtx »

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…

Per capita is the wrong way to look at it. As someone living in India we don't want us to aspire for that kind of emissions. I belive we should start with a freeze on top ten countries. India can grow in other ways.

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

#375

Post by rtx »

hangonhn wrote: post #294
babyrainbow wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>China has huge reserves of coal but little oil and natural gas. So the real reason is not that china is a developing nation, but it has little oil and natural gas? That is not going to change, right? So you are saying that China can burn coal forever? And what happens when a country run out of oil and gas. Can it start burning coal if it is available? Doesn't this mean that the source of pollution will keep shifting…

> Why not help these countries with setting up renewables, as much as it is possible. That's precisely what's in the Paris Climate Agreement. Sorry, I think we may be talking past each other and misunderstanding our views. Yes, agreed that industrialized nations should help and developing countries should cut back on dirtier methods of production. I was trying to inject the viewpoint of developing nations and underli…

Give us nuclear, remove the restrictions on export.

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

#376

Post by rtx »

addicted wrote: post #247
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 there is any valid criticism of the Paris accords, it's that they aren't stringent or BINDING. Which is the exact opposite of Trump's complaints about them. By the very nature of them being non-binding, they don't impose anything on the US. Just that fact almost entirely undermines whatever Trump said. In addition, however, new coal is already more expensive than renewables, which are getting cheaper at a rapid pa…

India already looks like a dump, we need a freeze.

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

#377

Post by rtx »

sorenjan wrote: post #282
xienze wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What would you call them? Yes, they're poor [0]. United States $57,436 China $8,113 India $1,723 It's easy to say that everyone should be held to the same standard when you're already the richest. The US uses 7032 kg of oil equivalent/capita, China 2029 kg/capita, India 614 kg/capita [1]. If you really want to hold everyone to the same standard you could cut your energy use by an order of magnitude and still use more…

We have poor People, country itself is quite rich. Both of them are top ten in military spending.

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

#378

Post by rtx »

swampthing wrote: post #367
xienze wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Because we will destroy the planet. We can't have everyone living at that level.

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

#379

Post by rtx »

Spooky23 wrote: post #52
almostApatriot1 wrote: post #35

Maybe this will motivate Cuomo not to shut down all the nuclear plants in NY. I'm not sure how he plans to achieve any sort of reduction if you have to replace nuclear as well (which provides NY with 30% of its electricity).

New York can buy from Canada. Quebec has a vast ability to generate hydropower.

Hydropower is bad for the eco system.

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

#380

Post by minusSeven »

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.

But isn't the whole thing non binding in the first place ? Isn't this just supposed to be start so each nation on its know can plan and do it in its own way ?
Post reply on HN