America is Falling Behind On Its Paris Climate Pledge (technologyreview.com) 353
An anonymous reader shares a report: The US remains well behind pace to meet its commitments to cut greenhouse-gas emissions under the landmark Paris climate agreement. Under current policies, the nation will reduce climate pollution between 12 and 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, according to a Rhodium Group analysis published today. That's well below the 26 to 28 percent target agreed to under the Paris accords. The report estimates that total emissions between 2020 and 2030 could be 196 million metric tons lower than Rhodium projected last year. That's due to an increase in the number of planned coal plant closures, as well as the falling costs of natural gas, renewables, and electric vehicles. Slower economic growth forecasts were also a factor.
Paris Climate Agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the same 'Paris Climate Agreement' that we ARE NOT A PART OF??
The OP seems to have forgotten that part.
Re:Paris Climate Agreement (Score:5, Informative)
Since it is a voluntary pledge made by your president as representative for the USA, you are still part of it, no congress approval needed...
As it is voluntary, you can still ignore it, but the treaty was signed anyway!
And as the current president only announced that they would exist it, but only in 2020, that pledge is still in effect (but again, you can ignore it without any problem other than destroying the planet where you and your family and friends live!!)
Re:Paris Climate Agreement (Score:4, Informative)
Since it is a voluntary pledge made by your president as representative for the USA, you are still part of it, no congress approval needed...
As it is voluntary, you can still ignore it, but the treaty was signed anyway!
And as the current president only announced that they would exist it, but only in 2020, that pledge is still in effect (but again, you can ignore it without any problem other than destroying the planet where you and your family and friends live!!)
No SENATE [sic] approval needed?
WRONG
It's not a treaty if it's not ratified by the Senate.
The EU parliament RATIFIED the Paris Agreement.
The UK Parliament RATIFIED the Paris Agreement [www.gov.uk]
The Japanese Diet RATIFIED the Paris Agreement [japantimes.co.jp].
Every other nation that has a domestic-legislature ratification requirement for a TREATY actually RATIFIED the Paris Agreement.
If domestic ratification isn't needed, why did every other nation with such a requirement that signed the agreement go through the trouble to ratify the Paris Agreement?
Barack Obama never submitted the Paris Agreement the the US Senate for a Constitutionally-REQUIRED ratification.
Ergo, the US is not bound by it own laws to follow the Paris Agreement.
Unless you want Trump's policy decisions that are outside of US law to be binding on his successors, you can't argue Obama's mere agreements outside of US law are binding.
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Since it is a voluntary pledge made by your president as representative for the USA, you are still part of it, no congress approval needed...
False..... Whether you call it a "treaty" or a "pledge"; The president of the US has no authority to make it on his own without the consent of the senate --- he can only sign provisionally as a representative contingent on approval by the government body, for the US itself to agree to the "pledge".
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And how many times did the US have to keep the Europeans nations from killing each other or getting steamrolled by the Soviets in the 20th century?
This is a surprise? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since the current administration's opinion on the matter can be summed up with "fake news!", "climate change? what climate change?", and "we're bringing back coal". And whose appointed head of the EPA has those same attitudes but in all caps?
Re:This is a surprise? (Score:5, Informative)
And globally, the increase in energy production by renewables has pretty much been canceled out [latimes.com] by the reduction in nuclear power, meaning the percentage of energy produced by fossil fuels has remained about the same. So if you want someone to blame, blame the anti-nuclear activists.
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The vast majority of countries are missing their Paris agreement targets [iflscience.com].
And? America likes to think they are better than most countries, so why not hold them accountable for their opinion.
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The vast majority of countries are missing their Paris agreement targets [iflscience.com].
Interesting article. They left out the US. Check out this article from Scientific American:
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
Especially this:
"Those increases stood in contrast to the United States, which posted the largest year-over-year decline in carbon emissions of any advanced economy. The decline was all the more notable given President Trump’s outspoken opposition to global attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and his plans to withdraw from the Paris deal."
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Germany, in particular, has almost bankrupted itself paving the environment with wind turbines, as well as those solar panels that collect mostly dead leaves, and has managed to actually increase its carbon emissions as it switches its industrial baseload from nuclear to coal.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
TheZeitgeist (Score:2)
Of course USA gets singled out for missing 'targets' because it only reduced CO2 by x amount.
So...which of the enlightened countries in developed world met or exceeded their targets?
Also, when do the 3rd worlders start getting paid their Paris 'mitigation' checks? As I understand, that is increasingly contentious problem at the Paris Carbon-con.
China and India (Score:2)
Doesn't matter.
China and India dwarfs everything else.
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Both china and india are improving, china is simply the faster grower in renewable energy production... Per capita, the USA is #7, but only because in the top are the middle east petrol producers, where petrol is cheaper than water... but their total emissions are way lower... even russia have lower per capita CO2 emissions and they produce petrol and gas!
All this and the US, the #2 in pollution, is lagging behind...
finally, india is in #4, behind the EU, so the USA really dwarfs everyone except china
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This. The US is set to become the #1 polluter, environmental whipping boy, and international carbon-credit buyer if things continue on the current course (which luckily for them is very unlikely).
hardy har har (Score:5, Funny)
Why should the US give a fsck about the climate in Paris... I predict severe smug storms, with heavy condescension.
Was this ratified by congress? (Score:2)
Under united states law the we are not bound by a treaty that was not ratified by congress no matter what the president at the time says.
I don't think this was and there is a reason the law is that way. partially to avoid this type of mess. Just because the president thinks it is a good idea, isn't good enough unless the legislative branch also agrees.
We're not part of the Paris Accord (Score:2)
We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. has no commitments to the Paris agreements; we withdrew from them in 2017. [reuters.com]
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"In accordance with Article 28 of the Paris Agreement, the earliest possible effective withdrawal date by the United States cannot be before November 4, 2020"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Informative)
The US never entered into any binding agreement. A former President made a personal promise. He had no authority to enter the US into such an agreement. The US is not a party to any such agreement.
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Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
The US government didn't agree to it. Obama agreed to it. Without any backing from Congress. And now Obama's gone.
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And now Obama's gone.
Obama's not gone. He's in the TV business now.
Maybe he can make a show about the Paris Accord . . . ?
It sure worked out well for Al Gore . . .
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Yea, apparently some of them want to be Movie stars.
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Informative)
The law in the United States [archives.gov] is that the President may agree to treaties only with the consent of the Senate.
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Interesting)
The President did get consent from Senate to the agreement. In 1992. The Senate consented to membership with the UNFCCC on June 4th, 1992. In their consent they gave the President, who was then Bush #1, the ability to agree to whatever, so long as it was within the framework of the UNFCCC.
Fast forward a lot, the Paris Agreement is drafted within the UNFCCC framework. Which, oh looky there, the Senate already gave the President broad authority to agree to whatever under that framework. Huh, funny how giving away power so broadly usually isn't good for the Senate. Gee, maybe the Senate ought to rethink the last 40 years of slowly giving the President the ability to do everything without their say.
The Senate got bamboozled, they need to man up and perhaps while they are at it, strip some of the power they've given the President over the last four decades. They can start with national security tariffs, the WTO memberships and judgeship, NATO bylaw changes, and UN special diplomatic mission assignments for starters. The Senate bemoans pretty much everything the President does when it doesn't serve the majority's interest. Well how about not letting the President have that power? Ya think?!
I'm more pissed at crybaby nation that is the Senate than anything else within the US government. I mean seriously, you're the upper house, grow some damn balls people!
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:4, Insightful)
In their consent they gave the President, who was then Bush #1, the ability to agree to whatever, so long as it was within the framework of the UNFCCC.
The Senate's action did not give Bush and successors any ability to bind the US to whatever agreement came from UNFCCC as a treaty --- another act by the Senate would be needed to confirm the actual text of the agreement. The constitution requires the senate confirm the exact treaty being agreed to: there is no procedure by which the senate can provide a "vague" confirmation that automatically approves whatever document the president comes up with.
It sort of did (Score:2)
It sort of did. Rather than type it all out here's a link that describes the situation well https://www.snopes.com/news/20... [snopes.com]
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You know what? You take that up with your Senator. You tell them that they ought to have an strict reading of the Constitution. Let me know how that goes. Till then, that's the legal basis the Obama admin went into the Paris Agreement with, that position was never challenged in a court of law, and Trump pretty much legitimized that thinking by pulling out of the agreement in the exact manner that the UNFCCC dictates.
So you can feel a certain way about what the Constitution "says", but if everyone is doin
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Informative)
The law in the United States [archives.gov] is that the President may agree to treaties only with the consent of the Senate.
That's irrelevant in this case, because the Paris Agreement was specifically structured with the constitutional situation in the US in mind, so that Obama would not need ratification by the Senate.
To understand this, we first have to take a step back and look at how treaties are handled by the United States. The US actually enters into three different kinds of treaties, only one of which uses the constitutional process. No, this doesn't make the other two kinds unconstitutional.
The first kind is what you've described, per Article II. The US rarely uses this kind, because the Senate is a pain in the ass to work with.
The second kind is what are called "congressional-executive" treaties. These are treaties which the president (the executive part of the name) signs, but which don't directly obligate the US to do anything. They only represent an agreement by the president to seek legislation (the congressional part of the name) to enact the terms of the treaty. This enactment is performed via the same process that any federal law is made: majority vote of both houses plus the signature of the president.
The third kind is what are called "sole-executive" treaties. These are treaties signed by the president with no involvement of either legislative house. They are constitutional because they only obligate the president, not the country, and are written so that they cover only things that the president already has the authority to do. One very common example is a "Status Of Forces Agreement". These describe the terms under which US military forces in US bases on foreign soil will operate. Because the president is commander in chief of the armed forces, he can and does simply order the military to comply with the terms of the treaty.
The Paris Accord was a sole-executive treaty. When Obama signed it, he really only promised to do three things:
1. Meet every five years to make new, more aggressive goals on climate change reduction.
2. Meet every five years and publish how we're doing on our climate change reduction goals.
3. Track how we're doing on climate change reduction.
That's it. The president can easily order the relevant departments of the executive branch to do these things.
So, Obama could sign the treaty without Senate involvement. Then he needed to ask Americans to meet the specified goals, whatever that involved, but he could really only ask. Likewise, Trump could back out of the treaty without Senate involvement. That just means that the US isn't going to show up to the goal-setting and goal accomplishment review meetings. Nothing more.
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:4)
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:4, Insightful)
Only complied with the 'laws of the United States' because it _wasn't_ a binding treaty.
So either it's not binding or it's moot. Pick one.
It's morally binding (Score:2)
In that all of the other 196 countries of the world have agreed to it (178 ratified), and the US looks like a spoiled kid in the corner having a tantrum.
Re:It's morally binding (Score:4, Interesting)
It will not solve anything since as fast as America drops our emissions, China is adding 2-3x as much. Unless ALL nations are dropping their emissions, this will never work. EVER. At the very least, it requires that nations quit building new coal plants, if not new fossil fuel plants. Yet, China, Germany, Japan, S. Korea, most of Eastern Europe, continue to build new coal plants.
America has stopped with coal and will likely continue to cut our CO2 by cutting coal (way too expensive).
BTW, the report assumes that our EVs continues to grow slowly. Just this year alone, America will leap into #1 position of buying EVs, or just behind China. Why? Tesla model 3.
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Morally. I would agree that God wants us to take care of the planet and His creation and reducing pollution is part of that, the specifics of how to do that are probably something that need a great deal of consideration. I'd be happier if the republicans at least embraced the principle then maybe there would be a better chance of working out specifics. Just because you don't believe climate change is real , doesn't mean burning coal and oil is good for the environment. Reducing smog alone is a good re
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Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Informative)
Nice logic! Take your ignorant stupidity elsewhere.
The President of the United States -- whether they are black, white, or mellow yellow colored -- cannot ratify treaties without the approval of Congress. Then-President Obama tried to do an end-run around the US Congress and, because of it, a major part of his legacy was easily undone. It is the same reason that, for his legacy, the best thing that he did with the ACA was going through Congress to get it implemented.
https://harvardlawreview.org/2014/01/limits-on-the-treaty-power/
And, as such, please stop commenting on political discussions because you clearly have no educated place in them.
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You seem to mix up Senate with Congress, or you are bad in quoting.
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Seems I mixed up "The House of Representatives" with Congress, does not change the fact that the parent was wrong.
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Seems I mixed up "The House of Representatives" with Congress
The House of Representatives is also part of the US Congress, along with the Senate. Two houses, ergo the term "bicameral legislature."
does not change the fact that the parent was wrong.
About what, specifically?
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About the fact that only the Senate was required to agree and not the Congress.
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In what way was Obama a traitor? Did he sell us out to an enemy? Nope. Did he aid/abet an enemy? Nope. Did he try to start a war against America? Nope. Did he engage in a war against America? Nope.
As such, he can NOT be considered a traitor.
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ok then you're free to be climate criminals (Score:2)
in the eyes of near-future generations of people worldwide, including in the US mid-west desert-sandbasket (formerly breadbasket).
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You need to explain to me how a warmer and wetter world makes everywhere a desert.
Except it did (Score:2)
Except it did. Here's why (since I'm lazy and don't want to type it out)
https://www.snopes.com/news/20... [snopes.com]
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Informative)
We never had any commitments to this agreement. Obama made the agreement on his own accord and not with the backing of congress. This pretty much makes it worthless.
What we are seeing is people trying to guilt us back into the agreement so the money can keep flowing. This was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to transfer wealth to 3rd world nations.
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
We never had any commitments to this agreement. Obama made the agreement on his own accord and not with the backing of congress. This pretty much makes it worthless.
What we are seeing is people trying to guilt us back into the agreement so the money can keep flowing. This was nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to transfer wealth to 3rd world nations.
You really expect a developing economy, responsibly for almost none of the accumulated CO2 in the atmosphere and very little of the new CO2, to be held to the same standard as rich developed economies who got rich by doing exactly the thing we want those developing nations to avoid?
Of course any climate deal is going to involve wealth transfers to developing countries.
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:4)
China is a developing country and it as of 2018 puts out more CO2 than the US does as a total. India is also a developing country and it is second on the chart, expecting to pass the US soon. So, yes developing countries are putting CO2 into the are at a ever increasing rate. Don't hand me that tired line "developing countries are not responsible."
The Pars agreement was nothing more than a attempt to grab money from developed countries, while forcing them to hobble their economies at the same time. That money would be paid to developing countries while at the same time mostly absolving them from current CO2 emission and future emissions.
Nothing wrong with transferring wealth to developing countries as long as it is done in fair nature to both parties.
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The Pars agreement was nothing more than a attempt to grab money from developed countries, while forcing them to hobble their economies at the same time.
And how exactly would that be? The treaty (which is not binding in the US) forces the US to build solar plants for China in China? Hu? Are you really that retarded?
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
u? Are you really that retarded?
If you can't have a discussion with out having to use personal insults then you have no discussion to bring to the table. You are not here to debate you are here to argue. Change your tone and I'll answer your question. Till then you are not worth my time.
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A typical retard answer.
A baseless claim and now a baseless defense.
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Please stop posting now. There are smarter people than you reading this. Your contributions are only serving to lower the over all IQ of the tread and distract them from the real topic.
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I guess I search for the original text, as you privided only american anti Paris *news papers*
Are you insane? Vox.com, while not a legitimate news site, is one of the most anti American sites on the web. Scientific American is widely regarded as one of the best magazines in the field, I don't know about brooking.edu so I'm not going to comment. NPR is about as left leaning, and still be kind of fair, as you can get with out falling over. Dfat,gov,au isn't even an American site. It's Australia . An well Reuters.com is well Reuters, one of the best news organizations in the world.
You didn't
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Vox.com is a news site.
The vox.com is no more a legitimate news site than the onion is. At least the onion they don't claim to be any thing more than what they are, a satire site.
The vox is the very definition of bad journalism. They go out of their way to twist the truth to be as inflammatory as possible. They will only show one side of the story, usually not the correct side, and write the other side to be as negative as they possibly can. They are what is called in the field "yellow journalist."
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More importantly, it is important to get ALL nations to stop adding coal, if not all fossil fuels, plants. If they want to replace one, with one that is cleaner, fine. BUT, the vast majority of what ALL NATIONS are doing, is not replacing, but adding. Yes, that is esp true of China since some 300 GW of their ~700 GW of new coal plants over the next couple of years, goes into other nations of which some do not even hav
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China is NOT a developing nation anymore than America was in 1950
Since you put it that way, what you have said it truth. I accept your reclassification of China.
You will not find me arguing with you about coal. I'm in total agreement. Coal has to stop, it's a filthy fuel. I'm not debating about needed change. Change is needed. What I'm mostly debating is sudden change will end in nothing but disaster.
Using coal as an example. It needs to go, has to go. But we can't just shut them all down over night. We have to gradually phase them out as we bring newer and
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:4)
I'm in total agreement again. This is a problem that nobody wants to talk about. People want to phase out old nuclear plants with out addressing what to replace them with. Most often the answer is a coal burning plant because it's cheap to throw one up and walk away.
While we need to cut our reliance of fossil fuels as low as we can I would accept natural gas as a short term solution. It's 10 times cleaner than coal and in many cases easier to get too.
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India is moving quickly towards nuke and AE. In fact, they are growing their coal plants at a fraction of the pace of China for this very reason.
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You really expect a developing economy, responsibly for almost none of the accumulated CO2 in the atmosphere and very little of the new CO2
If this were really about CO2, there should be no wealth transfer in the agreement.
The responsibility for existing accumulated CO2 goes equally to all countries in the world.
It's the TOTAL volume of new CO2 per square meter of country's land mass that needs to be capped and reduced; Not "amount of of CO2 per capita" or other such rubbishness.
Re:We withdrew from the Paris agreement (Score:5, Informative)
This was never ratified by the Senate, President Obama's signature was conditional on ratification. The US has no obligations under the Paris agreement and never did.
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Believe me, the number of people staying home from work will be big, really yuge.
ftfy
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Re:hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Sometimes when you pull out you get left with 20 years of trouble
Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Obama unilaterally agreed to this accord (which by definition, being an international agreement, is a "treaty"), but it was never ratified by Congress, which treaties must be in order to obligate the United States.
You can't pull out of something you were never in.
Obama said fuck you to a lot of people too (Score:3)
like all the cannabis smokers, he didnt legalize it.
He didnt free all people in prison under pointless drug possession charges put there by over zealous career seeking prossecuters who love to ruin peoples lives and get rich.
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Hahahaha. You use Snopes as your "authoritative" source? That's funny.
Look it up, man. Treaties have to be ratified by the Senate. Paris never was. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
FYI, here's how those work:
The President is head (chief executive officer, if you will) of the Executive Branch. Pretty much just like the CEO of a corporation.
He can use Executive Orders to tell his employees (people in the Executive Branch) what to do. That's all.
Executive Orders do not, and cannot by law, obligate anybody but Federal employees to do anything.
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The model had the US and Europe as moneybags for the world. Now its left to Europe, that IS a better alternative. When Europe withdraws, better still.
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Every deal that Trump didn't make himself is a bad deal for Trump, no compromise.
FTFY
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You know, that's not the entire truth...
Quite a few of the deals that Trump actually made for himself are also a bad deal for Trump... As evidence by his lifelong history of breaking contracts because he didn't want to honour them.
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Why should the US be expected to pay for everything for the rest of the world?
We aren't.
The agreement involved developed nations, including the US, that had generated an enormous amount of wealth via burning fossil fuels.
We'd like developing nations to not go down that same path, because we fucked up the atmosphere when we did it.
In order to get them to not go down the same path we did, we're going to have to help them skip over the "burn shitloads of fossil fuels" stage in their development.
Compromise is built from negotiating parties looking out for their own self interests, then giving in on some items to get others. You want win-win agreements
They get help building non-polluting energy sources, we get Miami and New Orleans continuing
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The proposed "solutions" to climate change would lead to the deaths of millions of people right now instead of the theoretical deaths of millions of people a century from now.
This is something that "climate warriors" leave out of the conversations. They want change NOW, no mater what the cost. Well the cost would be millions of lives in third world countries. We are completely dependent on mechanized farming to feed the 7B people in this world. Not to mention transportation and storage of food. We cut this back NOW as they want and we will not be able to feed so many people.
An these deaths will occur in the third world because they are most dependent on food shipments fr
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An these deaths will occur in the third world because they are most dependent on food shipments from first world countries. So is it will come down to countries feed themselves or feeding them. I can't imagine any country picking to feed another population over its own.
Funny aid always comes in the form of food and not in tractors and combine harvesters. Maybe John Deere should be giving congressmen more money than the corn lobby.
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What good are tractors and combines in the third world with no arable land or people who lack any farming history or knowledge?
And yet, that didn't stop Saudi Arabia [wikipedia.org]. Granted, they had a pile of money, but giving food year after year in perpetuity costs a pile of money too.
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Why would climate change solutions kill people? There's a fairly clear path forward on fixing climate change now. The first step doesn't even touch oil or other farm chemicals.
The first step is a massive build-out of renewable electricity generation, mainly solar and wind. We're not even close to the maximum capacity of renewables across the country, even without grid changes.
The second step is including 12 hours' worth of battery storage to get to 80% renewable electricity [thinkprogress.org], whether next to the power gen
Re: Not a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
hy would climate change solutions kill people? There's a fairly clear path forward on fixing climate change now. The first step doesn't even touch oil or other farm chemicals.
There are some well developed plans to fight climate change that don't involve people starving, or economies collapsing. Looking at what you posted and it looks like the start of a good plan.
The problem is these plans take time to put in place. You stated if put in place "aggressively." There in lies the problem. Such radical changes can not take place over night. Infrastructure has to be developed, people educated, and equipment built. We can't not just flip a switch and change the nature of the beast.
People don't think about this and want change Now. They don't think about the consequences of rapid change.
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We are completely dependent on mechanized farming to feed the 7B people in this world.
The agreement does not require third world countries to not use modern agricultural machinery, nor does it forbid them from using transportation systems like trucks to haul goods.
What it does is finance the construction of non-CO2-producing facilities in their countries. So instead of building a coal power plant because it's cheap for them to build, we help fund the construction of hydro/solar/wind/storage/etc.
In return, cities like Miami and New Orleans continue to exist instead of being destroyed by the
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That's 100 billion dollars a year, every year, with no end date being brought up
First, it's not $100B from only the US.
Second, financial predictions so far from now are pretty difficult to be remotely accurate. Since they mostly depend on how well we did in the previous spending. That $100B, spent well means we have a lot less to spend after. Which is why I left it vague in my previous post.
What figure did you have in mind when you said "or we pay a few trillion dollars over 10-40 years from now"?
Well, the real estate that is Miami is worth about $3 trillion. So that would be completely gone. I don't have convenient numbers for every other low-lying coastal city, because there's a lot o
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Before I answer with something more thought out first tell me what AGW means. I'm drawing a blank on this one.
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Considering that I started the discussion then it's safe to assume that I have plenty of business posting in this discussion. I deal with dozens of 3 letter acronyms daily. I think that I can be forgiven if one doesn't ring a bell right off that bat. Just like I would forgive you for not knowing what HD, CHR, or TT means.
An for the record, I looked it up and figured it out before you decided to chime in with your brand of enlightenment.
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what does AGW and cutting back on CO2 have to do with mechanized farming? Absolutely NOTHING
I'm going to respectfully disagree with you on this. I believe it has a great deal to do with the issue, if not the lions share.
Granted the tractor in the field as little to do with the issue. But take it out to all the other causes and effects mechanized farming have. Transportation and storage, theses require energy and most of that energy comes from fossil fuels. Then there is CO2 emissions from livestock. Yes, cow farts. Then there is the clear cutting of carbon sinks, forests and the like.
If
Industry-apologist shill alert (Score:2)
Re: gradually slowing down (record-high) fossil fuel production and consumption will kill people - to paraphrase.
This is utter bullshit, and a talking-point dreamed up in the back rooms of the Koch brothers shill factory.
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Quick - throw money at the Chinese to make solar panels for other people for... environment!!
The source, Rhodium group, is a very pro-China, pro-China monopoly on alternative energy think tank.
Don't take my word for it. Look at the Rhodium group staff profiles and see what other paid positions they hold. It's not hard to see that this is a poorly veiled arm of the Chinese state propaganda wing.
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hey, you can do your own solar panels... and wind generators... and (much more cleaner than coal) gas generators
you can also do cars that uses less petrol, just like all other cars in the world
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Yes, sure, you know more than NASA: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital... [nasa.gov]
But we have weather station all over the globe and many of then have public info... just go look and take the numbers, do the math and then come back to us if there isn't a small and persistent global temperature increase
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A better way to not be arrogant. How about this reasoning. There are many many people that study this issue. Most of them know a lot more about the fields involved then I do. ( chemistry, weather, hydraulics etc.) . The majority of them believe there is a real problem with how much plant food we are releasing and how it will effect things over time. That's pretty easy to establish, doesn't take a lot of hard science. Where to rubber meets the road though is , what if anything can and should we do abou
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yes, CO2 is good for plans... but that it is not its only effect... how many plants you have in Venus? They have LOTS of CO2 there!
the quantity is very important, too much or too little are bad, just like water (too little: desert, too much... well sea or lake)
The issue with CO2 is that it gets hot and do not release the hot as fast as most other common gases. This make everything a *little* more hot... while the extra CO2 make plans grow faster, it also make water evaporate faster, that in turn form bigger
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Without pressure to develop cleaner energy sources, people would not do it, simply because anything new is more expensive than established and already paid... now that we have generated some pressure to change, wind energy is already much cheaper than coal and petrol, and a little more cheaper than gas. Each year solar prices are being cut in a big %. Energy storage, improving electric grid is also a side effect of this pressure to fix a problem.
Simply waiting for the problem to solve itself is a good way
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what if you don't have any?
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Our switch from coal to gas was putting us ahead of most other countries at the time, but there is a limit to how much carbon we can save that way.