Trump Climate Change: US rebelled against Trump

[swabian]

the USA is a bunch of :wub:s. If they don't realise what they are doing then almost nobody will. They cause over 30% of all climatologically active greenhouse emissions. I'm not saying the world would be better off without the US, but it's certainly going in that direction.

[Harith]

the USA is a bunch of :wub:s. If they don't realise what they are doing then almost nobody will. They cause over 30% of all climatologically active greenhouse emissions. I'm not saying the world would be better off without the US, but it's certainly going in that direction.

No not really. Much of the great technological achievements in renewables came from the states mainly though government funding of private and public initiatives under the Obama administration. The US is in fact indispensable when it comes to fighting climate change. Though, I do agree that it is frustrating having to deal with fundamentalist administrations from time to time.

[The spartan]

It is not a question of a silly unenforceable pledge.

You do understand we are talking about international agreements, right? If economic (or military) punishment could be doled out for non-compliance, no one would have signed up. Instead, the "enforcement" methods include international shaming and loss of global standing. That isn't exactly unusual for international agreements.

The reason most signed on was in hopes that the rich countries would pay the poor countries for mitigation. It has not happened yet and Trump has no intention to let it happen. This is why he keeps repeating the junk science garbage. Nobody will pay anybody anything, but comments such 'it is embarrassing' are not a reason to start paying either.

Except the Paris Climate Accord can't force any rich countries to pay for anything, so I don't see how that is relevant. All it did was establish goals for countries to aim for to ensure average global temperature doesn't rise above 2 degrees (Celsius). Where did you ever hear that it forced "rich countries" to pay for "poor countries"?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...nel/ar-BBF10J8

I think this means that Trump is not going to spend a single dollar on this climate change extortion gambit. This is where the Europeans think it more important to pay up than ask what they are paying for.

The Atlantic is a bit warmer and thus the hurricanes are tracking a bit more north which is why we got hammered this year. Is this the result of 'climate change'? It does not matter. Why should the USA start to pay out the billions that Obama promised if we are already paying out for the problems in our own yard?

That article is about the UN Climate Panel, not the Paris Climate Accord. Again, the Accord didn't force any countries to pay anything. Any country could try to reach its goal any way it wanted. Obama did not pledge to spend billions for the Climate Accord. If you are truly concerned about economic impact, surely you could find academic sources that indicate a large impact to long-term growth by trying to follow the Climate Accord?

[Costin_Razvan]

the USA is a bunch of :wub:s. If they don't realise what they are doing then almost nobody will. They cause over 30% of all climatologically active greenhouse emissions. I'm not saying the world would be better off without the US, but it's certainly going in that direction.

In what particular fantasy land did you get THOSE figures. They cause less then 15%, while China comes closer to 30%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...xide_emissions

[NorseThing]

You do understand we are talking about international agreements, right? If economic (or military) punishment could be doled out for non-compliance, no one would have signed up. Instead, the "enforcement" methods include international shaming and loss of global standing. That isn't exactly unusual for international agreements.

Except the Paris Climate Accord can't force any rich countries to pay for anything, so I don't see how that is relevant. All it did was establish goals for countries to aim for to ensure average global temperature doesn't rise above 2 degrees (Celsius). Where did you ever hear that it forced "rich countries" to pay for "poor countries"?


That article is about the UN Climate Panel, not the Paris Climate Accord. Again, the Accord didn't force any countries to pay anything. Any country could try to reach its goal any way it wanted. Obama did not pledge to spend billions for the Climate Accord. If you are truly concerned about economic impact, surely you could find academic sources that indicate a large impact to long-term growth by trying to follow the Climate Accord?

The accord is an end around attempt at what the un panel cannot accomplish. The panel came first and the UN via potential Security Council vetoes cannot do what was wanted. I never said it forced a thing did I? I said it was a silly agreement that even you admitted was to shame the west in ponying up to mitigate the costs in poorer countries. Trump wants no part of these multilateral agreements and definitely not shaming agreements. This is why he makes the rhetorical excess regarding 'junk science'. His term and not my term. I simply tried to explain why he has spoken as he did, I never ever claimed I agreed with the logic or the policy. I do agree with his desired end result though this is probably not a good way to approach the desired end result..

[The spartan]

The accord is an end around attempt at what the un panel cannot accomplish. The panel came first and the UN via potential Security Council vetoes cannot do what was wanted. I never said it forced a thing did I? I said it was a silly agreement that even you admitted was to shame the west in ponying up to mitigate the costs in poorer countries. Trump wants no part of these multilateral agreements and definitely not shaming agreements. This is why he makes the rhetorical excess regarding 'junk science'. His term and not my term. I simply tried to explain why he has spoken as he did, I never ever claimed I agreed with the logic or the policy. I do agree with his desired end result though this is probably not a good way to approach the desired end result..

It shames anybody who breaks the agreement, so I don't know why you think it is so targeted towards the West. Also, the shaming comes when a nation that has signed on breaks the agreement, as that are being the "odd nation out". That could very well be China if it can't get its together. I am kinda getting lost on your objections to the agreement here: you seem to be implying this is a means to exploit the "West" (the US?), but I am not am not seeing how the West is being targeted specifically in the agreement or how any nation would be required to do things it doesn't want to do, such as implementing policy that is deemed harmful. Leaving the agreement was just a way to flip the international community and scientists the finger, it didn't "save" anything because nothing was at risk.

[NorseThing]

More straw men. 'Shame the west' is not shorthand for China. My objection is that it is a silly agreement. I offer as support from the Minister of Silly Walks:

http://reason.com/blog/2017/11/21/pe...rug-warriors-w

Seriously, any agreement that is voluntary and seems by some to be shaming the USA if they depart (read break, if you support the agreement) is a silly agreement. Nothing happens with or without this accord / agreement. This accord is just virtue signaling and nothing more.

[Ludicus]

Seriously, any agreement that is voluntary...is a silly agreement

Hmm? what? should we (the entire world) give him an ultimatum?

--
The U.S. Is Now the Only Country to Reject the Paris Agreement

It’s official. When it comes to climate change, there’s now literally everyone else—and then there’s the United States.

Syria’s participation puts an exclamation point on the fact that the U.S. actions are contrary to the political actions, and the sincerely held beliefs, of every other country on the face of the Earth,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University and a longtime observer of UN climate negotiations.

According to the medieval antiscience Heather Nauert, a spokesperson for the State Department,

If the government of Syria cared so much about what was put in the air, then it wouldn’t be gassing its own people

--

But I'm not surprised. Here is Trump's world in all its splendour, (a flat brain rhymes with a flat hearth)

This Flat-Earther Is About To Launch Himself In A Homemade Rocket ...

I don't believe in science,” Hughes, whose main funder for the rocket is Research Flat Earth,

In 2016 Hughes launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund his mile-long flight on a rocket. Unfortunately, he was only able to raise $310.
Soon after, Hughes became a flat-earth believer, perhaps in an attempt to boost his funding base.

His second campaign on GoFundMe, this time titled "Flat Earth Community Rocket Launch" raised almost $8,000 toward Hughes rocket launch.

The launch will be live streamed on Hughes' YouTube channel. The launch is scheduled between 2 and 3pm PST.

----

Much of the great technological achievements in renewables came from the states mainly though government funding of private and public initiatives under the Obama administration. The US is in fact indispensable when it comes to fighting climate change. Though, I do agree that it is frustrating having to deal with fundamentalist administrations from time to time.

That's true.

[Diocle]

Hmm? what? should we (the entire world) give him an ultimatum?

Why not? You might try .. you might pile up all the Leftist crap & losers, all the Social-Fascist and Communist dictators and mass murderers, like Kim Jong-un and maybe even the whole Chinese Communist Party and then, you might write and send to the USA an Ultimatum, in the name of Kim, Karl Marx and Mr. Hussein Obama! What a show!

[Gäiten]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[swabian]

In what particular fantasy land did you get THOSE figures. They cause less then 15%, while China comes closer to 30%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...xide_emissions

It's not from a fantasy, but really outdated (probably 15 years or more). I actually feel relieved to be set correct about this. Now arises another problem: How to get the Chinese to come to their senses.

[Gäiten]

Now arises another problem: How to get the Chinese to come to their senses.

Pay them billions of Dollars.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Oh yay, time to share some real facts:

Yes, in a perfect world, I guess we could throw caution to the wind and build lots of nuclear power plants except that there is no solution to spent fuel rods. Basically we have an enormous toxic waste dump just waiting for an accident in America. Nearly every state has earthquake potential and we are due for major ones in California and Illinois. So that eliminates nuclear power.

Nuclear power plants are constructed to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake (in earthquake prone areas, others are magnitude 6) with insignificant impact to the plant. They're literally some of the most resilient above ground structures there are.

Spent Fuel Rods aren't "waste," they're actually 97% usable actinides which can be recycled in fast breeder reactors (which will use 70-80% of the usable actinides) or molten salt reactors (which will use all of them). Unfortunately molten salt reactors are only just now being built in Russia and India, while the US has some sort of ideological prohibition against the recycling of usable nuclear fuel. France, Korea, Japan, Russia, India, and China all do it and we have enough "spent" nuclear fuel to power our country until 2083.

More accidents like Fukushima will unleash radioactive isotopes and cause significant long term near permanent pollution and huge risks of cancer and bioaccumulation in the food chain.

Fukushima released about a maximum of 30 pBq into the atmosphere and 30 directly into the oceans. Most of the exclusion zone has already been lifted. According to the World Health Organization, the United Nations Scientific Council on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Fukushima has had and will continue to have "no detectable impact on health or the environment."

There are millions of gallons of distilled water with slightly higher tritium levels held at the site, all of which are perfectly safe to be released into the ocean.

Yes a nuclear accident happened, but just because one happened doesn't mean everything within a 30 mile radius is uninhabitable. 1000 people died as a result of stress related illness from the evacuation, when it would have actually been safer to not evacuate.

Yes, it's possible that algae might someday be a source of biofuel but that is way off.

Biomass/Biofuel generates about 270g CO2eq kw/hr emissions, so it's not really helping. (For reference: Combined Cycle Gas is about 490 to 780g CO2eq kw/hr, Concentrated Solar Photovoltaic is about 48 to 270 over its life cycle depending on the study and the panels [rooftop is lower], Wind is about 12 to 70, Nuclear is about 18 to 66 gCO2eq kw/hr).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(Source: IPCC Report 2017, Chapter 7)

Different study:

Nations ll fear making more nuclear plants.

China's building about two dozen AP-1000 1.2 gigawatt reactors. India's already working on Molten Salt Reactors which literally cannot melt down (in fact they're so safe they don't even need an operating crew because the laws of physics themselves prevent them from melting down). The US is going to finish Vogtle at least, and there's a small chance Duke Energy may finish VC Summer.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://thebulletin.org/global-nuclear-power-database

Nuclear is winning major victories across the planet. The people of South Korea voted 60 to 40 to finish all of its planned nuclear construction. France's idiotic anti-nuclear president has been met with stiff opposition (France and Sweden have some of the lowest emissions in Europe and are almost purely nuclear and hydro. They laugh at Germany's Energiewende).

By the way the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has been saying the world's nuclear capacity will have to quadruple in order to meet climate goals by 2050 for years. Their 2017 report is free online.

The problem is fear-mongering like you're spreading, which by the way is funded by the coal and gas industry since solar panels and wind turbines keep coal and gas plants open.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You couldn't use solar in a significant way to power US electricity utilities alone.

You can't use solar to power . It generates 300 times the "waste" as a nuclear power plant, they have to be replaced every 10-15 years, and you'll have to build three to five times the desired wattage to actually put out equivalent generation to a nuclear plant. So it would cost about three to five times the installed capacity. One plant alone would use about 260 times the land area (same for wind).

Actually the amount of Solar Panels at the same latitude as Fukushima to replace the power plant would use up 1.5 times the area of the original exclusion zone.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And that doesn't even take into account that if you're actually matching nuclear generation you have about 3 hours every day where those panels are generating maximum output before peak demand meaning if it takes four 1 gigawatt solar plants to match a 1 gigawatt nuclear reactor then you have ~3 hours a day where you're producing 4 gigawatts and 21 hours a day when you're producing a fraction of that, meaning you have to have batteries (which themselves at that load capacity would cost as much as a nuclear reactor for each plant) or gas-fired peaking plants (totally negating solar's emissions) to compensate.

So yeah, solar is a scam, and wind isn't much better. At least nuclear fuel is regulated and isn't burned for copper like solar panels (which can't be recycled and are just thrown into the massive south Asian electronics waste dumps, and burning them releases tons of carcinogens into the atmosphere) or dumped into lakes in Mongolia like the mining and processing waste from neodymium for wind turbines (which is several times more than uranium mining and processing waste, which actually can be reduced if we switch to molten salt reactors and go over to uranium/thorium).

Oh and by the way, converting the planet to Solar and Wind would use up all the mineable copper in 20 to 40 years and throw us back into the dark ages:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: