Environment, Politics, Society

The United States and Syria Against The World? Trump Pulls Out Of The Paris Accord

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In fulfillment of his campaign promise, President Donald Trump has defied the world and pulled our country out of the Paris Accord.  The United States will now join Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries outside of the agreement.  You really cannot include Nicaragua because it did not sign in protest of the agreement not going far enough (a valid objection).  That leaves us and our environmental fellow traveler, Syria.

In terms of delivery, I thought this was one of Trump’s stronger speeches though MIT scientists say that he got their data wrong.  Other experts noted that Trump was wrong on the details of the agreement regarding China’s commitments as well as its costs to the United States.

Trump has declared climate change to be a “hoax” despite the virtually unanimous opinion of the scientific community and many Republicans who now acknowledge the reality of climate change.  (Though some appear to accept climate change while insisting that God will take care of it).  He started calling the theory a hoax in 2014: “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice.”  As evidence mounted and the science community unified on the role of man in causing climate change, Trump became more and more firm on the idea that all of these scientists and studies promulgated a myth.

While Trump did not repeat his view of climate change as a hoax, he declared the agreement as “very unfair at the highest level to the United States.”  In fairness to Trump, I was highly critical of the agreement in the deal given to China and India.  I was also critical on the low level of achievement set by the countries.  However, the world united behind American leadership on the most important environmental agreement in history.  We are now withdrawing and placing our country in the position of a global spoiler.

At the same time, Trump is ramping up coal reliance while downgrading alternative energy programs.  As we have previously discussed, our allies are making huge advances in reducing their reliance on fossil fuel energies.  From this transition, Europe is taking a lead in new technologies.  We on the other hand are rushing in the opposite direction like an investor doubling down on buggy whips despite the rise of automobiles.  This point was driven home by an impressive collection of companies and CEOs, including companies like Exxon, who fought to keep the United States in the agreement and rejected the economic claims made by Trump.

Again, in fairness to Trump, it is worth noting the Obama administration also expanded coal production.  However, countries like Germany are showing how to lead on this new technology while shifting to solar and other energy sources.  Part of benefit of the Paris Accord is to create incentives for technology and alternative fuel advancement.

The irony is that, in the name of protecting the United States economy, Trump has taken the country toward greater dependence on fossil fuels and an economic model linked to the last century rather than the next century.  We will be all the poorer for it not just in terms of the environmental damages but also the economic losses.

 

192 thoughts on “The United States and Syria Against The World? Trump Pulls Out Of The Paris Accord”

  1. PARIS ACCORD – Executive Summary

    The US will immediately reduce carbon emissions to 2005 levels at the cost of trillions of US taxpayer dollars and thousands of US taxpayer jobs and the rest of you guys will do something, sometime, if you can. The US will pay for all the “somethings” when you guys get around to it but won’t have any recourse if you just pocket the money. And, hey, we have an agreement we can all believe in.

  2. However, the world united behind American leadership on the most important environmental agreement in history.

    Where did Mr. Constitutionalist Jonathan Turley disappear to? You cannot be taken seriously on your Uber Presidency warnings and then call what Obama signed us into American leadership. Leadership perhaps, but in the model of some other form of government that we rejected 228 years ago. Our states, and its people have a constitutional right to have this debated through the Senate. If that is a loser for you then that is how the process works. But you already knew that Inconvenient Truth, didn’t you?

  3. A measured post by JT. I know his emotions are raw on this topic. Politics have taken over “science.” Hearing “consensus” incessantly is quite disturbing. We saw from the hacked Penn State emails what happened to scientists who dissent. Funny, hackers have turned into the new investigative journalists.

  4. Paris Accord is a hoax.

    Stand fast. Fear not. As Yahweh declared: He owns all souls.

    Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine; The soul who sins shall die.

    Nevertheless, this ownership of one’s soul by God is a basic truth of reality that many refuse to accept. Many are they who live their entire life as though they were their own sole/soul possessor instead of God. They do not want to be owned by God; they want to be “free”, in charge of their own soul.

    Summarized: The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.

      1. Backbiting

        James 4:11

        Do not speak against one another, brethren He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it.
        Ephesians 4:31

        Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
        1 Timothy 5:13

        At the same time they also learn to be idle, as they go around from house to house; and not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, talking about things not proper to mention.
        Ephesians 4:29

        Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

  5. The rate of technology is far more concerning.

    We will have automated jobs for everything within 30 years. Every job will be replaced by robots. We will see robot police officers and soldiers in the next 20.

    Every device in our home is now capable of spying on us.

    We are becoming prisoners to corporations and governments. The Paris Accord should be the least of our worries, especially for our children. I am way more worried my children will live Orwells ‘1984’

    Anyone disagreeing with this clearly has never studied technology. These are truly dangerous times and it doesnt have a freakin thing to do with Global Warming or Trump

    We are very very close to this

  7. Study the work of the “deniers” Turley! Scientist support the warming consensus are BOUGHT and PAID for. . . Exxon supports global warming propaganda because policy based on it reduces exploration and supply and thus raises price via supply and demand! Question authority!

    1. Wow, are you confused! The science is solid, starting from John Tyndall in 1859.

      You could learn it.

      1. David Benson – science is NEVER solid. If you really knew anything about science you would know that it was fluid and always changing.

        1. Well no. You can perform John Tyndall’s experiment safely and inexpensively in your kitchen to discover for yourself the same results he reported in 1859.

          1. David Benson – a report in a scientific journal states that 57% of all scientific results stated in papers cannot be duplicated. The age of the reputable scientist has long gone.

  8. Forget the accord and forget the Orange Snowflake. We are polluting this planet largely without care and we’re impacting every form of life.

    When our own extinction arrives, as it has for most life, in our case it will be well-deserved.

  9. Given the conditions that China and India were given, I saw no reason for us to sign the Paris Accord to begin with. Thank you President Trump for keeping your word and not bowing to peer pressure. The Accord is a big nothing burger anyway.

      1. David Benson – I am SOOOO right on this one. Climate change wiped out the Hohokam in the 1300s. There was not one car or smokestack around. We are still coming out of the Little Ice Age.

        1. No we are not. You could read a good introductory textbook. Either the one by Archer or the one by Ruddiman.

  10. As expected, the LEFT is pulling its hair out over a lot of nothing. The cost to the United States for the lowering of 1 degree in a hundred years was one of the dumbest of Obama’s over reaches. It’s exactly why he did not present it to Congress. Come to think of it, with the exception of Obamacare, there was very little that the former President presented to Congress. Additionally, the too cool for school former Liar President (if you like your doctor….) cannot keep his mouth after leaving office. Unlike President Bush and previous Presidents who showed class after exiting the Oval Office.

    Americans in “fly over” country didn’t want another four or eight years of paying through our noses for Socialist globalization of Planet Earth. And I sure as hell didn’t want another penny of my tax dollars going to spy on Conservatives, provide legal defense funds for Bergdahl, unmask conversations of our Congressional Members or Journalist for political purposes, ignore request from Ambassadors for additional security, tell the Russians that more “flexibility” will be available after a reelection, or pay a Secretary of State who destroys over 30,000 documents that belong to the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES! Since the Socialist Democrats believe that the Planet is in jeopardy, perhaps they can get all of their Valley Socialist supporters to declare the highest taxed State in the Union to become a country and they can all live there in Utopia! I plan to “Keep my Head” and to me, that’s the bigger threat where money needs to be put. India and China did not agree to cut their omissions of carbon dioxide. Just because Obama signed it, doesn’t make it a good deal for America. In fact, as we’ve found out with the Iranian Nuke deal that Kerry brokered, there is very little that the former Administration did that was good for America. My tax dollars for the last 8 years were spent by lunatics, headed by a Socialist. Obama was NOT my President and it is with the greatest of pleasures that I watch his overreach dismantled Day by Day!

  11. Making the US “great” again just like Syria. Thanks, Mr. President.

  13. I have read that if (when) all the world’s ice melts, the oceans will rise about 215 feet above current levels. On Google Earth, I learned that my house is 209 feet about current sea levels ……

    1. If all the ice were to melt, about 66 meters of sea level rise. However, that is extremely unlikely, in my opinion. What does seem to be unfolding will lead, eventually, to about 25 meters higher than now.

    2. I am 1000 feet above current sea levels so I will be beach front property. Want to rent my place during the summer? Nor sure yet what the view of the ocean is, yet.

        1. David Benson – why can’t I make stuff up. Al Gore makes stuff up. Obama made stuff up. Hillary made stuff up. Bill made stuff up. Michael Moore makes stuff up. Oliver Stone makes stuff up. Why not me?

    4. No one knows exactly how much sea rise there will be and it will be different in different places. Moreover, it will almost certainly take over 100 years to reach anything near the levels you are talking about. Your house is safe. The human species, on the other hand, less so; perhaps much less. It’s not just sea rise that will drive the extinction, but rather an uninhabitable planet which evolution is not fast enough to handle.

      On the bright side, we won’t have Hillary to worry about any more. 🙂

  14. Just like Liberal Democrats confused health insurance with health care, sooo do they confuse the Paris Accords with reducing alleged global warming.

    Personally, I am all for reducing our fossil fuel use, but not because of global warming, which I think is a scam. I am more worried that we are using the precious treasure of fossil fuels for stupid and silly things, and one day when we run out, what is left of the human race is going to be left high and dry.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. Unfortunately global warming is real and causing great stresses to plants and animals in many parts of the world.

      The ecologists all emphasize that it is not the amount of warming but rather the rate of warming; species cannot adapt that rapidly.

      1. Here, educate yourself:

        The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.

        A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.

        The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers.

        But the whistleblower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data.

        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

        Making it even worse, they didn’t even bother to archive the information so it could be checked by other people. But maybe that is because Terabyte hard drives cost a whole $50, and they couldn’t afford them???

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

        1. Isn’t news to me, has been thoroughly refuted in a variety of reliable places.

          Don’t believe anything you read in The Mail. In particular, Mr. Bates is not a climatologist but rather a computer programmer.

        2. Here is a different article with a different slant, with actual quotes from John Bates the supposed whistle blower:

          https://phys.org/news/2017-02-major-global-defended.html

          Here are some of the quotes of John Bates regarding the handling of data that so concerns the DailyMail:

          “However Bates, who acknowledges that Earth is warming from man-made carbon dioxide emissions, said in the interview that there was “no data tampering, no data changing, nothing malicious.” …. “It’s really a story of not disclosing what you did,” Bates said in the interview. “It’s not trumped up data in any way shape or form.””

          But don’t stop with that little nugget, go ahead and read the linked PhysOrg article.

          1. I read your article but didn’t see much refutation. My article was very specific, and yours just sort characterized the problem as “data handling.”

            Well DUH! That’s what the climate predictions are – data handling. Because the Earth does not have an “average temperature” outside of massive data handling. Conceptually, the very idea of a average global temperature is silly and worthless.

            Take out the “data handling” and all you have is noise – – – little up and down squiggly lines that don’t mean anything.

            Try rereading both articles.

            Squeeky Fromm
            Girl Reporter

        3. Is that why the Trump Administration dumped all that scientific data? Um, glad you filled me in.

              1. Guess burning the earth is one way of erasing Obama’s legacy. What a fool we have as POTUS.

                2. Frank – The Donald is only responsible for the United States, not the rest of the world. Get a grip.

      2. Unfortunately global warming is real an

        When they’re done massaging the data for the umpteenth time.

  15. Isn’t 2020 when this all comes into play? So maybe Trump is trying to negotiate a better deal (best case scenario!!)? I confess I am ignorant when it comes to all the data around climate change – certainly I have noticed while living in a coastal climate where “summer” now stretches to 8 or even 10 months of the year with horrid heat and humidity. BUT I am not convinced that pouring monies into the Paris treaty will change things at all. As always I ask who is benefiting? Where’s Gore these days BTW?

    1. Turning off carbon dioxide producers will keep it from becoming worse.

      1. Indeed. It was a perfect example on Tucker’s show last night how uneducated Socialist Democrats can NEVER explain their silly policies. For so long, Americans just got in line and followed like lambs going to slaughter believing everything these goofballs told us. If you want to see the definition of imbecile or a relative of Nancy Pelosi’s in action, just take a look at the Mayor of Miami on Tucker’s show last night!

      3. So the Paris Accord is more of a Kumbaya moment where 200 nations came together around a global campfire, under US leadership, to tell spooky stories and walk away agreeing that the only thing that will change are energy prices, economies and our national debt; all for the worse.

        1. Right. The guy represents the emotional slurry, idea-free, the feeling that it doesn’t matter about the actual contents of a deal, its real purpose (transferring vast sums from American taxpayers to kleptocrats in the benighted regions of the world), or any of the politics that created it. No. It’s just the fact that all of the bums running the most worthless countries got to drink champaign as they guilted the US into handing their Swiss bank accounts riches beyond imagining. We’re all in this together.

          Thank God Trump parachuted in, and disrupted this nightmare we have endured for the last eight years. Imagine the alternative.

    3. Gore condemned the actions of the man that wants to set the earth on fire.

        1. You might say he’s an example of characterological decay sustained over several decades. He was actually a decent chap 30 years ago.

          1. dss – you mean the inventor of the Internet, the love interest in Love Story? Al Gore is the same person today he was 30 years ago, except back then he had less baggage to carry.

    4. Guess you would rather have your president line the polluters pockets than spend money to clean things up.

      1. I’d guess you’d rather persuade us that protrash think in slogans and talking points.

    5. Al “Crazed Sex :Poodle” Gore is still jetting around to 5 star hotels and groping masseuses.

      1. New Alert. Fat Al Gore will be on Jake Tapper’s Sunday show. Gee, I wonder if he’ll pontificate smugly??

  16. Germany is not a good role model; they are still keeping their coal burners. Look to France for an industrialized country with exceptionally low carbon dioxide emissions per capita.

  17. This is really, really bad.

    At the very least, I support the notion that China & India were given essentially a pass that should not have been permitted in the accord. But for a President to oppose environment protections as he has is unacceptable, and from my perspective nearly an abomination.

    There is a difference between ridiculousness in overregulation which increases costs and legitimate regulation that does more good than the spillover costs of enactment. But for me protecting the environment is a paramount duty of not only governments but for individuals and organizations also.

        1. Absolutely. The Heritage Foundation has an anti human anti science bias. It is quite simply anti Heritage…you know the heritage that has us breathing air and waking on dry land. Trump doesn’t care and neither does Cingresss or the oil companies. Even the Saudis are going for alternativ energy sources! The Saudis, for god’s sake!

        2. Climate scientists have tremendous incentives to interpret their models as indicating a climate disaster is on the horizon. Full employment, social status. To pretend that they do not have the potential to be as or more biased is silly.

          And just because they are doing “science” does not make them immune from the problem of bias. I know of no other field claiming to be a science that relies on as much human discretion in selecting data, setting model patameters, and interpreting the results.

    2. China and India have been given a pass since Rio earth summit 25 years ago. China was then elevated to MOST FAVORED NATION status as it sucked in a chunk of our factories. Not one ‘concerned’ envo-globalist made them put on scrubber filters to contain
      The massive air pollution like all our remaining factories have in the USA.
      It’s nothing more than a Wall Street cap & trade tax scam.
      And I believe President Trump saved us and gave the greatest speech since our founding Father Presidents.
      And the consumers are deciding on solar industry in the USA, and many small companies are doing very well.
      The jury is still out on ‘wind mills’.
      But the Predident is for ALL innovation!

    3. Darren

      This stuff with Trump is but a distraction. The realization that the world must slow down and stop producing harmful toxins and weather changing elements and releasing them into the environment is obvious to all but the idiots. The fact of the matter is that the US is installing more solar and more wind turbines than ever, possibly more than any other country. The disturbing fact is that the alternative energy industry will be many, many times greater than the tech industry. What is exceptionally disturbing is that the US is not leading this high paying job generating experience. China, Denmark, Germany, Spain and other countries are manufacturing the stuff and more than simply selling it to the US, developing the wind farms. That means when the electric bill is paid, the profits are leaving the country. How stupid is that?

  18. I just cannot get excited about an unfunded “agreement”. Not a treaty, not an accord. In my state, the ranks are filling with people playing Jeanne d’Arc on some celestial battlefield against Trump. LOL From Caitlyn Jenner to Jerry Brown. All dissemblers and headline grabbers.

    It is all so unimpressive…. to say nothing of the display Hillary gave us just a day or so ago.

  19. Getting back on topic. On the other hand so much of that scientific agreement has been shown to be bogus by the scientists themselves, Mother Nature is not agreeing, and all of that true or false evades the issue of disengaging and repudiating the actions of a tin horn dictator.,

    As Trump said, We want to revisit that later well it’s starts in a few places. The White House, The Congress and occasionally the Supreme Court. it finished with an approval by the Congress and a Presidents signature. not forgetting if money is involved that part goes the House of Representatives for deliberation etc.

    1. The first paragraph is false.

      Quit spreading untruths. Those don’t even make good manure.

      1. And you believe that nonsense?

        Try studying the science.

        1. Trump and Trumpsters hate science because science does not confirm their narrow view of the world.

      2. The same people that hate Muslims on this blog also hate clean air,.

    3. Aarethun

      Your argument in support of, at most, 5 % of the world’s scientists-perhaps the bought and paid for dupes-reminds me of the mother who when watching the soldiers parade, remarked, “Look at my son, the only one in step.” It is just that simply, head in the sand, don’t want to hear it, can’t fathom it. So, yes, let’s dig more coal and miss the alternative energy industry revolution with all its financial benefits, higher paying jobs. Let’s support the high tech industries of other countries by importing $10mil a pop heavy wind turbines from China, Denmark, Germany, etc, instead of manufacturing them ourselves, creating jobs, etc. Trump and those that follow the imbecile are simply too stupid for this world. Perhaps a few hundred years ago, but not this world.

        1. Pollution industry shills will spend their day defending Trump and his pollluting plutocrats.

  20. How can you pull out of something you were never in? Anyone can show me the required advice and consent confirmation from the Senate? No? Didn’t think so just a lonely sad scribbled signature of loser looking for a legacy.

    But as for the nation as the President said. If we wish to visit it later…when the real work is completed…..well that IS the system.

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Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks
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