Trump Fails To Commit To Paris Climate Agreement

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-fails-to-commit-to-paris-climate-agreement-as-he-concludes-first-overseas-trip/2017/05/27/e1d3ac5c-42e3-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html?utm_term=.4347cd8ffa4b

It doesn't matter if Trump commits to it or not, the president does not have the power to sign legally binding treaties without it both being legal under the US Constitution + approved by 2/3rds of the US Senate. It's DOA in America, totally unenforceable and will never be ratified.

Irrelevant. It makes for another juicy Washington Post story.

This sorta shows that Trump is not committed to "newfangled" ideas about how to save our Earth.

This doesn't put the US in a good light amongst "green" countries.

Why can't Trump go to this meeting, and tried to persuade people of his position? That would make him look more credible.

I thought he already made it abundantly clear he thinks it's complete fiction invented by China.

Well, he's made it official:

Globe & Mail: Trump says U.S. pulling out of Paris climate accord, will renegotiate to re-enter

it's because he's old. that's too bad.

what "better terms" should we expect?

Not sure, but there's nothing he can do to make coal less obsolete. If I was a tech engineer in the U.S., I would be concerned that potentially useful contacts have been cut off.

This is cutting America off from the rest of the world. We now join two other countries, Nicaragua and Syria, in being outside the Paris accords. This ends decades of US leadership in the world and we are now seen as a joke, very much like our President. It is a huge and historically bad decision, one of the great disasters of my lifetime. No, it will not be renegotiated; it will separate America from our allies and friends and will be a dark stain on our country for decades.

I still think invading Iraq instead of Saudi Arabia after 9/11 (or at least engaging in an Israel styled assassination campaign against the Royal family) and voluntarily giving up civil liberties in the wake of 9/11 will end up bieng the two worst of my 60 year lifetime. Giving the middle finger to an agreement most every country that signed has already figured out loopholes around is uncouth but money talks, BS tantrums walk. And Maccron is reacting just like Trump when he does not get his way.

It seems to me like most of the world is far too dependent on the US to worry about it becoming isolated. I was going to say something about not succumbing to peer pressure, but then I realized the US doesn't really have any peers. I'm not sure his age has anything to do with it, considering how many people his age are into climate change science. And there's many younger people who are well educated and intelligent who aren't convinced climate change science is coming to the right conclusions.

From a more subjective viewpoint the area I live in has been experiencing record low temperatures this year. It's currently 64 degrees F. And the forecast a week from now is 65 F.

Last edited by EzraS on 01 Jun 2017, 9:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

People should look at the figures, especially, for the Arctic regions. Average temperatures there have gone up considerably over the last 20 years or so.

It is well known that glaciers are melting at a rapid rate, too, especially in the Northern Hemisphere.

Remember: I'm not saying that "climate change" definitely has man-made causes. It could be caused by natural variation in climate. But it is, definitely, occurring.

What Trump did is a symbolic "screw you" to many countries.

The thing is I can find many articles disputing what's being said about arctic regions. I wonder how many people have fully studied both viewpoints objectively. I haven't gotten there yet, but it appears to be debatable.

Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches New Record Maximum | NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/an ... rd-maximum

Updated NASA Data: Global Warming Not Causing Any Polar Ice Retreat
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylo ... 316da32892

Now I'm not going with that any more than other findings regarding the Antarctic. And I'm sure there are plenty of people who will dispute this. But this and similar findings/theories/reports etc I have come across keep me from being 100% certain regarding the issue one way or the other.

You lack understanding. I want you to learn. Forbes and Nasa.gov aren't the best sources on good information. The extent of sea ice isn't a good indicator of climate change. Sea Ice forms from ocean water and there is little to no change in volume of water present. A good analogy is ice cubes in a cup of water, they melt and the amount of water in your cup doesn't change. The collapse of ice shelves,increased rates of ice calving, and increased sliding speeds from continent based glaciers is far more diagnostic because the melting of these features actually introduces new water to the ocean system. Specifically the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Read about the Marine ice sheet instability. Also here is an accurate article on the potential for sea level rise in the next 100 years. Not quite so catastrophic as catastrophists would lead you to believe, but still troublesome and I prefer we be intelligent stewards of the living environment around ourselves, since the planet itself ain't alive as new agers would say. If you would like a natural analogue in the past to todays current man made warming, look no further than the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which is still pretty subdued compared to today's rate.

Oh yeah land ice vs sea ice doh. I know how that works but it slipped my mind at the time.

But I'm all for cleaner energy sources and electric cars no matter what and I think that's how things will progress regardless of climate change beliefs.