The new Emperor, Dear Leader, or as he is known in this country, President of the United States of America, is on the verge of proving that even age-old sayings are no longer sacrosanct. Since inauguration in January, we have collectively witnessed an elected official to the highest office who has bungled everything that he has touched. He has lied outlandishly and perversely to the American people (the size of his inauguration crowd, the size of his electoral victory, the claim that Obama is sick and evil and wiretapped him, that the Russian interference in our election is a hoax, that 5 million illegals voted and otherwise he would have won the popular vote, and on and on…), picked unnecessary fights and disagreements with allies and friendly foreign leaders (Germany, Australia), continually praised our adversary, Russia, at all costs, displayed terrible judgment in hiring someone who may yet be accused of treason as the National Security Adviser (Flynn) and refused to condemn him even after firing him, hired an Attorney General who may be accused of perjury (Sessions), messed up with travel bans, healthcare and many other issues. Come to think of it, has he done anything that the country can be proud of?
An old adage is that even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut—meaning that even the worst president, even randomly, should be able to do something right. No one is completely bad (or good)—there must be something positive that he does. So now is the opportunity: a no-brainer. Do NOTHING and win. Stay in the Paris Accord on climate change! How difficult is that?
An overwhelming majority (61%) of Americans support it. Only 17% want to exit the accord. Big business—even Exxon—wants the country to stay in the deal. Even if you are obstinately anti-science, and maintain that the climate is not changing due to human pollution, would you not want your children to breathe cleaner air? Can you doubt that facts that there are more people just in California who work in the clean energy sector than all of the current coal workers? That the US will benefit economically from staying at the cutting edge of energy technology? I guess “alternative facts” have taken over this conversation too…
Our Dear Leader has shown that he has no trouble backing away from other promises; everyone will be covered with much better healthcare! Except for the 23 million who won’t. So why not back away from this particular pre-election pledge, especially with so much pressure from business to stay with the accord? After all, he claims that he could shoot someone in broad daylight on the street in New York City and it wouldn’t detract from his following.
I have no explanation—except to say that this firmly proves that blind squirrels may not always find a nut. And the Emperor may not find out that he has no clothes. Until it’s too late for us all on this planet…
I am going to both agree and disagree with you here Steve.
First you are right to say that Trump should just have done nothing and left the Paris Accord in place. Unfortunately, the one thing that he seems incapable of doing is nothing.The “something must be done” dictum always takes priority even when what is proposed has not been thought through (like replacing Obamacare).
Secondly, I am more of a technological optimist than you are. I don’t think that leaving the Paris Accord will make any difference in practice because economics is driving the transition to renewables. If it is more expensive to create electricity by burning coal than it is from the wind or the Sun, then no amount of ‘making America great’ will save coal-miners jobs. Oil will change from a fuel that is burnt to a feedstock for chemicals. The key will be the development of battery technology to provide smoothing for the intermittent nature of renewables.
The only effect of Trump’s actions will be to place the USA at a competitive disadvantage to other countries that embrace these new technologies.
And just to support what I said a couple of days ago, here is an article from today’s The Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/paris-agreement-trump-fossil-fuels-dont-worry-a7777676.html
Laurence–sorry for the delayed response. I agree with you 100%–in the long run, this will not not really affect attempts to advance clean energy around the world, and perhaps even in the US, especially with states like California (on its own the 6th large economy in the world!) leading the charge for higher standards. But that just exemplifies how blatantly stupid the man the really is, and how he never fails to end up on the wrong side of the issue, no matter what it is…