Article

2018-12-28 Home Front: Politix

Trump Imperils the Planet - Endangered species, climate change ‐ the administration is taking the country, and the world, backward.

[NYT] It’s hard to believe but it was only three years ago this month ‐ just after 7 p.m., Paris time, Dec. 12, to be precise ‐ that delegates from more than 190 nations, clapping and cheering, whooping and weeping, rose to celebrate the Paris Agreement ‐ the first genuinely collective response to the mounting threat of global warming. It was a largely aspirational document, without strong legal teeth and achieved only after contentious and exhausting negotiations. But for the first time in climate talks stretching back to 1992, it set forth specific, numerical pledges from each country to reduce emissions so that together they could keep atmospheric temperatures from barreling past a point of no return.

Two weeks ago, delegates met at a follow-up conference in Katowice, Poland, to address procedural questions left unsettled in Paris, including common accounting mechanisms and greater transparency in how countries report their emissions. In this the delegates largely succeeded, giving rise to the hope, as Brad Plumer put it in The Times, that "new rules would help build a virtuous cycle of trust and cooperation among countries, at a time when global politics seems increasingly fractured."

But otherwise it was a hugely dispiriting event and a fitting coda to one of the most discouraging years in recent memory for anyone who cares about the health of the planet ‐ a year marked by President Trump’s destructive, retrograde policies, by backsliding among big nations, by fresh data showing that carbon dioxide emissions are still going up, by ever more ominous signs (devastating wildfires and floods, frightening scientific reports) of what a future of unchecked greenhouse gas emissions is likely to bring.

Posted by Besoeker 2018-12-28 07:59|| || Front Page|| [11137 views ] Top

#1 ...to address procedural questions left unsettled in Paris, including common accounting mechanisms

And somehow I didn't get invited? Boo-hoo!

Posted by Raj 2018-12-28 08:05|| 2018-12-28 08:05|| Front Page Top

#2 And yet I have seen it reported (where?) that the US is beating its assigned, but not agreed to, goals, while most of the signatories are not meeting their goals.

Posted by Glenmore 2018-12-28 08:56|| 2018-12-28 08:56|| Front Page Top

#3 Greenism is all about rent-seeking.
Rent-seeking is economic pollution and it's no surprise that economic pollution leads to real world pollution.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2018-12-28 09:15|| 2018-12-28 09:15|| Front Page Top

#4 Just when I start to think the NYTs is acting like a legitimate reportage organization with a rare well-written article, they come out with the usual crap. Still the Mockingbird News and mostly fake news. Still good for the parrot cage or to line the cat scat box.

Posted by JohnQC 2018-12-28 11:12|| 2018-12-28 11:12|| Front Page Top

#5 #3, rent seeking AND perpetual self congratulation

Posted by Cesare 2018-12-28 11:31|| 2018-12-28 11:31|| Front Page Top

#6 For Glenmore, part of the answer, from the US energy information administration:

U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions have declined in 7 of the past 10 years, and they are now 14% lower than in 2005.

Posted by trailing wife 2018-12-28 17:19|| 2018-12-28 17:19|| Front Page Top

#7 frightening scientific reports

Which are different than accurate scientific reports.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2018-12-28 18:08|| 2018-12-28 18:08|| Front Page Top

#8 The Wayland-Yutani research paper suggested that if just one alien cocoon would reach Earth, it would be the end of civilization, and likely all life on Earth.

Posted by swksvolFF 2018-12-28 18:46|| 2018-12-28 18:46|| Front Page Top

#9 And somehow I didn't get invited?

They fear sunlight.

Posted by gorb 2018-12-28 22:46|| 2018-12-28 22:46|| Front Page Top

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