At Least It's Good For A Laugh

Sometimes it's the drama I find most hilarious. Like Nancy Pelosi saying Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord was tantamount to murder. Sometimes it's the spin. Like, Lee Kamps saying “more than 90% of climate scientists agree that human activity is accelerating the warming of the earth.” The truth about that lies at ProCon.org. The site, in a fairly unbiased manner, provides both sides of whether or not humans are responsible for global warming. The “more than 90%” figure was erroneously taken from studies like the 2013 Cook review of 11,944 peer-reviewed studies on climate change which found that 97% of the studies expressing a position on the issue said that humans are causing global warming. Environmentalists translated that to 97% of all climate scientists. Per ProCon, the Cook study actually said:

Pro-- “...only 78 studies (0.7%) explicitly rejected the position that humans are responsible for global warming.”

Con-- “...66.4% of the studies had no stated position on anthropogenic global warming, and while 32.6% of the studies implied or stated that humans are contributing to climate change, only 65 papers (0.5%) explicitly stated "that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming."

Regardless of cause, our climate has warmed about 1.5°C since 1850. Should we do something about that? Possibly. If it's reasonable. But I've yet to see anything proposed that's reasonable including the Paris Climate Accord.

The parties to the Accord could not agree on what should be done so in desperation to say they accomplished something, each country pledged (called an NDC) what it would do on its own. The pledges of the top three polluters were:

China - “Peak CO2 emissions by 2030, or earlier if possible”

So China, whose emissions are double any other country, pledged to keep growing emissions for another thirteen years. Supporters argue that China's growth is leveling off so it's not that bad. But China didn't pledge to be “not that bad.” Instead, they chose to protect their economy and if they average the same growth as the last thirteen years, the world's emissions will be worse even if the other countries meet their pledges.

United States - “The U.S. NDC sets a target of reducing its emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025”

The U.S. pledged to reduce emissions and the economy be damned. There is no argument the pledge would cost this country many jobs.

India - “To reduce the emissions intensity of GDP by 33%–35% by 2030” by increasing “the share of non-fossil based energy resources to 40% of installed electric power capacity....”

India's pledge reduces the amount of their emissions per $1,000 of GDP but increases their total emissions as their GDP grows. According to a Brookings analysis, if their GDP grows at 7% (last year it was 8%), India's total emissions by 2030 would be 2.3 times what they are today. And it would much greater if India met their pledge. Their economy has been held back due to a third of India not having electricity. Adding the capacity they pledged should help their GDP, hence emissions, grow much faster.

Per the Accord, developed countries (the U.S.) would bear the cost for developing countries (India) to meet their pledges. Since a large part of India's economy is outsourced jobs, U.S. taxpayers would be paying India to take more jobs from them. That's reasonable...TO A LIBERAL!

So, the liberal elite made another agreement that threw this country (and the climate) under the bus. Then, in yet another attempt to divide the electorate, they proclaimed they saved the climate and anyone who disagrees is a climate denier and a baaaaaaaaaad person. Obviously, I'm old and confused. I thought I disagreed because it hurt the people of this country.