President Donald Trump officially withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change. The non-binding agreement had the goal of reducing global temperatures by two degrees by the end of the century. Global climate change is one of the Left’s favorite issues, so the ensuing meltdown from Democrats and the news media was expected. The reactions ranged from rage to the resignation of the coming apocalypse because we pulled out of an agreement that we all knew was coming if Trump won the 2016 election. It was pure nonsense, and even former NASA scientist James Hansen, the “father of climate change awareness,” thought the Paris Agreement was a joke last year (via The Guardian):
“It’s a fraud really, a fake,” he says, rubbing his head. “It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”
The talks, intended to reach a new global deal on cutting carbon emissions beyond 2020, have spent much time and energy on two major issues: whether the world should aim to contain the temperature rise to 1.5C or 2C above preindustrial levels, and how much funding should be doled out by wealthy countries to developing nations that risk being swamped by rising seas and bashed by escalating extreme weather events.
But, according to Hansen, the international jamboree is pointless unless greenhouse gas emissions are taxed across the board. He argues that only this will force down emissions quickly enough to avoid the worst ravages of climate change.
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Hansen has been a nagging yet respected voice on climate change since he shot to prominence in the summer of 1988. The Nasa scientists, who had been analyzing changes in the Earth’s climate since the 1970s, told a congressional committee that something called the “greenhouse effect” where heat-trapped gases are released into the atmosphere was causing global warming with a 99% certainty.
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So, while a pro-climate change warrior said the Paris Agreement is bad—he also said that future anti-global warming measures have to be economic detrimental, such as this emission tax pipedream that is DOA (and rightfully so) with congressional Republicans. Still, it further exposes the over-the-top outrage over our withdrawal from this agreement.
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