The environment thread

[StrangeSox]

Miles of Ice Collapsing Into the Sea

THE ACCELERATION is making some scientists fear that Antarctica’s ice sheet may have entered the early stages of an unstoppable disintegration.

 

Because the collapse of vulnerable parts of the ice sheet could raise the sea level dramatically, the continued existence of the world’s great coastal cities — Miami, New York, Shanghai and many more — is tied to Antarctica’s fate.

[StrangeSox]

My wife and I have talked for years about doing a trip to Glacier National Park (which I haven't been to yet), and as a grand retirement party (in like 15-20 years) to rent one of those private train cars and take the train from Chicago to the park.

 

Given the rate at which the glaciers are disappearing from Glacier, we are now dropping the train thing (which is expensive as hell) and just road tripping to Glacier next summer to get there much sooner. Legitimately concerned most or all will be gone by the time 20 years rolls around.

 

NYT with a timely piece on 50 Years of Melting Ice at Glacier National Park

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05...s&smtyp=cur

[StrangeSox]

Trump will be withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, costing the world vital time in combating global warming

[caulfield12]

Trump's advisers were at odds over how the administration should approach Paris. Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, had pushed to stay in the deal, and Ivanka even brought Al Gore to Trump Tower to meet with her father in December. Gore spoke with Trump again this month in an effort to encourage the president to remain in the agreement.

 

Trump was also personally lobbied by world leaders at a recent G-7 summit in Italy, (the Pope) and foreign diplomats repeatedly made their case for remaining in the agreement during frequent calls with administration officials.

 

Others in the “remain” camp included Tillerson, who had praised the Paris deal when he was ExxonMobil’s CEO. During his confirmation hearing this year, he said the United States must keep "its seat at the table" for international climate talks.

 

Even if the U.S. had stuck with the deal, scientists and climate activists have warned that the targets Obama and other leaders promised in Paris wouldn’t cut enough carbon pollution to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Instead, they said, the signing nations would have to steadily escalate their commitments in coming years.

 

The agreement calls on countries to aim to limit global warming to "well below" 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit from pre-industrial levels, and it said countries should "pursue efforts" to keep temperature increases to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Under a business as usual scenario, global temperatures could rise by between 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit and 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, according to the United Nations, an increase that would have catastrophic consequences.

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/31/t...greement-238974

Edited May 31, 2017 by caulfield12

[Kyyle23]

Trump made this decision based on a letter signed by 22 GOP Senators. Only 22

[StrangeSox]

Meanwhile, the EU and China have agreed on a climate deal.

 

https://twitter.com/FT/status/869914490594316288

 

The US is going to be left behind on a lot of emerging technology and manufacturing because we need to do everything we can to save 50k coal jobs for some reason.

[iamshack]

Meanwhile, the EU and China have agreed on a climate deal.

 

https://twitter.com/FT/status/869914490594316288

 

The US is going to be left behind on a lot of emerging technology and manufacturing because we need to do everything we can to save 50k coal jobs for some reason.

The crazy thing is that corporate America has already bought into sustainability. The wheels are in motion for this to be such a massive and successful transition, and yet he seems to think the opposite is true - that it is in the best interests of America economically to resist and cling to these bulls*** subsidies of the past.

 

The hard part has already been accomplished, the momentum is there - and this asshole is trying to retard that momentum for reasons unbeknownst to anyone.

[StrangeSox]

Reactionary politics fueled almost entirely by spite and ignorance.

 

It's also setting a new precedence where previous admin agreements aren't honored going forward, which makes us commitments that much less reliable on a whole host of international issues. What good is spending years hammering out a complex agreement with every single country in the world save Syria and Nicaragua (who thought it didn't go far enough) if it'll just be launched shortly into the next admin? What good is the US's word?

[LittleHurt05]

Trump will be withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, costing the world vital time in combating global warming

 

When you can take a stand with Syria and Nicaragua, why wouldn't you?

[Kyyle23]

Reactionary politics fueled almost entirely by spite and ignorance.

 

It's also setting a new precedence where previous admin agreements aren't honored going forward, which makes us commitments that much less reliable on a whole host of international issues. What good is spending years hammering out a complex agreement with every single country in the world save Syria and Nicaragua (who thought it didn't go far enough) if it'll just be launched shortly into the next admin? What good is the US's word?

 

Trump has never honored agreements. :/

[Quin]

Gotta help those coal miners

[caulfield12]

It's not like WV, Kentucky and Tennessee were going into the Clinton column even if he murdered the mayors of Charleston, Frankfort and Nashville.....and it's also NOT like pulling out of Paris would lose those states for Trump in 2020.

 

Hillary and Obama basically declared war on coal/carbon emissions.

[iamshack]

It's not like WV, Kentucky and Tennessee were going into the Clinton column even if he murdered the mayors of Charleston, Frankfort and Nashville.....and it's also NOT like pulling out of Paris would lose those states for Trump in 2020.

 

Hillary and Obama basically declared war on coal/carbon emissions.

Honestly, it is just the way the industry is going anyways. While it is hard to sort of deconstruct all the different factors that have led to the massive transition to solar and wind resources (climate change, gov't subsidies, economics, abundant natural resources, etc), the transition requires certain complimentary fossil fuel resources until the time that storage is economic on a utility scale. The nature of solar and wind, both in the times when they are most abundant, and in the fact that they are intermittent resources, requires complimentary resources which can ramp up and down quickly or come online quickly. I am not engineer, nor expert in coal technology, but the current technology limits natural gas resources as the resources with these attributes. Therefore, since more and more solar and wind is coming online, utilities and regional transmission operators have sought to balance this influx of renewables with fast-performing natural gas resources, not coal.

 

There are a LOT of things going against coal right now, other than just politics. It's just becoming an outdated technology.

[StrangeSox]

Exactly. Coal company ceo's have even admitted this. Nuclear plants and coal plants across the country are shutting down because they can't compete with natural gas (unfortunate on the nuclear side given that there's near zero CO2 emissions there). People haven't been building coal plants in this country for decades, and some if the existing ones are being converted to natural gas. I think the will country generating station in lemont has converted three of it's four coal units to ng.

 

And on the mining side, much like manufacturing in general, we can extract a whole lot of coal with only a handful of workers thanks to automation. People and towns that have generational identities tied to coal mining don't want to hear that, though.

 

Even if you reject agw, coal is a really nasty way to generate electricity from start to finish.

 

Edit: shack, I was watching "the smartest people in the room" about Enron the other week, made me think of your line of work.

Edited May 31, 2017 by StrangeSox

[caulfield12]

Trump's not helping Russia...he's making things far easier for China to lead the world

 

Ceding environmental leadership

Pulling out of TPT

Allowing AIIB to rival anything the West has to offer

Belt and Road Project connecting China, Africa, Middle East and Europe

Abandoning NATO

Xi Jinping quoting Abraham Lincoln at Davos, Switzerland, leading the new globalist/free trade (far from it, if you understand how intertwined and subsidized industries are here) order

No longer calling China out on their poor human rights record

Letting China control the South China Seas and North Korea

Edited June 1, 2017 by caulfield12

[Soxbadger]

Dont worry guys Trump's got this. Thankfully Trump will put a handful of jobs that are going extinct anyway, over every American that has plans of living in the future.

 

Such a winning deal!

[BigSqwert]

[caulfield12]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40120770

Five Effects of US Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/06...ibility-sot.cnn

CNN's Fareed Zakaria, "US resigned as leader of the free world today"

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/01/opinions/ame...lman/index.html

Trump to rest of the planet: Drop Dead

Edited June 1, 2017 by caulfield12

[BigSqwert]

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/06...ibility-sot.cnn

CNN's Fareed Zakaria, "US resigned as leader of the free world today"

 

Just weeks after he claimed, "Trump became President last night".

[bmags]

It's so typical that those who strive for strength strive for appearance of strength in ways that undermine them.

 

He thinks this makes us look strong by telling the countries no. It undercuts democratic leadership globally, and destroys short term relationship building.

 

Except with those that flatter him.

[StrangeSox]

It's so typical that those who strive for strength strive for appearance of strength in ways that undermine them.

 

He thinks this makes us look strong by telling the countries no. It undercuts democratic leadership globally, and destroys short term relationship building.

 

Except with those that flatter him.

 

Absolutely this. He's destroyed US credibility across much of the world with the exception of a handful of dictators.

 

You can argue whether or not Obama's methods and means we're the most effective way to exert US influence, but this path is pretty clearly not a good one.

[StrangeSox]

I think we're also going to see the US facing quasi sanctions from the global community over actions like this. Nothing officially called that, but watch out for less favorable trade deals or even fewer deals at all. We're giving up American leadership globally and running away from a growing tech field others are going all in on in order to pander to 50k coal jobs and boost oil company revenues

The damage to the rest of our economy due to lost opportunities (not to even get into the damage from agw itself) will far out weigh whatever the costs are.

[Soxbadger]

I think we're also going to see the US facing quasi sanctions from the global community over actions like this. Nothing officially called that, but watch out for less favorable trade deals or even fewer deals at all. We're giving up American leadership globally and running away from a growing tech field others are going all in on in order to pander to 50k coal jobs and boost oil company revenues

The damage to the rest of our economy due to lost opportunities (not to even get into the damage from agw itself) will far out weigh whatever the costs are.

 

hahahahahaa

 

Trump is the best deal maker in the world, best deal maker in history.

 

He built a wall using Mexico's money. He saved 1 trillion jobs and has gotten the US out of every bad deal that every other bad President ever signed. When he is done German cars are going to cost $1mil so that every American is forced to buy only American cars and then he is going to ban all renewable energy and every hybrid car, so that we can use our huge amount of oil.

 

Dont worry, Trump is already negotiating with the environment and he is going to strike a great great deal, one of the greatest deals of all time.

 

What a time to be alive, woooooo!

Edited June 1, 2017 by Soxbadger

[caulfield12]

The United States leads the way with 65 million tons of oil equivalent thermal units coming from renewable energy sources. This accounts for 22% of the global consumption of renewable energy. Since President Obama’s first term, generation of power non-fossil fuel or nuclear electricity in the United States has steadily increased from 1.5% to above 5%. This push for clean energy in the US has been motivated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

 

Meanwhile, although China has been prominently featured as a heavy polluter due to its vociferous appetite for oil, it actually ranks just behind the United States. The Chinese consumption of renewable energy was about 53 million tons of oil equivalent. The paradox in China’s energy habits is that while many countries are using renewable energy to reduce fossil fuel consumption, China sees renewable energy as a means to energy security. China’s energy demand rate is above 10% per annum and conventional energy sources cannot satisfy this. The expansion of renewable energy consumption has been due to China’s unique position as a technological innovator. This has led to reduction in cost of installing solar cells and wind power stations.

 

Wind and solar power are considered the most effective and affordable sources of renewable energy. Although they trail hydropower by a great margin, the environmental and social impact of wind and solar make them most favourable for development globally. China had highest wind power installed capacity in 2014 of 115 GW followed by the United States at 65 GW.

 

http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/top-15-...ble-energy.html

Some inconvenient facts/reality....

 

 

[caulfield12]

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/06...ax-lead-sot.cnn

Tapper, Pruitt spar over Paris Accords drop out

 

 

https://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Germany%2...c=yfp-hrtab-900

 

Italy, France and Germany said on Thursday they regretted U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and dismissed his suggestion that the global pact could be revised.

 

"We deem the momentum generated in Paris in December 2015 irreversible and we firmly believe that the Paris Agreement cannot be renegotiated since it is a vital instrument for our planet, societies and economies," the leaders of the three countries said in a rare joint statement.

 

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron urged their allies to speed up efforts to combat climate change and said they would do more to help developing countries adapt.

 

The three leaders tried to convince Trump last week at a Group of Seven summit to stay in the pact and honor U.S. commitments undertaken by the previous administration.

 

The unusual French-Italian-German statement, released barely an hour after Trump announced his decision, underscored the disappointment of the eurozone's three largest economies and their resolve to plough ahead without Washington's support.

 

"We are convinced that the implementation of the Paris Agreement offers substantial economic opportunities for prosperity and growth in our countries and on a global scale," the three leaders said.

 

"We therefore reaffirm our strongest commitment to swiftly implement the Paris Agreement, including its climate finance goals and we encourage all our partners to speed up their action to combat climate change."

 

 

 

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2017liv...nt_29582415.htm

Meanwhile, Merkel and China pushed closer and closer together...coincidence?, I think not today.

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday confirmed that she had discussed the protocol surrounding Beijing's accession to the World Trade Organization with visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

 

She said that both Germany and China endorsed WTO rules and principles, and she believed the EU should abide by WTO regulations and fulfill its legal obligations by working out solutions that apply equally to all countries without prejudice against China, adding that Germany wishes to see progress in the EU-China trade negotiations.

Edited June 1, 2017 by caulfield12