Trump’s Hypocrisy on Dropping Out of Paris and Killing Climate Science
It was amazing that Trump dropped out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement without mentioning that he and his compatriots were doing everything they could in the budget to destroy climate science and clean energy science and promulgating their climate science hoax theory. Trump blamed it all on the agreement costing us jobs and clean energy costing us in GDP loss, on very questionable statistics by NERA Economic Consulting. The statistics were supplied by a right wing economic think tank funded by the coal industry.
Let’s start with the most personable one. Trump said that he owed the dropout to the workers in Pittsburgh, once the coal and steel capital. The Mayor of Pittsburgh said that 80% of the cities’ voters voted for Clinton. Pittsburgh is now a high tech city instead of steel. The Mayor is going to continue to follow their 2023 and 2030 clean energy emission goals.
The follow up speech was a pean to Trump by EPA Destroyer Scott Pruitt. He cited that from 2000-2014 the US reduced CO2 by 18%. This is hypocrisy to the N’th power by the Administrator of EPA who is destroying climate and energy science because he does not believe in human caused climate change. If we did not cause climate change, why is he worried by our reduction in CO2?
It’s clear that Trump sacrificed our clean energy plan just to please states that are crucial to his reelection. Trump also mentioned bringing jobs to Youngstown, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan, two of the Rust Belt states that Trump needs to win, as well as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A recent poll shows 71% of the American public want to stay in the Paris Agreement.
If the world goes on without the Paris agreement, the temperature rise by 21oo would be 4.2 degrees Celsius, or 7.56 degrees F. It is well known that the Paris agreement is only a short term set of goals, and more have to added in five, ten, or fifteen years. With only the Paris accords, the temperature average in 2100 would be 3.3 degrees Celsius, or 5.94 degrees F. The difference of the Paris accords are then 0.9 degrees Celsius, or 1.62 degrees F.
The questionable data by NERA was a cost of $3 trillion lost in GDP, and 6.5 million industrial jobs lost. Per household, there would a $7,000 income lost if we stayed in the Paris agreement. Contrast this with the data that there are 450,000 clean energy jobs, while only 120,000 are in coal. NERA assumes that we cannot compete with more costly clean energy. This ignores the situation that cleaner natural gas is cheaper than coal. It also ignores that as other countries stick to the plan, their energy costs would go up also. In America, much cleaner natural gas from fracking is now cheaper than coal. Industries are building lower energy buildings and saving on heating and cooling. NERA represents King Coal and also Rupert Murdoch.
It takes four years for the US to completely exit the Paris agreement. That ends a day before the 2020 election. The blue states and many cities will continue with clean energy plans. At the basis, it is up to individuals to make choices for clean energy in many areas of their lives.
