Have you looked at the North Pole lately?

[Genghis Kush]

Humans causing up to two-thirds of Arctic summer sea ice loss, study confirms





Rising greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for at least half, possibly up to two-thirds, of the drop in summer sea ice in the Arctic since the late 1970s, according to new research. The remaining contribution is the result of natural fluctuations, say the authors.

The paper, published today in Nature Climate Change, confirms previous studies which show how random variations in the climate have acted to enhance ice loss caused by rising CO2.

Importantly, the authors state clearly in the paper that their work does not absolve human activity as a driver of Arctic sea ice loss. A News and Views article that accompanies the paper, by Dr Neil Swart from Environment and Climate Change Canada, adds:

“The results of Ding et al. do not call into question whether human-induced warming has led to Arctic sea-ice decline — a wide range of evidence shows that it has.”
Shifting patterns
With temperatures rising at more than twice the speed of the rest of the globe, the Arctic is the fastest warming place on Earth.

Arctic sea ice extent is declining in every season, but particularly quickly in September, when the ice reaches its lowest extent for the year. Since the beginning of the satellite record in 1979, Arctic sea ice cover in September has decreased by around 13% per decade.

Scientists know the shrinking of Arctic sea ice is, in part, down to greenhouse gases warming the atmosphere and ocean. Today’s study suggests natural factors may have contributed between 30-50% of the decline since 1979, by changing the way air circulates in the Arctic region.

The authors point to stronger summer circulation over Greenland and the Arctic Ocean in areas where sea ice loss in September is highest. The Beaufort, Chukchi and East Siberian Seas have together experienced an average decline of more than 10% per decade, the paper notes.

The changes in atmospheric circulation in the Arctic, thought to originate in the tropical Pacific, increase the amount of water vapour in the lower atmosphere, the paper explains. Together with a shift to fewer clouds, this has increased the amount of solar radiation reaching the ice.

Human contribution
In many ways, the new study is unsurprising since scientists already know that natural variability is driving some of the long-term trend, notes Dr Ed Blockley, polar climate manager at the Met Office Hadley Centre, who wasn’t involved in the study. He says:

“It has long been known that the observed decline in Arctic sea ice, caused by global warming, is also being enhanced by the influence of natural variability in the climate system.”

Neither is the new study surprising in the size of the contribution it attributes to natural variability, says Prof Julienne Stroeve, professor of polar observation and modelling at University College London. She tells Carbon Brief.

“Several papers, including those published by myself, have shown that 50-60% of the ice loss is a result of greenhouse gases, leaving the other 40-50% from natural climate variability.”

The authors themselves say in the paper that their result is “perhaps not surprising” given past estimates that have come up with a similar ball-park figure for the role of natural variability.

The paper is, perhaps, useful in adding more detail to the evolving picture of Arctic sea ice loss, says Dr Twila Moon, a lecturer in cryospheric sciences at the University of Bristol. She says:

“This well-designed study provides the best detail yet to determine how much Arctic sea ice decline is caused by humans and how much is natural environmental change.”

Being able to separate human influence from the effects of natural climate variability helps build a better understanding of what we should expect in the future, says Dr Amber Leeson, a lecturer in glaciology and environmental data science at Lancaster University. The Arctic has been losing summer sea ice much faster than the majority of climate models forecast, she says:

“This research helps explain why predictions of sea ice change made by climate scientists have traditionally underestimated the rate of ice loss over this period.”

This faster-than-expected decline has prompted questions over whether the models used to simulate Arctic sea ice are too conservative, explains Dr Ed Hawkins, a specialist in Arctic sea ice predictability at the University of Reading. He tells Carbon Brief:

“This study suggests that part of this difference may be due to natural atmospheric variations which are causing the sea ice to melt faster than some models have simulated.”

Expectations
Scientists are interested in predicting when the Arctic will become “sea ice-free” in summer – defined as the point at which sea ice extent falls below one million square kilometres. Hawkins tells Carbon Brief:

“Looking ahead, it is still a matter of when, rather than if, the Arctic will become ice-free in summer, but we expect to see periods where the ice melts rapidly and other times where it retreats less fast.”

Taking a closer-range view, should we be expecting a record low in summer in 2017?

We don’t really know yet how the summer will shape up, says Stroeve, but the sea ice is particularly vulnerable as we go into this year’s summer melt season, she tells Carbon Brief:

“If we have a favourable weather pattern, such as we saw in 2007, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see this summer reach a new record low…We will have to wait and see.”

Before that, there’s another event that scientists often use to benchmark how one year’s ice cover compares to another. Around March each year, Arctic sea ice reaches its highest extent for the year. With sea ice extent remaining low, following the lowest February extent in the 38-year satellite record, Carbon Brief will be keeping a close eye on how conditions proceed.








https://www.carbonbrief.org/humans-...rds-arctic-summer-sea-ice-loss-study-confirms

 

[Genghis Kush]

Rex Tillerson signed a statement supporting Arctic science.


The Trump administration’s latest budget proposal aims to significantly reduce funding for Arctic climate research, among other environmental programs — a move climate scientists say would be a big mistake.

The budget, which was just released by the White House on Tuesday, includes substantial funding reductions for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And among these is a $6 million cut to “eliminate Arctic research” at the agency’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. As the budget itself bluntly states, this move “will terminate improvements to sea ice modeling and predictions that support the safety of fishermen, commercial shippers, cruise ships, and local community stakeholders.”

The proposal comes just weeks after the United States participated in a meeting of the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum, which prioritized continued research and monitoring of the region and its response to climate change.

The Arctic research program includes projects that monitor sea ice extent, track weather patterns and other atmospheric changes, map the seafloor and manage marine fisheries. Data from NOAA research efforts are used by scientists around the world and are considered a valuable resource for international climate monitoring efforts. And these efforts are vital to our scientific understanding of the changing climate and the Arctic ecosystem, as well as the safety and productivity of commercial interests in the region, scientists say.

“These cuts would do great harm to NOAA’s crucial research to better predict the behavior of Arctic sea ice, and would in turn jeopardize the safety of fishermen, commercial shippers, and cruise ships, not to mention the effects of ice loss on the local ecosystem, acceleration of land-ice melt and northern hemisphere weather,” Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist and Arctic expert at Rutgers University, said in an email to The Washington Post.

NOAA isn’t the only federal agency that conducts Arctic research. NASA, in particular, provides satellite data on changes in the Greenland ice sheet and Arctic sea ice and also conducts field expeditions for mapping and sampling purposes. And the National Science Foundation includes an Office of Polar Programs, which awards grants to Arctic and Antarctic researchers.

Each program has a unique function, and certain aspects of NOAA’s Arctic research program — such as its importance in monitoring and understanding Arctic fisheries and ecosystems and the way they’re affected by climate change and other human activities — may not be fulfilled by other agencies.

The Arctic, which is widely recognized by scientists as the most rapidly changing region on Earth thanks to the effects of climate change, is a valuable scientific indicator of the progression of global warming, and researchers from all over the world have heavily prioritized its study. But the Arctic is also a part of our own nation, noted David Titley, a meteorologist at Pennsylvania State University and a former chief operating officer at NOAA.

“In many ways, not studying the Arctic would be like not studying the weather and ocean in the Gulf of Mexico, or off the coast of California,” he told The Washington Post in an emailed comment. “It’s U.S. sovereign territory.”

In fact, as Francis pointed out, representatives of the Arctic nations — including Rex Tillerson, the current secretary of state — signed a document this month at a meeting of the intergovernmental Arctic Council reaffirming a number of priorities for the region, including continued climate research and monitoring efforts.


The document states that the council will “recognize the need to increase cooperation in meteorological, oceanographic and terrestrial observations, research and services, and the need for well-maintained and sustained observation networks and continuous monitoring in the Arctic,” among other related goals. According to Francis, the proposed budget cuts “fly in the face” of the priorities to which the United States has agreed in this document.

The Arctic cuts are just one area of significant funding reductions the new budget proposes for NOAA, which amount to about a billion dollars in cuts for the agency altogether. The budget would decrease funding for certain fisheries management and marine research programs, and would cancel many other programs entirely. Those slated for the chopping block include multiple grant programs aimed at helping coastal communities bolster themselves against the effects of climate change and sea-level rise, including the popular Sea Grant program, which helps connect coastal researchers with the communities they serve.



And environmental research at other agencies would also suffer under the new budget. The proposal, for instance, would entirely eliminate the Marine Mammal Commission, an independent agency established in the 1970s under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which monitors the effect of federal activities on marine mammals — many of which spend at least part of their lives in the Arctic, such as walruses and certain species of seals and whales. In a recent statement, released in response to the new budget proposal, the commission’s chairman Daryl J. Boness noted that this is “a function performed by no other agency” and expressed concern about the proposal’s potential impact on marine and coastal communities.

And, as in previous iterations of the budget, the Environmental Protection Agency remains at the top of the list when it comes to funding cuts, with a whopping 31 percent reduction proposed.

Experts have suggested that the proposal has very little chance of making it through Congress in its current form.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-budget-would-cut-it/?utm_term=.cfb5f9a3702b

 

[trichrider]

!

 

[DocTim420]

Is Climate Change about "Environment" or is it about "Destroying Capitalism"?

Is Climate Change about "Environment" or is it about "Destroying Capitalism"?

LOL...you know, sometimes you ALMOST feel sorry for someone that supposedly has a college degree that...in order to participate in a debate that is "near and dear" to their heart--is unable to articulate in words their own thoughts. Their style of debate is to "cut and paste" what others say.

Let's see if GK can explain this one--

Another Climate Alarmist Admits Real Motive Behind Warming Scare

Fraud: While the global warming alarmists have done a good job of spreading fright, they haven't been so good at hiding their real motivation. Yet another one has slipped up and revealed the catalyst driving the climate scare.

We have been told now for almost three decades that man has to change his ways or his fossil-fuel emissions will scorch Earth with catastrophic warming. Scientists, politicians and activists have maintained the narrative that their concern is only about caring for our planet and its inhabitants. But this is simply not true. The narrative is a ruse. They are after something entirely different.

If they were honest, the climate alarmists would admit that they are not working feverishly to hold down global temperatures -- they would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.

Have doubts? Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:

"One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole," said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.

So what is the goal of environmental policy?

"We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy," said Edenhofer.

For those who want to believe that maybe Edenhofer just misspoke and doesn't really mean that, consider that a little more than five years ago he also said that "the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated."

Mad as they are, Edenhofer's comments are nevertheless consistent with other alarmists who have spilled the movement's dirty secret. Last year, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, made a similar statement.

"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution," she said in anticipation of last year's Paris climate summit.

"This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history."


The plan is to allow Third World countries to emit as much carbon dioxide as they wish -- because, as Edenhofer said, "in order to get rich one has to burn coal, oil or gas" -- while at the same time restricting emissions in advanced nations. This will, of course, choke economic growth in developed nations, but they deserve that fate as they "have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community," he said. The fanaticism runs so deep that one professor has even suggested that we need to plunge ourselves into a depression to fight global warming.

Perhaps Naomi Klein summed up best what the warming the fuss is all about in her book "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate."

"What if global warming isn’t only a crisis?" Klein asks in a preview of a documentary inspired by her book. "What if it's the best chance we’re ever going to get to build a better world?"

In her mind, the world has to "change, or be changed" because an "economic system" -- meaning free-market capitalism -- has caused environmental "wreckage."

This is how the global warming alarmist community thinks. It wants to frighten, intimidate and then assume command. It needs a "crisis" to take advantage of, a hobgoblin to menace the people, so that they will beg for protection from the imaginary threat. The alarmists' "better world" is one in which they rule a global welfare state. They've admitted this themselves.

Source: http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/another-climate-alarmist-admits-real-motive-behind-warming-scare/

From United Nations....

February 2015 - The Top UN Climate Change Official is optimistic that a new international treaty will be adopted at Paris Climate Change conference at the end of the year. However the official, Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, warns that the fight against climate change is a process and that the necessary transformation of the world economy will not be decided at one conference or in one agreement.

"This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history", Ms Figueres stated at a press conference in Brussels.

"This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution. That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change, be it COP 15, 21, 40 - you choose the number. It just does not occur like that. It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation."

Lima Draft

The so called 'Lima draft', which was adopted in December 2014 at the UN Climate Conference in Lima (Peru) will be subject of further negotiations by members states, starting in Geneva next week. Two rounds of negotiations are expected before the Climate Change Conference convenes in Paris in December.

The current draft is 39 pages including options, sub-options and brackets. The negotiators in Geneva have until 13 February to "manage and streamline" the draft. According to Ms Figueres, there are a lot of differences now in comparison to the run up to the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change in 2009, during which a successor treaty to the Kyoto protocol on limiting CO2 emissions was last attempted. She pointed out that with one year to go there already is a draft, whereas there was none until the start of the Copenhagen Summit.

Four goals

Figueres, however, pointed out that the legal treaty is only one of four important parts of the process. In addition to the treaty, there are the current Climate Change actions from now and until 2020, the financing packages and the so-called Intended National Determined Contributions (INDCs). These are the actions that countries intend to take under a global agreement from 2020 and have to be publicly outlined before the start of the conference. It is expected that all major economies will deliver their plans in time: the US, China, and the European Union have already shown their cards.

Maximum level of ambition

Ms Figueres went on to say that the sum total of the national contributions are not expected to be enough to limit the increase of world temperature to 2ºC.

"That is not a discovery, that is not a breaking news item. We need to get to the maximum level of ambition of collective INDCs because what we are going to have to do all of the time is to close the gap between what science tells us where we have to be and where we actually are….But the point is will we be at the end destination? I would argue, yes."

Christiana Figueres was appointed as the new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2010, and was reappointed for a second three year term in July 2013.

Source: http://www.unric.org/en/latest-un-buzz/29623-figueres-first-time-the-world-economy-is-transformed-intentionally

BTW...this is all old stuff, just that no one talks about it--but the Intended National Determined Contributions (INDCs) is all about money going from this nation to that nation.

Oh...let's see what the Eco-terrorists say if Environmentalism and Capitalism can coexist.

It’s Not Environmentalism Unless It’s Anti-Capitalism.

Two-thirds of water consumption comes from corporations [1]. In response, Eco-Reps, the school’s paid sustainability leaders, have installed small green plastic timers inside our dorm showers to help us shorten our showers. Dumps, incinerators, and other corporately owned waste disposal facilities disproportionately poison communities of color [2]. In response, Green Games organizers tabled in Val, handing out plastic baggies, encouraging us to minimize our non-compostable and non-recyclable waste. The President of the United States is preparing to withdraw from the Paris Climate agreements [3]. In response, student athletic groups have plastered posters all around campus boasting their commitments to the environment: “We pledge to stop driving to practice,” one sign reads.

Amitav Ghosh captured all these “responses” to our generation’s violent environmental crisis succinctly in the title of his latest book, The Great Derangement. He argues that a focus on individual actions, which is the extent of our school-sponsored environmentalism, rather than collective mass mobilization, is frankly delusional. Rising sea levels, drought, ocean acidification, mass species extinction, refugee crises, and climate change will all continue to worsen whether or not we commit to taking five minute showers. But even more radical groups like Divestment, a now defunct activist group on campus that urged the Amherst College Board of Trustees to withdraw their investments in the fossil fuel industry, lacked a vision of broad solidarity and structural change. Divestment, composed primarily of white students, did not address the underlying mechanisms of our economic, political, and social systems. In fact, the tactic of divestment again reinforced the idea that we are nothing more than consumers who reflect our moral values through money, not action.

If our goal is to mitigate the terrifying reality of climate change and ensure a habitable planet for future generations, then we must move beyond feel-good environmentalism and engage in politics that seek structural change. If we understand that our North American way of life is not simply unsustainable by a matter of degrees, and that an ethical way of life is not simply a matter of personal choice, then we must combat the central driving force of environmental degradation—capitalism. The fundamental function of capitalism is to maximize profits through competition in the free market. This organization of resources leaves no room for limits to growth, ethical distribution of resources, or an understanding of the unequally distributed consequences of resource extraction. Put simply, capitalism has no means of holding itself accountable for environmental destruction. Our economic system is fundamentally incompatible with sustainability. Campus politics have failed to address this. What is more troubling, however, is how this failure mirrors a national political failure on the mainstream left to challenge capitalism.

Although it acknowledges the problem of climate change, and the need for government regulation, the Democratic Party still sustains a capitalist economy and therefore cannot be trusted with our futures. Despite Obama’s commitments to curtail carbon emissions, and address global climate change, he still allowed Shell to drill oil in the Arctic [4]. Despite Hillary Clinton’s verbal commitment to renewable energy, the oil and gas industry financially contributed twice as much to her campaign than it did to Trump’s [5]. More fundamentally, however, the Democratic Party sees further economic growth as the answer to climate change. These capitalist politics have enjoyed a surge in popularity with the rekindling of the Amherst College Democrats. Following Donald Trump’s election, students received a rousing call to political arms, and in search of an outlet for their moral disgust, turned to the existing leftist establishment. Settling for the Democratic Party closes the door for the radical restructuring of our political and economic systems that true climate change action requires. Luckily, alternative organizations exist that more closely align to the change we need in our dying world.

The International Socialist Organization holds weekly meetings at UMass, intended to raise political consciousness through anti-capitalist analysis of contemporary issues and to organize mass mobilization efforts. This week, on Wednesday, April 19th, professor and journalist Chris Williams will be giving a talk connecting ecology and socialism from 7-9pm at the Student Center. In addition, The Pioneer Valley Worker Center has biweekly meetings in Northampton (Parlor Room, 32 Masonic Street), where committees organize to fight for wage theft legislation and other protections for working class labor and to create rapid response networks to support undocumented migrants during ICE raids. If you are interested in a true ethical relationship to changing the conditions of our planet and its inhabitants, checking your individual consumption will only help so much, and joining the Democratic Party is sure to be an ecological failure.

Despite our disapproval of the Democratic Party, we are grateful that the Amherst Democrats have organized transportation to the March for Science, happening this Friday (You should go! Help us make signs in the WAMH studio this Thursday from 10-12pm). Similarly, we are grateful to our fellow students who are attempting to call attention to our unsustainable consumption habits. However, there is too much at stake to limit our political responses to establishment politics and changes in individual consumption. Now, more than ever, is the time to create an explicitly anti-capitalist environmental movement on our campus, in our country, and in our world.

[1] “The Conservation Gateway | The Nature Conservancy.” Corporate Water Use. The Nature Conservancy, n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.

[2] Tsao, Naikang. Ameliorating Environmental Racism: A Citizens’ Guide to Combatting the Discriminatory Siting of Toxic Waste Dumps.

[3] Holland, Steve, and Valerie Volcovici. “Trump Advisers to Debate Paris Climate Agreement.”Scientific American. N.p., 17 Apr. 2017. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.

[4] Randerson, James. “Obama’s Approval of Arctic Drilling ‘undermines His Climate Message’.”The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 01 Sept. 2015. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.

[5] Toh, Michelle. “Hillary Reportedly Raises ‘Twice As Much’ From the Oil Industry As Trump.”Fortune. N.p., 7 Sept. 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2017.

Source: https://acvoice.com/2017/04/19/its-not-environmentalism-unless-its-anti-capitalism/

LOL...poor snowflakes.

BTW...as I posted this I am watching Trumpy announce the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. YAHOOO!

 

[Floridian]

Double YAHOO!America first!

 

[igrowone]

...
LOL...poor snowflakes.

BTW...as I posted this I am watching Trumpy announce the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. YAHOOO!

yes it was doomed to happen, and people celebrate what they should fear
still. i think it mostly depends where you live
i likely will benefit in my location, so the feelings are a little mixed
the thread is penance for me, guilt from benefiting
but remember, when god wants to punish you he grants your wishes

 

[Floridian]

Guilt is a gift given in earnest by those bent on affecting you for their own interests,it never has to be accepted.I don't,won't and never feel guilty about my "footprint" until I see a valid reason for it.

 

[Mick]

The rest of the world is better off with America out of the Paris climate agreement. Without them and their fossil fuel mates sabotaging from the sidelines, the rest of the world can get on with saving the planet. If Trump thinks coal's coming back he's more of an idiot than even I think he is. I remember a time when America was thought to be great and leader of the free world, but it seems that the mantle of Leader of the Free World has moved on to Angela Merkel. Interesting times. America had the chance to be a world leader in developing sustainable energies, but now that's going elsewhere, and the money and jobs with it. Too bad we can't build a wall around America. Good riddance. It'll be interesting to see if the rest of the world now creates trading tariffs with America.

 

[Floridian]

Angela Merkel?The promoter of cultural diversity and the utopia it fosters?The woman now hated by so many Germans for virtually ruining their country?I thank the good lord daily that we don't have a pie in the sky leader like that!

 

[igrowone]

i'm thinking the treaty had more symbolism than substance
but the reality is change is happening in america
coal is not hot, coal is being pushed sharply by natural gas, economics partly
wind turbines aren't going away, will continue to be built and deployed
we'll see how it plays out, wars ebb and flow

 

[Floridian]

Trump with all of his faults ran to be the leader of the people in this country only,not the de-facto head of this world,and that's a refreshing change to me.No apology tours for our perceived transgressions real or imaginary and that suits me just fine.He calls a spade a spade and that's quite a change for sure.He's a totally imperfect motherfucker for sure,not like our past leader who founds faults in our own people every way imaginable,and wouldn't speak a word without having 10 proofreaders making sure he was totally correct and didn't offend the offensive.It's about damn time!

 

[Genghis Kush]

p

 

[Mick]

i'm thinking the treaty had more symbolism than substance
but the reality is change is happening in america
coal is not hot, coal is being pushed sharply by natural gas, economics partly
wind turbines aren't going away, will continue to be built and deployed
we'll see how it plays out, wars ebb and flow

It is symbolic of where America is headed. I agree, the push towards renewables is an unstoppable force, with the market now driving it, but idiots like Trump can still cause a lot of suffering. 200,000 Americans a year dying of air pollution (5.5 million worldwide), and Trump and his supporters claim it's in America's interest to exit Paris is just mind blowing.

 

[armedoldhippy]

It is symbolic of where America is headed. I agree, the push towards renewables is an unstoppable force, with the market now driving it, but idiots like Trump can still cause a lot of suffering. 200,000 Americans a year dying of air pollution (5.5 million worldwide), and Trump and his supporters claim it's in America's interest to exit Paris is just mind blowing.

well his rep is for "rich" not "smart" and damn sure not "sympathetic" unless you are "rich" like him...

 

[vta]

i'm thinking the treaty had more symbolism than substance
but the reality is change is happening in america
coal is not hot, coal is being pushed sharply by natural gas, economics partly
wind turbines aren't going away, will continue to be built and deployed
we'll see how it plays out, wars ebb and flow

The "Agreement" {Because we all know a President cannot join a treaty without the consent of Congress...} is all about the good ol' USofA handing out BILLIONS to poor countries. {think of all the 'NON-profit' orgs involved} Also...the US has to cut 25% co2 within a few years while major polluting countries such as China and India don't have to cut emissions until 2030....but...they will get some our OUR tax money. Fuck that ! So...WE have to create a huge burden on US companies{for the slow...higher operating costs are passed onto the consumer...} while our competitors can keep on fucking up the environment for another decade until they start decreasing? Meanwhile the US of Fucking A has reduced emissions considerably since the 90's and we are the leader of that tech.

All this agreement did was commit US taxpayer money...BILLIONS...to other countries and at the same time...hurt the competitiveness of US businesses. Just because we are the richest country in the world does not mean we need to be the welfare nanny of said world.

 

[Genghis Kush]

110 Billion dollars in military welfare for Saudi Arabia, plus 35 billion for other countries.


compared to 3 billion annual for climate change

 

[Dog Star]

Fukushima costs for now over 600 billions or 70 trillion yens..

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/04/01/national/real-cost-fukushima-disaster-will-reach-%C2%A570-trillion-triple-governments-estimate-think-tank/

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

China has embarked on a major restructuring of its energy production to disengage from coal and emphasize renewables. Leaving the Paris Accords will hasten the transition to China's upcoming role as world leader. Other nations are realizing that the US is becoming irrelevant to their futures and they need to get on board with the reshuffling of international relations. Things will only change faster now.

 

[DocTim420]

110 Billion dollars in military welfare for Saudi Arabia, plus 35 billion for other countries.


compared to 3 billion annual for climate change

LOL...the history of mankind is littered with instances of rogue countries threatening the sovereignty of other countries. Military might is and has always been the cure. Whereas this "climate change" philosophy/religion is...by definition nothing more than a "theory".

BTW...$3 billion (that's 12 zeros) divided by 300 million (number of taxpayers in USA) is about $10k per person. So, GK--why don't you spend your money (stop spending mine) and send $10k to the UN Climate Fund now and continue doing so for the next 20 years or so. OK?

Put YOUR money where YOUR mouth is.

Ooops, should be nine zeros...my bad (1000 x 1 million).

 

[Genghis Kush]

"BTW...$3 billion (that's 12 zeros) divided by 300 million (number of taxpayers in USA) is about $10k per person. So, GK--why don't you spend your money (stop spending mine) and send $10k to the UN Climate Fund now and continue doing so for the next 20 years or so. OK?"



3,000,000,000

divided by


300,000,000 =

$10




----


145 billion

divided by

300 million =

$ 483.3