- cross-posted to:
- nyt_gift_articles@sopuli.xyz
- climate@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- nyt_gift_articles@sopuli.xyz
- climate@slrpnk.net
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I agree that more is needed. There are a bunch of regulatory changes which can go into place after the election, but it would really help if Congress was on board. And that means more and better Democrats there.
Analysis: Trump election win could add 4bn tonnes to US emissions by 2030
A victory for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election could lead to an additional 4bn tonnes of US emissions by 2030 compared with Joe Biden’s plans, Carbon Brief analysis reveals.
This extra 4bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) by 2030 would cause global climate damages worth more than $900bn, based on the latest US government valuations.
For context, 4GtCO2e is equivalent to the combined annual emissions of the EU and Japan, or the combined annual total of the world’s 140 lowest-emitting countries.
Put another way, the extra 4GtCO2e from a second Trump term would negate – twice over – all of the savings from deploying wind, solar and other clean technologies around the world over the past five years.
If Trump secures a second term, the US would also very likely miss its global climate pledge by a wide margin, with emissions only falling to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030. The US’s current target under the Paris Agreement is to achieve a 50-52% reduction by 2030.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis,” Mr. Biden said to applause as he closed out his address to a joint session of Congress.
The president repeated a familiar theme: that tackling climate change brings economic benefits and job gains.
The only new proposal by the president was connected to his American Climate Corps, a national service program that trains 20,000 young adults for careers in clean energy and conservation.
The president underscored his goal of cutting the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, calling it “the most significant action on climate ever in the history of the world.”
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, accused the president of proposing “radical rush-to-green” policies.
But Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the president of NextGen America, which focuses on voters under 35, said Mr. Biden had “made clear in his speech that he is listening to America’s young people and that he is willing to work with us on the issues that matter most to us.” She said activists were committed to “holding the Biden administration to their promises made tonight, as well as pushing for more.”
The original article contains 489 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 59%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Didn’t Biden also make a big deal around 2016 to cure cancer? I view this climate change PR stunt about the same as I viewed that one back then.
The simple truth is that humans won’t change en masse. People are still denying climate change even exists, and those that are now finally admitting something is off just blame it on natural planetary cycles vs being caused by humans.
I hate to sound pessimistic, but I think we’re just going to end up adapting to the new norms rather than actually changing habits. People will stop mass consuming meat (meat farms are a huge contributor to greenhouse gasses), but not because they want to, they’ll just be forced to adapt to the fact there aren’t any resources left to actually raise cows at industrial scale anymore. People will stop driving ICEs, but only because there’ll be fuel shortages. People will stop buying shit from industries that pollute the most, but only because of economical depressions caused by global ecological collapse and social unrest. Etc, etc.
Edit: just to clarify, I am not saying we should give up. I would love to see governments around the world force much more aggressive, extreme measures to combat climate change. I just have doubts that they’ll go far enough.
Biden wasn’t running for election in 2016, so I don’t expect that he made any campaign promises that year. He has over time put money into a “moonshot goal” of addressing cancer. In part due to this, US cancer death rates have been falling for decades:
- Government paid for research into causes and treatments
- Government efforts to discourage smoking (a major cause)
- Government efforts to encourage vaccination against HPV (a major cause of cervical cancer)
- Government restrictions on pollution (a cause of a variety of forms of cancer)
- Government improving access to health care so people can get screening and treatment
Right, his 2016 promise had nothing to do with a campaign. It was due to one of his kids dying of cancer and it understandably deeply effected him, spurring his crusade.
I’m not saying it doesn’t help, but we’re still a long ways from curing cancer, despite the great progress we’ve made in reducing deaths. And to me, promising to end climate change is also one of those things that’s so vastly complicated and far outside of one country’s control, especially since so much of the problem is caused by private industry which is fueled by consumer demand.
I will be extremely happy to be proven wrong. And I should emphasize that my previous comment is not me saying we shouldn’t do anything. I’m just worried that these efforts aren’t going to go far enough.
Here’s the deal… Nobody thinks he’s going to fix climate change, or that it’s possible that could even be accomplished by one administration in one term. When someone gives a speech to rile up their base and get voters emotionally invested, they don’t say things like, “We’re going to take steps to slow climate change”, because that’s boring. They go out there and make big statements like, “we’re going to take climate change, and kick its ass” because that’s what people want to hear and that’s what’s going to help get votes. As voters we then hope that steps are taken towards accomplishing that goal, knowing that climate change is going to get cured over night.
Would have a lot more substance if we didn’t keep hearing the great news about how we’ve extracted record amounts of oil during his administration.
IIRC, curing cancer was (one of?) Obama’s moonshot goal.
And to be fair, landing on the moon is about seven orders of magnitude easier than “curing cancer”, at least imo. Cancer is a constellation of different mutations in different tissues such that even something like “lung cancer” is really an umbrella term for a multitude of disease causes, the same way that the “common cold” is an umbrella term for all kinds of different viral infections. That means that the things you need to do to silver bullet each different cancer are likely different, which means Obama was pushing for several hundred penicillin-like eureka level discoveries in his administration. That’s completely zonko-bananas.
Tackling climate change, by comparison, is a much easier, much more realistic and attainable goal. We know the cause of climate change (too much GHG), we know how to fix it (less GHG), AND we know what to do to get there (reduce and remove GHG emissions).
I’m no expert or anything, but curing cancer is getting pretty close, from what I’ve heard. The mRNA vaccine research is having great impacts on being able to fight cancerous cells.
We may be closer than we realize to living in a cancer-free world.
That’s great news! I’ve heard a few snippets about the mRNA vaccine, but it all sounded like early research, not something to lend a lot of credibility to yet. Has there been some recent updates on that?
Significant climate change played a big part in ending hereditary monarchies during the Little Ice Age. Maybe climate change will have similar positive benefits.
maybe he could start with the deforestation of the South River Forest being razed for cop city?
Biden is too old, too out of touch, and too paid off to get anything really accomplished for the citizens same as Trump
either way the people are guaranteed that whoever gets elected they will make sure the shareholders are happy, that the citizens are put in their proper places, and that Captain Planet is defeated
That kind of local land use decision on locally-owned land is up to local government, not the President.
We don’t live in a dictatorship — at least so long as Democrats are running things.
There’s a world of difference between how Trump governs and how Biden does.
The reality is that it’s clear who the two parties nominees will be, and the choice is between the two of them, whether or not some random other person could do better. Given that choice, I’ll choose Biden as the better of the two every time.
Biden is my choice given the current circumstances. He’s not my first choice, that would be Bernie Sanders, he’s not my second choice either because I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be a great POTUS as well, and Trump is certainly nowhere on my list. Given that Biden has the best chance of being elected and somewhat aligning with my values compared to Trump, the alternative with the next best chance of winning, I’m voting for Biden. Voting for an alternative to Biden should have happened in the primary, but none of those candidates were on my list.
When he contrasted his record with Donald Trump did he mention that under Biden’s watch, the US broke the oil and gas production record? Most oil and gas of any country to ever exist!
