Fact Checking Trump

[KeithE]

[David Flick]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

In spite of the insanity and inept confusion in the White House, it looks like intelligence and common sense will prevail anyway.

http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/stoc ... ost=138278
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cities-stat ... agreement/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 102582856/

[David Flick]

[Sandy]

Hysterical responses? I see facts cited in all three articles, documentation, and sources. That's your problem. You don't have any.

I don't see any hysteria. What I see are well reasoned people, including a pretty significant portion of the business community, who have recognized the impact of global warming not only on their lives and the environment, but on their ability to make money as well, and they're going to bypass the politics and continue to hold the standards of the Paris agreement. It might turn out that an international agreement like this one might not even be necessary, since it seems that the investments made toward clean energy are paying off for the developers and investors, in both exponential job creation and dividends they can deposit in the bank. It's like anything else. Necessity is the mother of invention, and when people were made aware of a problem, they began to develop ways to overcome it. Clean energy and environmental consciousness are new ideas, and of course, there is always resistance to anything new. Just ask anyone who has served in a church. But like anything else, over time, the technology develops, the cost drops, and the new thing becomes the norm.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

Listen/watch the . The MIT Study said that difference would be 0.6-1.1C (not 0.2C as Trump claimed). There is another study by Bjorn Lomborg that says the Paris Accords only matters 0.17C by 2100. Both the Lomborg and the MIT Study assumed the current Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) continue from 2030 to 2100 with no new more commitments.

A plot from the Lomborg Study shows what is happening (noting that the Paris delta is more like 1C difference from Business of Usual by 2100)


Remember that most climatologists say we must keep the temperature rise since the pre-industrial days to 2C (goal 1.5C). Neither study would say we can keep the global temperature below 2C above pre-industrial. Thus the natural takeaway from the plot above is that (regardless of which study one believes more) we must do much more than Paris, something the Paris Accords acknowledge. The framework accepts annual updates to country's NDCs as they get comfortable with their initial steps.

We are already at 1.24C in 2016 (2017 will probably be lower maybe 1.1C; 2016 had a strong El Nino).



So the argument is whether or not 2C is an overly stringent requirement, and not whose study is more accurate. IOWs, can our grandchildren live with 3.6C(Paris - MIT Best Case) to 4.7C (Business as Usual) in 2100 and increasing thereafter? Well consider just the increase in climate related disasters in recent decades.



It is undeniable that natural climate disasters have increased at least two fold since 1980 coinciding with the increased temperature since 1980. Note that on the above chart, “Geophysical Events” (earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes) in purple are related to climate and they have not increased. So subtracting them we see we had ~350 catastrophes in 1980 and ~900 catastrophes in 2010 due to climatic factors. That is a 257% increase. By 2050 that would probably be at 500% increase and who knows by 2100. It is “catastrophic" to those caught up (death, injuries, houses) in these climate disasters (storms, floods, landslides, heat waves, droughts, wildfires).

Enough for now- there is much more ill effects from global warming and the costs thereof. And a lot to tell about job creation in renewables.

Trump is harming our jobs, our climate and our global leadership/reputation.