Stephan: Today we witnessed the United States cede world leadership to China and Europe, particularly Germany. The geopolitical and economic implications of Trump's, in my opinion, incredibly ill-advised and retrogressive decision will ripple out for decades. You go to bed tonight in a different world than the one in which you woke up.
The other thing that stood out for me were all the lies and misstatements about facts that pervaded his speech. I find it amazing that we have a President who is a compulsive liar and mis-representer, and that this has become "normalized" because it is so consistent it is what people have come to expect. Think about that for a minute.
Here is a fact checking assessment of the Trump speech.
As I have considered the Trump decision, I think one major effect it will have in the U.S. is to exacerbate the Great Schism Trend. The Republican Party simply lacks the moral integrity to do anything meaningful to challenge Trump so I think we will see Blue states and many corporations just ignore Trump and continue planning for a non-carbon energy world, while the plantation economies of many Red states will embrace Trump.
Credit: CNBC
President Donald Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the Paris accord on climate change. All but two countries signed the agreement. But Trump said the deal puts the United States at a disadvantage.
“The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord,” Trump said June 1, 2017, “but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States.”
The Paris accord had several ambitious goals. Signatories agreed to do their part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep the world’s temperature to just 1.5 degrees Celsius above what it was before industrial production took root.
Each country set its own targets, with reductions to begin in 2020. By mid century, the goal would be zero greenhouse gas emissions.
President Barack Obama had pledged to reduce emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
Wealthy nations agreed to provide $100 million a year to help developing countries move away from fossil fuels and use more renewable power supplies.
We reviewed a […]
