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This is one of those situations where you should be shaking your head, even if you're a climate change denying conservative or a fussil fuel industrial interest

This is one of those situations where you should be shaking your head, even if you're a climate change denying conservative or a fussil fuel industrial interest. The Paris pact was pretty toothless: it was a step forward, but heavily aspirational. Indeed, one of the stated complaints of conservatives was that it did nothing to enforce compliance. The Trump Administration could have just as well ignored it without formally reneging on it and forced the next administration to deal with the egg on the face for failing to meet the USA's commitments. But instead he's seriously undermined people's ability to trust in the United States maintaining its international obligations for anything except the shortest periods of time. To be fair, what he's done already with NATO is far worse. But this underlines the reality that the United States government is so unstable that it's unable to uphold any coherency in policy or meet its stated commitments. If you're a small country who's been trusting the USA as a solid ally against regional competitors, you're looking at this and going, "well, maybe I should be focusing more on ties with the EU/Russia/China/India." It's honestly pretty humiliating for the USA, even aside from the fact that we've just fucked the next generation just to give the finger to elitist liberals and scientists.

rayiner 9y ago
Yes, the Paris pact was toothless. It was never going to work, just like Kyoto didn't work. So what's wrong with pulling out of it? Consternation over the Paris accord is, in my opinion, elitist liberal virtue signaling. (Here in the DC/MD/VA area, everyone will complain about this move at Starbucks sipping on lattes while driving one hour each way to work from their McMansion in the exurbs. God forbid we do anything that might require lifestyle changes, i.e. have some real hope of working.)
- yongjik 9y ago
  But Trump did not pull out of Paris because it's toothless. He pulled out because even a toothless, largely symbolic agreement about climate change is against the core tenets of his supporters, i.e., that climate change is a liberal hoax. I know it, Trump knows it, and we all know it.
- scarmig 9y ago
  Pulling out of it is indication that the USA's politics is primarily driven by virtue signaling among different segments of its governing elite, not by policy or objective reality. If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end. The belief that the U.S. needs to be involved in the international stage is based on the fallacious assumption that international cooperation can fix climate change. There is no scenario in which that happens. Without fundamental technological leaps, we'd have to decrease the standard of living in the developed world to reduce emissions while accommodating increased standard of living in the developing world. The math doesn't add up.
    - threeseed 9y ago
      > fallacious assumption that international cooperation can fix climate change ITER for example is an international project which if it were successful would change the energy landscape and by extension the climate change issue dramatically. This and projects like this requires international cooperation. Also look at when the world united to outlaw HCFC refrigerant. That made a huge difference to the planet's outlook.
    - scarmig 9y ago
      > The U.S. doesn't need to be involved on the international stage. I disagree in large part, though I do think the world would be stabler if the USA took much less military action and was a bit more respectful of zones of influence of other countries. But even if I strongly agreed, I'd think the USA should make an orderly retreat from its existing obligations. Instead it's creating vacuums of power and chaos based on fits of pique by a literal maniac. > The fallacy here is assuming that international cooperation is going to solve climate change. It's worked on other issues. And political environments drive technological change. But, yes, I agree it's a particularly thorny issue, and I wouldn't say I'm too optimistic of its probability of success compared to other international collaborations. But that's something to bemoan, not something to celebrate.
- JustAnotherPat 9y ago
  Do you think the US would ever accept being held accountable by the international community on anything like this?
- hencq 9y ago
  To me it signifies another nail in the coffin of the American-led rule based world order. In the 20th century the US carefully established an international framework based on the rule of law. In a mere four months that has been thoroughly undermined. Apart from the morally bankrupt policies of pushing down the effect of climate change onto future generations, in the short term it also signals to countries they don't need to play by the rules. Effectively echoing what Russia and China have been saying as well. This might actually hurt the US economy a lot more than it will gain. I hope I'm proven wrong, but it seems the American Century has officially ended.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    I saw one serving senior officer on twitter comment "this must be what suez felt like to the brits"
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      To be fair, it's not that hard to make bad historical analogies. "This is what Dwight Clark's catch in the 1982 championship game must have felt like to Ringo Starr." Yeah?
      - walshemj 9y ago
        No its when the decline of the UK as an imperial power became obvious not some rounders player and the least musical beetle.
        aaron-lebo 9y ago
        Why is this Suez? How do you know it's not the British losing a battle in 1761 or something? I mean, there were probably prognosticators at that time saying, "Charlie, did you hear about that British defeat by the French by the old Ohio River. By God they're finished as an empire. Done!" We won't know the impact this has on anything for a long time. In a decade it probably isn't going to matter. Just seems like a huge overreaction to compare something like this to Suez. If you really want to get into why it's a bad analogy, we can talk about how Suez was the result of the Egyptians nationalizing the canal and then the new superpower (the US) rebuffing the British when they tried to take it back. Yeah, that was a sign of the end of British power. Seems like this incident is the US taking the ball and going home, with no real response from other nations other than protest. If anything it tells you how much power the US still has. ...but I just liked my Dwight Clark joke. The Catch still haunts me as a Cowboys fan.
- wonderwonder 9y ago
  The primary impact of pulling out is it creates a situation in which the United States is not a leader and allows for a power vacuum. A vacuum that China is already happily taking advantage of in order to become a prominent world leader. It isolates the US and allows opportunities for Russia and China to gain clout at our expense.
- guelo 9y ago
  Complaining about people at Starbucks sipping on lattes is conservative virtue signaling.
  - vernie 9y ago
    Look, I don't know what "virtue signaling" is, but parent seems like a real, red-blooded American, like me. Not some politically-correct, hypersensitive four-eyes. A guy I can just kick back with some cold brews and watch the game with.
    - stuartd 9y ago
      You want to have a beer with someone who disparages "elitist liberal virtue signaling"? Enjoy. BTW I have to wear glasses to write this, sorry about being a filthy "four-eyes".
      - aanm1988 9y ago
        How dare you speak to a real american you filthy liberal scum. I'll never understand the people who can talk about liberal elites and virtual signalling in one sentence, and "real americans" in the next.
      - guelo 9y ago
        The parent comment was flagged dead probably because he forgot to add a /sarcasm tag.
  - scarmig 9y ago
    Complaining about virtue signaling is conservative virtue signaling.
- okreallywtf 9y ago
  So you feel like your individual observations in the DC/MD/VA area validate the rejection of a global climate accord? Unless these elitist liberals choose to sit in the dark and not consume power, walk to work (likely impossible, so maybe just not work since working also probably produces a lot of CO2) then there is no reason to attack the problem at a global or national level? What happens to the power companies if 50% of people go on a power strike? Shut down coal plants and immediately start investing in renewable before they go bankrupt? What happens to the economy while all these liberals are putting their money where their mouth is? Why the hell would you not push to transition from one source of energy to another without completely upending the entire system and economy? Individuals are not going to make drastic changes in their own power usage when the biggest consumers (business, industry, etc) are not going to follow and many of their fellow citizens will not follow. It would be a spiteful empty gesture (which it seems that you understand) that would just make our lives harder and damage the economy. My guess is that your position, like most peoples position comes down to psychology. My guess is that you are a frustrated, spiteful person (at least inwardly) whose opinion on climate change is entirely emotional - people you don't respect are on one side so you are on the other. If they aren't as intelligent as you then how could they be on the right side of this issue? This is the attitude I see from most climate change deniers - initially it will be about economics, or the data (ie citing long-debunked statistics) or this and that, but eventually you get through all that and it comes down to spite. I get frustrated by people too but I realized long ago there was no point in letting human nature (on a macro-scale) frustrate me - I might as well get mad at a pet for doing something I don't want them to do. I try to take that same mindset with climate change deniers but its hard to be so dispassionate when people are willingly making decisions like this that hurt EVERYBODY, and hurt the weakest the most just because you feel isolated.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    I'm frustrated and spiteful because I'm an environmentalist. At least republicans are internally consistent: they're not willing to do anything about climate change because they don't think it'll happen. Folks here in DC/MD/VA in contrast profess to believe that this terrible thing is going to happen, but they're not willing to actually do anything that will solve it. Who exactly are the crazy ones? That are lots of things we can do to attack climate change. None of those things are on the table.
- 1_2__3 9y ago
  You sure packed a lot of liberal slurs in a really small and useless comment.
- ajflkjasdf777 9y ago
  Iterative improvements versus starting over. Particularly with something like environment change. It took years just to get the Paris language settled. But yeah, let's start over. With Trump at the wheel. The great but actually spectacularly bad negotiator.
- danans 9y ago
  Because we know that the course that this administration does take in lieu of Paris will likely worsen climate change - it's not like they are going to introduce a carbon tax instead. It's symbolically relevant as an indication of the direction we are going. Also, a significant chunk of liberals who are concerned about this are people who have made often difficult carbon-reducing lifestyle changes consistent with their beliefs on this issues, even at the cost of traditional comforts (large houses, big cars, etc). Lattes really have nothing to do with this issue, except as some kind of cheap-shot stereotype unrelated to the issue, and last I heard, McMansion-filled exurbia leans pretty strongly conservative: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/2/9/1274795/-Democrats-are-from-cities-Republicans-are-from-exurbs http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/2/9/1274795/-Democrats-ar...
- hsod 9y ago
  I'll take virtue signaling over an explicit rejection of virtue ten times out of ten.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
datamingle 9y ago
US has a long history of upholding its agreements compared to other countries. Germany & France cannot even uphold spending 2% of GDP for NATO: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/nato-funding-explained-trump/ http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/nato-funding-explained-... Agreed in 2006 of 2% target, then had to reiterate the target in 2014 since many members did not meet 2% target. "Members that fell short at the time promised to meet their obligations by 2024" .. it is an obligation not some "aspirational goal" as some have mentioned below. Time: http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ Economist: http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-spending-by-alliance-members-1434978193 https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-...
- scarmig 9y ago
  Yeah, that Trumpian factoid has long been debunked. Formally true, but 2% is also an aspirational goal, to be met a decade from now. That parallels, at worst, Trump making it harder to meet the Paris pact's requirements a decade from now. But of course you know all that already.
  - datamingle 9y ago
    Time magazine: http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ Economist: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/daily-chart-11 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/daily-c... WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-spending-by-alliance-members-1434978193 https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-... All disagree with you, but of course you must know better sources and just did not add them. I'm sure.
    - scarmig 9y ago
      From your own source: "At a summit in 2014, NATO reiterated its commitment to the 2% target. Members that fell short at the time promised to meet their obligations by 2024." But, again, even in the worst light possible, a country not spending enough on military spending to meet some stated target doesn't compare to tossing out treaties based on a whim.
sergiotapia 9y ago
I don't understand how you think the NATO meeting was bad. Countries should pay their fair (and agreed to!) share towards NATO.
- scarmig 9y ago
  If you're serious, read over [1] for a bit. [1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/topics/nato https://www.foreignaffairs.com/topics/nato
- ajross 9y ago
  NATO isn't a pool of money, no one "pays" anything for it. It's a mutual self defense treaty (and a command structure for executing such an operation). Trump did nothing to squeeze money out of anyone at that meeting, nor would it have made any sense for him to have done so. By very conspicuously refusing to endorse Article V in his speech, however, he called the US commitment to NATO self-defense into question (question!) for the first time in the 68 year history of the pact. If you happened to be a east european power thinking about invading a small NATO member (in the baltics, say), this is a huge gift.
  - neaden 9y ago
    That is true but every country is supposed to spend 2% of GDP on defense, and only the US and 4 others actually do. How Trump handles this and talks about this is asinine, but there is a basis for it.
    - fudgie 9y ago
      All countries in NATO have promised to spend 2% of GDP by 2024, yes.
      - neaden 9y ago
        But many NATO countries have had a decrease in military spending since 2006 when this agreement was signed and have shown no real intention to get up to this level. Now it's perfectly reasonable to say that this is fine and the 2006 agreement isn't that big of a deal. It's also very reasonable to say that good relations are more important than everyone meeting their goal and a clear commitment to Article 5 is essential. But sergiotapia's comment that countries should pay their fair share is also reasonable and ajross's response that NATO isn't a pool of money misses that point.
ElComradio 9y ago
This decision has zilch to do with whether it's good environmental policy or will create jobs. All it has to do with is Trump's desire to feel like Alpha Man of Action when he goes to some rally/playdate in Iowa and can present a reason for everyone to tell him how incredible he is. That is the alpha and omega of policy making in this administration.
- SpikeDad 9y ago
  Actually it has to do with the Republicans desire to be self-sufficient in all maters science. They want all scientific matters to be determined by their own sphere of influence. This allows them to deny reality for any matter of science whether it's global climate, abortion, education, gun control, economics and any other issue which requires science to produce evidence in order to select the proper course of action. It all these cases and more the scientific facts are diametrically opposite to the direction of Republican and conservative legislation. By making science the stuff of the devil it leaves a gigantic opening for them to stuff their nonsense into the heads of the gullible right wing base.
  - ElComradio 9y ago
    I agree that the dynamics you describe account for some of the reason Trump's base is primed to latch onto him. But as far as Trump himself goes, he's not really a Republican. He is solely concerned with receiving praise and feeling tough. There is no master plan; that is really all there is to it.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > But as far as Trump himself goes, he's not really a Republican. Yes, he is. He may not have a particular devotion to an ideology you'd like to pretend defines the Republican Party, but the US electoral system structurally produces duopoly between parties too broad to have coherent ideology.
      - ElComradio 9y ago
pvnick 9y ago
That is because the previous president decided to unilaterally bind the country to the agreement rather than seek treaty ratification from Congress. It is a risk that ruling by executive decree entails.
- scarmig 9y ago
  Other countries don't care about post-facto rationalizations by partisans to demonize the other side in domestic policies. The USA cannot be trusted as an ally. That is the takeaway here. Saying that "but Obama's worse than Trump!!!" isn't changing that and is entirely besides the point. ETA: And, for what its worth, the Senate ratified NATO, and that hasn't stopped Trump and Republicans from doing their utmost to sabotage it. It's laughable for folks to pretend like this is some deep matter of principle.
  - pvnick 9y ago
    I do not wish my statement to be taken as a partisan one (although I do admit to being conservative), but rather as a general observation about the dangers of executive decree.
  - entee 9y ago
    Note that I think mostly Republicans seem to be on board with NATO, Trump is outside the mainstream of all the parties there.
    - scarmig 9y ago
      Re:NATO, it's an unhappy marriage, I agree. But there's plenty Republicans could be doing that'd be appropriate given how out of bounds Trump is regarding NATO--some kind of censure or resolution--but they're not willing to do it, for the sake of partisan comity. Congressional Republicans don't like it, but given the set of options they have they choose to allow Trump to take the hatchet to NATO. Standing in the way of that would prevent them from focusing on priorities they place higher than the Transatlantic Alliance.
  - rayiner 9y ago
pc2g4d 9y ago
Every child of this top comment has been downvoted into grayness. Some of those comments have substantial points to make. What's going on? I basically agree with scarmig, but it seems there's not much space for contrary opinions around here right now, which bothers me.
- scarmig 9y ago
  FWIW, I've been upvoting rayiner's comments. It's unclear why they're being downvoted aside from misdirected rage at Trump.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
If the US was able to survive the loss of the Vietnam war and the Bay of Pigs where many people who bet their lives on the US died after being abandoned by them, the US will survive this as well and American credibility will be just fine in the long term. Basically, the rest of the world will have to learn that getting the US to agree to something that is opposed by a significant group of Americans is a losing proposition. The fact that the Paris climate pact was not even submitted for ratification by the Senate, should tell you that there was significant opposition.
- maxander 9y ago
  Uh, the Paris accords are hugely popular in the U.S. [1]. The word is that even most corporations, oil companies among them, supported staying in the pact. Everyone was on board with this, except Trump and his far conservative base. And as long as power gets passed between groups with fundamentally different interests (or even basic notions of reality), no one will trust U.S. for basic security if they have half a choice. [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-06-01/a-bipartisan-majority-thinks-the-us-should-stay-in-the-paris-agreement https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-06-...
  - sverige 9y ago
    "Hugely popular" is an overstatement. "Everyone" excluding "Trump and his far conservative base" lost the election. And part of Trump's message was that the U.S. shouldn't be the guarantor of the security of the rest of the world. That was a hugely popular proposition with his supporters.
    - maxander 9y ago
      Remember, Trump lost the popular vote by a couple million, in an election where about half the country voted, so his base in general could be estimated at about a fourth to a fifth of the country. But if we take the "more than 5 to 1" figure from the linked article as valid, then it implies that even a bunch of people who voted for Trump liked the accord. My impression is that people didn't like Trump for policies having to do with the environment or climate change- they liked his stance on immigration and general outsider status. The not-being-responsible-for-other-countries bit is also a popular policy of his (arguably, its his most widely-appealing position altogether), but I'm confused that you think that that applies to the Paris accord. The accord didn't mandate us giving anyone else anything, and climate change is going to mess the U.S. up as much as anywhere else.
api 9y ago
> he's seriously undermined people's ability to trust in the United States maintaining its international obligations What if that is in fact the goal? Many people in Trump's administration are openly anti-globalists and many of his voters and supporters have the explicit goal of "exiting" globalism.
- neuronexmachina 9y ago
  Yup, it's a win-win from their perspective, since they consider both environmentalism and internationalism as evils.
- scarmig 9y ago
  I mean, that is the goal. I don't think he's consciously trying to undermine the international order, but he's certainly got backers (Bannon; an autocrat of a certain large Eastern European land empire) who look at this with glee.
xorcist 9y ago
> The Paris pact was pretty toothless: it was a step forward, but heavily aspirational. It is important to know that the reason the Paris agreement is aspirational only is that it was necessary in order for the US to sign. And the reason for that is the US political system. Any commitments would have had to be ratified by the US senate, which was deemed unlikely. Actual commitments had to be deferred to later agreements. There is a whole string of climate agreements going all the way back to 1992, all building on another. (Therefore just pulling out of one of them isn't necessarily straightforward.)
- reirob 9y ago
  Exactly. See article [1], it lists all the weaknesses of the Paris agreement and why it was so weak. US, sorry, it's actually US' president, seems to act more and more selfish - it's almost humiliating to watch this as a European. [1] https://theintercept.com/2017/06/01/will-trumps-slow-mo-walkaway-world-in-flames-behind-him-finally-provoke-consequences-for-planetary-arson/ https://theintercept.com/2017/06/01/will-trumps-slow-mo-walk...
- wdr1 9y ago
  But that doesn't make sense? The Paris agreement was NOT ratified by the Senate.
Clubber 9y ago
So if say China were to commit to something with more teeth, the US would in essence be complying since we buy much of our good from there. Would that be a fair statement?
- scarmig 9y ago
  I'd say that's a perpendicular issue to what I'm talking about. It's more about China, Russia, etc. having credibility when making agreements, which makes them better partners when making international deals. It's like, do you want to date a girl (or boy) who agrees to be monogamous one week but regularly changes her mind when the opportunity arises? Or someone who's willing to follow through with her commitments? That said, one aspect that sort of touches on that is now the USA has no say in the agreement as it evolves. If China and the EU keep on building on their strengths in green tech, they could very easily ratchet up the agreement to be much more favorable to their economies, plausibly including heavy fees on all exports from noncompliant countries. (That's one major reason fossil fuel interests mostly wanted us to stay in it.)
wdr1 9y ago
> But instead he's seriously undermined people's ability to trust in the United States maintaining its international obligations for anything except the shortest periods of time. Possibly. Although it's worth noting that his international arrangement was never ratified by the legislative branch, as was done in most other countries. This was ratified by Executive Order. If the morale of the story is for other countries to beware of treaties not ratified by the Senate, honestly, that's not so bad.

rayiner 9y ago

Yes, the Paris pact was toothless. It was never going to work, just like Kyoto didn't work. So what's wrong with pulling out of it? Consternation over the Paris accord is, in my opinion, elitist liberal virtue signaling. (Here in the DC/MD/VA area, everyone will complain about this move at Starbucks sipping on lattes while driving one hour each way to work from their McMansion in the exurbs. God forbid we do anything that might require lifestyle changes, i.e. have some real hope of working.)

yongjik 9y ago
But Trump did not pull out of Paris because it's toothless. He pulled out because even a toothless, largely symbolic agreement about climate change is against the core tenets of his supporters, i.e., that climate change is a liberal hoax. I know it, Trump knows it, and we all know it.
scarmig 9y ago
Pulling out of it is indication that the USA's politics is primarily driven by virtue signaling among different segments of its governing elite, not by policy or objective reality. If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > If you believe the USA should be involved at all on the international stage, this creation of new public knowledge is a big detriment to that end. The belief that the U.S. needs to be involved in the international stage is based on the fallacious assumption that international cooperation can fix climate change. There is no scenario in which that happens. Without fundamental technological leaps, we'd have to decrease the standard of living in the developed world to reduce emissions while accommodating increased standard of living in the developing world. The math doesn't add up.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    > fallacious assumption that international cooperation can fix climate change ITER for example is an international project which if it were successful would change the energy landscape and by extension the climate change issue dramatically. This and projects like this requires international cooperation. Also look at when the world united to outlaw HCFC refrigerant. That made a huge difference to the planet's outlook.
  - scarmig 9y ago
    > The U.S. doesn't need to be involved on the international stage. I disagree in large part, though I do think the world would be stabler if the USA took much less military action and was a bit more respectful of zones of influence of other countries. But even if I strongly agreed, I'd think the USA should make an orderly retreat from its existing obligations. Instead it's creating vacuums of power and chaos based on fits of pique by a literal maniac. > The fallacy here is assuming that international cooperation is going to solve climate change. It's worked on other issues. And political environments drive technological change. But, yes, I agree it's a particularly thorny issue, and I wouldn't say I'm too optimistic of its probability of success compared to other international collaborations. But that's something to bemoan, not something to celebrate.
JustAnotherPat 9y ago
Do you think the US would ever accept being held accountable by the international community on anything like this?
hencq 9y ago
To me it signifies another nail in the coffin of the American-led rule based world order. In the 20th century the US carefully established an international framework based on the rule of law. In a mere four months that has been thoroughly undermined. Apart from the morally bankrupt policies of pushing down the effect of climate change onto future generations, in the short term it also signals to countries they don't need to play by the rules. Effectively echoing what Russia and China have been saying as well. This might actually hurt the US economy a lot more than it will gain. I hope I'm proven wrong, but it seems the American Century has officially ended.
- walshemj 9y ago
  I saw one serving senior officer on twitter comment "this must be what suez felt like to the brits"
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    To be fair, it's not that hard to make bad historical analogies. "This is what Dwight Clark's catch in the 1982 championship game must have felt like to Ringo Starr." Yeah?
    - walshemj 9y ago
      No its when the decline of the UK as an imperial power became obvious not some rounders player and the least musical beetle.
      - aaron-lebo 9y ago
        Why is this Suez? How do you know it's not the British losing a battle in 1761 or something? I mean, there were probably prognosticators at that time saying, "Charlie, did you hear about that British defeat by the French by the old Ohio River. By God they're finished as an empire. Done!" We won't know the impact this has on anything for a long time. In a decade it probably isn't going to matter. Just seems like a huge overreaction to compare something like this to Suez. If you really want to get into why it's a bad analogy, we can talk about how Suez was the result of the Egyptians nationalizing the canal and then the new superpower (the US) rebuffing the British when they tried to take it back. Yeah, that was a sign of the end of British power. Seems like this incident is the US taking the ball and going home, with no real response from other nations other than protest. If anything it tells you how much power the US still has. ...but I just liked my Dwight Clark joke. The Catch still haunts me as a Cowboys fan.
wonderwonder 9y ago
The primary impact of pulling out is it creates a situation in which the United States is not a leader and allows for a power vacuum. A vacuum that China is already happily taking advantage of in order to become a prominent world leader. It isolates the US and allows opportunities for Russia and China to gain clout at our expense.
guelo 9y ago
Complaining about people at Starbucks sipping on lattes is conservative virtue signaling.
- vernie 9y ago
  Look, I don't know what "virtue signaling" is, but parent seems like a real, red-blooded American, like me. Not some politically-correct, hypersensitive four-eyes. A guy I can just kick back with some cold brews and watch the game with.
  - stuartd 9y ago
    You want to have a beer with someone who disparages "elitist liberal virtue signaling"? Enjoy. BTW I have to wear glasses to write this, sorry about being a filthy "four-eyes".
    - aanm1988 9y ago
      How dare you speak to a real american you filthy liberal scum. I'll never understand the people who can talk about liberal elites and virtual signalling in one sentence, and "real americans" in the next.
    - guelo 9y ago
      The parent comment was flagged dead probably because he forgot to add a /sarcasm tag.
- scarmig 9y ago
  Complaining about virtue signaling is conservative virtue signaling.
okreallywtf 9y ago
So you feel like your individual observations in the DC/MD/VA area validate the rejection of a global climate accord? Unless these elitist liberals choose to sit in the dark and not consume power, walk to work (likely impossible, so maybe just not work since working also probably produces a lot of CO2) then there is no reason to attack the problem at a global or national level? What happens to the power companies if 50% of people go on a power strike? Shut down coal plants and immediately start investing in renewable before they go bankrupt? What happens to the economy while all these liberals are putting their money where their mouth is? Why the hell would you not push to transition from one source of energy to another without completely upending the entire system and economy? Individuals are not going to make drastic changes in their own power usage when the biggest consumers (business, industry, etc) are not going to follow and many of their fellow citizens will not follow. It would be a spiteful empty gesture (which it seems that you understand) that would just make our lives harder and damage the economy. My guess is that your position, like most peoples position comes down to psychology. My guess is that you are a frustrated, spiteful person (at least inwardly) whose opinion on climate change is entirely emotional - people you don't respect are on one side so you are on the other. If they aren't as intelligent as you then how could they be on the right side of this issue? This is the attitude I see from most climate change deniers - initially it will be about economics, or the data (ie citing long-debunked statistics) or this and that, but eventually you get through all that and it comes down to spite. I get frustrated by people too but I realized long ago there was no point in letting human nature (on a macro-scale) frustrate me - I might as well get mad at a pet for doing something I don't want them to do. I try to take that same mindset with climate change deniers but its hard to be so dispassionate when people are willingly making decisions like this that hurt EVERYBODY, and hurt the weakest the most just because you feel isolated.
- rayiner 9y ago
  I'm frustrated and spiteful because I'm an environmentalist. At least republicans are internally consistent: they're not willing to do anything about climate change because they don't think it'll happen. Folks here in DC/MD/VA in contrast profess to believe that this terrible thing is going to happen, but they're not willing to actually do anything that will solve it. Who exactly are the crazy ones? That are lots of things we can do to attack climate change. None of those things are on the table.
1_2__3 9y ago
You sure packed a lot of liberal slurs in a really small and useless comment.
ajflkjasdf777 9y ago
Iterative improvements versus starting over. Particularly with something like environment change. It took years just to get the Paris language settled. But yeah, let's start over. With Trump at the wheel. The great but actually spectacularly bad negotiator.
danans 9y ago
Because we know that the course that this administration does take in lieu of Paris will likely worsen climate change - it's not like they are going to introduce a carbon tax instead. It's symbolically relevant as an indication of the direction we are going. Also, a significant chunk of liberals who are concerned about this are people who have made often difficult carbon-reducing lifestyle changes consistent with their beliefs on this issues, even at the cost of traditional comforts (large houses, big cars, etc). Lattes really have nothing to do with this issue, except as some kind of cheap-shot stereotype unrelated to the issue, and last I heard, McMansion-filled exurbia leans pretty strongly conservative: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/2/9/1274795/-Democrats-are-from-cities-Republicans-are-from-exurbs http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/2/9/1274795/-Democrats-ar...
hsod 9y ago
I'll take virtue signaling over an explicit rejection of virtue ten times out of ten.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

datamingle 9y ago

US has a long history of upholding its agreements compared to other countries. Germany & France cannot even uphold spending 2% of GDP for NATO: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/nato-funding-explained-trump/ http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/news/nato-funding-explained-... Agreed in 2006 of 2% target, then had to reiterate the target in 2014 since many members did not meet 2% target. "Members that fell short at the time promised to meet their obligations by 2024" .. it is an obligation not some "aspirational goal" as some have mentioned below. Time: http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ Economist: http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-spending-by-alliance-members-1434978193 https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-...

scarmig 9y ago
Yeah, that Trumpian factoid has long been debunked. Formally true, but 2% is also an aspirational goal, to be met a decade from now. That parallels, at worst, Trump making it harder to meet the Paris pact's requirements a decade from now. But of course you know all that already.
- datamingle 9y ago
  Time magazine: http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ http://time.com/4680885/nato-defense-spending-budget-trump/ Economist: http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/daily-chart-11 http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/daily-c... WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-spending-by-alliance-members-1434978193 https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-calls-for-rise-in-defence-... All disagree with you, but of course you must know better sources and just did not add them. I'm sure.
  - scarmig 9y ago
    From your own source: "At a summit in 2014, NATO reiterated its commitment to the 2% target. Members that fell short at the time promised to meet their obligations by 2024." But, again, even in the worst light possible, a country not spending enough on military spending to meet some stated target doesn't compare to tossing out treaties based on a whim.

sergiotapia 9y ago

I don't understand how you think the NATO meeting was bad. Countries should pay their fair (and agreed to!) share towards NATO.

scarmig 9y ago
If you're serious, read over [1] for a bit. [1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/topics/nato https://www.foreignaffairs.com/topics/nato
ajross 9y ago
NATO isn't a pool of money, no one "pays" anything for it. It's a mutual self defense treaty (and a command structure for executing such an operation). Trump did nothing to squeeze money out of anyone at that meeting, nor would it have made any sense for him to have done so. By very conspicuously refusing to endorse Article V in his speech, however, he called the US commitment to NATO self-defense into question (question!) for the first time in the 68 year history of the pact. If you happened to be a east european power thinking about invading a small NATO member (in the baltics, say), this is a huge gift.
- neaden 9y ago
  That is true but every country is supposed to spend 2% of GDP on defense, and only the US and 4 others actually do. How Trump handles this and talks about this is asinine, but there is a basis for it.
  - fudgie 9y ago
    All countries in NATO have promised to spend 2% of GDP by 2024, yes.
    - neaden 9y ago
      But many NATO countries have had a decrease in military spending since 2006 when this agreement was signed and have shown no real intention to get up to this level. Now it's perfectly reasonable to say that this is fine and the 2006 agreement isn't that big of a deal. It's also very reasonable to say that good relations are more important than everyone meeting their goal and a clear commitment to Article 5 is essential. But sergiotapia's comment that countries should pay their fair share is also reasonable and ajross's response that NATO isn't a pool of money misses that point.

ElComradio 9y ago

This decision has zilch to do with whether it's good environmental policy or will create jobs. All it has to do with is Trump's desire to feel like Alpha Man of Action when he goes to some rally/playdate in Iowa and can present a reason for everyone to tell him how incredible he is. That is the alpha and omega of policy making in this administration.

SpikeDad 9y ago
Actually it has to do with the Republicans desire to be self-sufficient in all maters science. They want all scientific matters to be determined by their own sphere of influence. This allows them to deny reality for any matter of science whether it's global climate, abortion, education, gun control, economics and any other issue which requires science to produce evidence in order to select the proper course of action. It all these cases and more the scientific facts are diametrically opposite to the direction of Republican and conservative legislation. By making science the stuff of the devil it leaves a gigantic opening for them to stuff their nonsense into the heads of the gullible right wing base.
- ElComradio 9y ago
  I agree that the dynamics you describe account for some of the reason Trump's base is primed to latch onto him. But as far as Trump himself goes, he's not really a Republican. He is solely concerned with receiving praise and feeling tough. There is no master plan; that is really all there is to it.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > But as far as Trump himself goes, he's not really a Republican. Yes, he is. He may not have a particular devotion to an ideology you'd like to pretend defines the Republican Party, but the US electoral system structurally produces duopoly between parties too broad to have coherent ideology.
    - ElComradio 9y ago

pvnick 9y ago

That is because the previous president decided to unilaterally bind the country to the agreement rather than seek treaty ratification from Congress. It is a risk that ruling by executive decree entails.

scarmig 9y ago
Other countries don't care about post-facto rationalizations by partisans to demonize the other side in domestic policies. The USA cannot be trusted as an ally. That is the takeaway here. Saying that "but Obama's worse than Trump!!!" isn't changing that and is entirely besides the point. ETA: And, for what its worth, the Senate ratified NATO, and that hasn't stopped Trump and Republicans from doing their utmost to sabotage it. It's laughable for folks to pretend like this is some deep matter of principle.
- pvnick 9y ago
  I do not wish my statement to be taken as a partisan one (although I do admit to being conservative), but rather as a general observation about the dangers of executive decree.
- entee 9y ago
  Note that I think mostly Republicans seem to be on board with NATO, Trump is outside the mainstream of all the parties there.
  - scarmig 9y ago
    Re:NATO, it's an unhappy marriage, I agree. But there's plenty Republicans could be doing that'd be appropriate given how out of bounds Trump is regarding NATO--some kind of censure or resolution--but they're not willing to do it, for the sake of partisan comity. Congressional Republicans don't like it, but given the set of options they have they choose to allow Trump to take the hatchet to NATO. Standing in the way of that would prevent them from focusing on priorities they place higher than the Transatlantic Alliance.
- rayiner 9y ago

pc2g4d 9y ago

Every child of this top comment has been downvoted into grayness. Some of those comments have substantial points to make. What's going on? I basically agree with scarmig, but it seems there's not much space for contrary opinions around here right now, which bothers me.

scarmig 9y ago
FWIW, I've been upvoting rayiner's comments. It's unclear why they're being downvoted aside from misdirected rage at Trump.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

If the US was able to survive the loss of the Vietnam war and the Bay of Pigs where many people who bet their lives on the US died after being abandoned by them, the US will survive this as well and American credibility will be just fine in the long term. Basically, the rest of the world will have to learn that getting the US to agree to something that is opposed by a significant group of Americans is a losing proposition. The fact that the Paris climate pact was not even submitted for ratification by the Senate, should tell you that there was significant opposition.

maxander 9y ago
Uh, the Paris accords are hugely popular in the U.S. [1]. The word is that even most corporations, oil companies among them, supported staying in the pact. Everyone was on board with this, except Trump and his far conservative base. And as long as power gets passed between groups with fundamentally different interests (or even basic notions of reality), no one will trust U.S. for basic security if they have half a choice. [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-06-01/a-bipartisan-majority-thinks-the-us-should-stay-in-the-paris-agreement https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-06-...
- sverige 9y ago
  "Hugely popular" is an overstatement. "Everyone" excluding "Trump and his far conservative base" lost the election. And part of Trump's message was that the U.S. shouldn't be the guarantor of the security of the rest of the world. That was a hugely popular proposition with his supporters.
  - maxander 9y ago
    Remember, Trump lost the popular vote by a couple million, in an election where about half the country voted, so his base in general could be estimated at about a fourth to a fifth of the country. But if we take the "more than 5 to 1" figure from the linked article as valid, then it implies that even a bunch of people who voted for Trump liked the accord. My impression is that people didn't like Trump for policies having to do with the environment or climate change- they liked his stance on immigration and general outsider status. The not-being-responsible-for-other-countries bit is also a popular policy of his (arguably, its his most widely-appealing position altogether), but I'm confused that you think that that applies to the Paris accord. The accord didn't mandate us giving anyone else anything, and climate change is going to mess the U.S. up as much as anywhere else.

api 9y ago

> he's seriously undermined people's ability to trust in the United States maintaining its international obligations What if that is in fact the goal? Many people in Trump's administration are openly anti-globalists and many of his voters and supporters have the explicit goal of "exiting" globalism.

neuronexmachina 9y ago
Yup, it's a win-win from their perspective, since they consider both environmentalism and internationalism as evils.
scarmig 9y ago
I mean, that is the goal. I don't think he's consciously trying to undermine the international order, but he's certainly got backers (Bannon; an autocrat of a certain large Eastern European land empire) who look at this with glee.

xorcist 9y ago

> The Paris pact was pretty toothless: it was a step forward, but heavily aspirational. It is important to know that the reason the Paris agreement is aspirational only is that it was necessary in order for the US to sign. And the reason for that is the US political system. Any commitments would have had to be ratified by the US senate, which was deemed unlikely. Actual commitments had to be deferred to later agreements. There is a whole string of climate agreements going all the way back to 1992, all building on another. (Therefore just pulling out of one of them isn't necessarily straightforward.)

reirob 9y ago
Exactly. See article [1], it lists all the weaknesses of the Paris agreement and why it was so weak. US, sorry, it's actually US' president, seems to act more and more selfish - it's almost humiliating to watch this as a European. [1] https://theintercept.com/2017/06/01/will-trumps-slow-mo-walkaway-world-in-flames-behind-him-finally-provoke-consequences-for-planetary-arson/ https://theintercept.com/2017/06/01/will-trumps-slow-mo-walk...
wdr1 9y ago
But that doesn't make sense? The Paris agreement was NOT ratified by the Senate.

Clubber 9y ago

So if say China were to commit to something with more teeth, the US would in essence be complying since we buy much of our good from there. Would that be a fair statement?

scarmig 9y ago
I'd say that's a perpendicular issue to what I'm talking about. It's more about China, Russia, etc. having credibility when making agreements, which makes them better partners when making international deals. It's like, do you want to date a girl (or boy) who agrees to be monogamous one week but regularly changes her mind when the opportunity arises? Or someone who's willing to follow through with her commitments? That said, one aspect that sort of touches on that is now the USA has no say in the agreement as it evolves. If China and the EU keep on building on their strengths in green tech, they could very easily ratchet up the agreement to be much more favorable to their economies, plausibly including heavy fees on all exports from noncompliant countries. (That's one major reason fossil fuel interests mostly wanted us to stay in it.)

wdr1 9y ago

> But instead he's seriously undermined people's ability to trust in the United States maintaining its international obligations for anything except the shortest periods of time. Possibly. Although it's worth noting that his international arrangement was never ratified by the legislative branch, as was done in most other countries. This was ratified by Executive Order. If the morale of the story is for other countries to beware of treaties not ratified by the Senate, honestly, that's not so bad.