<story><title>US quits Paris climate pact</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-40123293</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>&amp;gt; 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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Without fundamental technological leaps, we&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t add up.</text></item><item><author>scarmig</author><text>Pulling out of it is indication that the USA&amp;#x27;s politics is primarily driven by virtue signaling among different segments of its governing elite, not by policy or objective reality.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></item><item><author>rayiner</author><text>Yes, the Paris pact was toothless. It was never going to work, just like Kyoto didn&amp;#x27;t work. So what&amp;#x27;s wrong with pulling out of it?&lt;p&gt;Consternation over the Paris accord is, in my opinion, elitist liberal virtue signaling. (Here in the DC&amp;#x2F;MD&amp;#x2F;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, &lt;i&gt;i.e.&lt;/i&gt; have some real hope of working.)</text></item><item><author>scarmig</author><text>This is one of those situations where you should be shaking your head, even if you&amp;#x27;re a climate change denying conservative or a fussil fuel industrial interest.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s commitments.&lt;p&gt;But instead he&amp;#x27;s seriously undermined people&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;s done already with NATO is far worse. But this underlines the reality that the United States government is so unstable that it&amp;#x27;s unable to uphold any coherency in policy or meet its stated commitments.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re a small country who&amp;#x27;s been trusting the USA as a solid ally against regional competitors, you&amp;#x27;re looking at this and going, &amp;quot;well, maybe I should be focusing more on ties with the EU&amp;#x2F;Russia&amp;#x2F;China&amp;#x2F;India.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s honestly pretty humiliating for the USA, even aside from the fact that we&amp;#x27;ve just fucked the next generation just to give the finger to elitist liberals and scientists.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>knz</author><text>&amp;gt; The belief that the U.S. needs to be involved in the international stage&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s in the financial interests of the US to be involved on the international stage. I listened to Trump&amp;#x27;s speech today and heard nothing but &amp;quot;Boohoo, it&amp;#x27;s so hard to be America&amp;quot;. The reality is that the US is the gorilla in every room - we have the largest economy, largest military, and American hegemony has been a massive benefit to the country. Countries bend over backwards to gain access to US markets and millions still aspire to move here looking for better opportunities.&lt;p&gt;The whole situation reminds me of a quote from Interstellar - &amp;quot;We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;We&amp;#x27;ve giving up our global leadership for the sake of a few extra dollars in our pocket now - never mind the cost of inaction or every bit of scientific evidence that tells us something must be done. Even the Department of Defense believes that climate change is real and will have significant consequences for the US.&lt;p&gt;When did American exceptionalism turn into &amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s too hard so I&amp;#x27;m going to do nothing&amp;quot;?</text></comment>
<story><title>US quits Paris climate pact</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-40123293</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>&amp;gt; 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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Without fundamental technological leaps, we&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;t add up.</text></item><item><author>scarmig</author><text>Pulling out of it is indication that the USA&amp;#x27;s politics is primarily driven by virtue signaling among different segments of its governing elite, not by policy or objective reality.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></item><item><author>rayiner</author><text>Yes, the Paris pact was toothless. It was never going to work, just like Kyoto didn&amp;#x27;t work. So what&amp;#x27;s wrong with pulling out of it?&lt;p&gt;Consternation over the Paris accord is, in my opinion, elitist liberal virtue signaling. (Here in the DC&amp;#x2F;MD&amp;#x2F;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, &lt;i&gt;i.e.&lt;/i&gt; have some real hope of working.)</text></item><item><author>scarmig</author><text>This is one of those situations where you should be shaking your head, even if you&amp;#x27;re a climate change denying conservative or a fussil fuel industrial interest.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;s commitments.&lt;p&gt;But instead he&amp;#x27;s seriously undermined people&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x27;s done already with NATO is far worse. But this underlines the reality that the United States government is so unstable that it&amp;#x27;s unable to uphold any coherency in policy or meet its stated commitments.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re a small country who&amp;#x27;s been trusting the USA as a solid ally against regional competitors, you&amp;#x27;re looking at this and going, &amp;quot;well, maybe I should be focusing more on ties with the EU&amp;#x2F;Russia&amp;#x2F;China&amp;#x2F;India.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s honestly pretty humiliating for the USA, even aside from the fact that we&amp;#x27;ve just fucked the next generation just to give the finger to elitist liberals and scientists.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>scarmig</author><text>&amp;gt; The U.S. doesn&amp;#x27;t need to be involved on the international stage.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;But even if I strongly agreed, I&amp;#x27;d think the USA should make an orderly retreat from its existing obligations. Instead it&amp;#x27;s creating vacuums of power and chaos based on fits of pique by a literal maniac.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The fallacy here is assuming that international cooperation is going to solve climate change.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s worked on other issues. And political environments drive technological change.&lt;p&gt;But, yes, I agree it&amp;#x27;s a particularly thorny issue, and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t say I&amp;#x27;m too optimistic of its probability of success compared to other international collaborations. But that&amp;#x27;s something to bemoan, not something to celebrate.</text></comment>