(08-23-2019 07:02 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote: In terms of climate change, Biden will absolutely get us back in the Paris Agreement.
Which is an absolutely worthless piece of paper, perhaps even more worthless than the Iran deal. A bunch of self-important people spent a few days in Paris on healthy expense accounts, and adopted an "agreement" that means absolutely nothing. Nobody actually agreed to do anything, save perhaps we agreed to write a bunch of checks in the end.
The problem is that very simply, environmentalism is a rich man's game. When you are worried about food, clothing, and shelter, you really don't give a damn about what will be the temperature of the planet 100 years from now. And when all the proposals that the green crowd can come up with result in significant harm to the economy with little or no meaningful reduction in greenhouse gases, selling that to the third world is going to be impossible. The greens keep saying that if we take a leadership position, the rest of the world will follow. No, they won't. Their primary concerns are getting fed, clothed, and housed. Until those needs are met, and particularly if green looks like setting them back on those goals, we aren't going to lead them anywhere.
Speaking of leadership, despite our withdrawal from Paris, we still seem to be leading the world in reducing greenhouse gases. We never ratified Kyoto, but I believe that while it was in effect we reduced our greenhouse gases more than anybody else, and may very well have been the only country to achieve our Kyoto goals. The same thing appears to be happening with Paris, from what I have been able to find. I think a reasonable policy is to say, "Hey, instead of signing feel-good sham agreements, we are going to go out and actually reduce our greenhouse gases. How about the rest of you joining in?"
