This wise, 2,600-year-old observation by Confucius is especially germane in the time of Trump!
"Humans share the planet with as many as 8.7 million different forms of life, according to what is being billed as the most accurate estimate yet of life on Earth." "Scientists have been Dr. Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, says this question has been a focus of scientific study for a long time. He further states: "We know we are losing species because of human activity, but we can't really appreciate the magnitude of species lost until we know what species are there." [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/23/species-earth-estimate-scientists]
Therefore, the quest has grown increasingly urgent. According to the study, an astonishing 86% of all plants and animals on land and 91% of those in the seas have yet to be named and catalogued So, the 8.7 million different known life forms equate to roughly 10 million probable earthly life forms.
While Earth is undeniably humankind's home, we are undoubtedly not alone. While some of these 10 million Earthlings may be inimical to humanity, we pose a far more significant threat to every one of them. Number 45 puts them all in more danger than ever before.
Number 45 has made things worse instead of better, he has and has had many accomplices:
"Fifty years ago, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) delivered a report titled Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Polluters to the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade association for the fossil fuel industry." [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/15/50-years-climate-change-denial]
This 1968 report did not use the term “global warming” which did not appear in a peer-reviewed academic journal until 1975. Nasa scientist James Hansen would not tell Congress that “global warming has begun” until 1988. And the US did not enter into the Paris climate accord until 47-years later. Number 45 pulled out of this belated agreement after scarcely three months in office. “Analysts say the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement will make it more difficult for the world to reach the goals that it set for itself in the Paris agreement.”
The closest allies of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, along with Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland rightly condemned this action. According to Bob Ward from the UK's Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, "President Trump's speech was confused nonsense." Number 45 is so ignorant that he neither knew nor cared that "the agreement states that no country can withdraw within three years of it coming into force, and the process of withdrawal takes a further year to complete.” Thus, the United States cannot completely withdraw from the Paris Agreement before 5 November 2020. This date is the day after the next US presidential election. So, We, the People, still have a chance to stop this fool from doing the harm his greed and arrogance propel him to do.
In this context, it is important to note that under the Paris Accords: “Each country set its own targets, with reductions to begin in 2020.” Nothing whatsoever is imposed on any nation. Every notion sets its targets through its decision-making process! This fact directly contradicts Number 45’s claim that others are burdening the United States. Furthermore, he cited many negative statistics about the predicted economic impact from the climate deal. The statistics come from a March 2017 study, prepared by NERA Economic Consulting, but as Yale professor Kenneth Gillingham states “the NERA model assumes certain hypothetical regulations, that tend to produce higher costs, but "one could easily model other actions with much lower costs." Furthermore, it also ignores the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, like avoiding the harmful effects of climate change. Also, the NERA study assumes:
1. that other countries don’t make emission reductions in line with the Paris Agreement, therefore leading American companies to relocate;
2. that industries are static and don’t change to adapt to the regulations, and;
3. that there would be no increase in clean electricity generation compared to the baseline scenario.
In other words, the NERA model makes assumptions that generate an extreme result. His use of it provides yet another example of deceptiveness by special pleading from Number 45.
The Resident declared: "China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we can't build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement." Under the Paris Accord, each country decides what it will do to reach its declared goals. The agreement doesn’t allow or disallow specific actions, like building coal plants. Thus 45 is either appallingly ignorant or blatantly lying. Furthermore, China took steps to stop coal plant construction. China stopped development of 103 new coal-fired plants. Between the effects of an economic slowdown and an effort to move toward less-polluting sources, China cut its use of coal three years in a row. Consequently, every explicit and implied objection by 45 is spectacularly wrong and patently false.
Paris Agreement was under negotiation, Reilly co-authored an MIT report that criticized the deal for not making steep enough cuts in emissions to reach the Paris agreement’s ambitious goal of capping this century’s temperature increases at 2 degrees Celsius.
John Reilly, co-director of the Joint Program on Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT, said in October 2015, "We are making progress, but if 2 C stabilization is our goal, it’s not nearly enough." The pledges shave 0.2 C of warming if they’re maintained through 2100, compared with what we assessed would have been the case by extending existing measures (due to expire in 2020) based on earlier international agreements in Copenhagen and Cancun. Thus, some knowledgeable people criticize the Paris Accord. However, Professor Reilly observed that tackling climate problems depends on taking a series of incremental steps to reduce carbon emissions and noted that pulling out of the Paris agreement would require even more significant reductions in the future.
In another misrepresentation, the Resident declared: "India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Think of it. India can double their coal production. We're supposed to get rid of ours." India does have plans to nearly double its coal production, and the agreement does not prevent that. But the Paris Agreement does not even mention the word coal, and it does nothing to put a global moratorium on coal. Each signatory sets its own goals and reports on its progress. 45 again lies to incite xenophobia and obscure the necessity of countering climate change.
Finally, and ludicrously, 45 declared: "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris. I promised I would exit or renegotiate any deal which fails to serve America's interests." Pittsburgh, Pa., voted overwhelmingly for Trump's rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton. She won almost 60 percent of the vote in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh. The percentage was even higher in many precincts within the city of Pittsburgh itself. So, 45 was not elected by Pittsburghers to represent them. Like the rest of America, most voters preferred Hillary Clinton. Thus, in the last analysis, the rationale for pulling out of the Paris Accord offered by 45 was hokum and hogwash in its entirety.
As a recapitulation, on the Paris Accord:
1. An agreement cannot be both nonbinding and draconian; Paris is nonbinding!
2. Paris cannot be “renegotiated.”
a. Each country is free to revise its NDC at any time — no negotiations needed. If Trump wants different terms, he just has to say so.
b. As to renegotiating the entire Paris framework, and tearing up thousands of staff hours of work on behalf of an erratic man-child, No, the other 190 nations involved are not down with that.
3. Abiding by the agreement will not cost the US a bazillion dollars: carbon in the US is being driven down by trends that are bringing economic development, jobs, and lower energy costs in their wake. Trump would have us believe that slightly accelerating those trends would whiplash us around to economic catastrophe. It’s goofy.
4. China and India are not getting away with anything: This is 31 flavors of wrong.
a. Trump just says “clean coal” when he means “coal.” It’s not clear that Trump has any clue what “clean coal” means, but insofar as it has any meaning, it means coal plants that capture and bury their carbon emissions. Far from “blocking” the development of clean coal, a commitment to reducing carbon emissions is the only reason to invest in it.
b. Second, China is not “allowed” to do anything. Like all other participants [including America], China offered its own NDC and can revise it at any time. Only China controls China’s policies.
c. Third, China does not have access to cheap, abundant natural gas, but it has canceled hundreds of coal plants recently, and the government is committed to phasing coal out as fast as possible, and the country currently expects to reach its NDC target early.
d. Fourth, India (which also won’t be “allowed” to do anything) is working at breakneck speed to transition. It has pledged to get 40 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030, which will include building out 100 gigawatts of solar power by 2022. India is set to pass Japan this year to become the world’s third-largest market for solar (after China and the US).
e. Other nations are not laughing at us behind our backs — or they weren’t, anyway: In 45’s view, “foreign lobbyists wish to keep our magnificent country tied up and bound down by this agreement,” Trump said. “It is to give their country an economic edge over the United States.”
i. The core of 45's appeal and the root of the problem 45 embodies is tribalism. The tribalist (or “nationalist” as they are often called) sees all relationships, interpersonal and international, as zero-sum struggles. There are only strong and weak, dominator and dominated, winners and loser
ii. “At what point does America get demeaned?” he sputtered. “At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?”
iii. This assertion is nearly as raw as tribalism can be unless one adopts Hitlerian language explicitly. 45’s ideological defects fit 45's personality defects perfectly.
iv. Trump and his supporters feel ridiculous and weak, and the only way to restore his and their fragile egos are to behave in a domineering manner and show the world once and for all that we are in charge and the most important.
v. Bluster is not bravery; aggression is not strength; conceit is not competence. 45's followers and Trump himself must not be allowed to destroy the planet because they are insecure, resentful, bullying fools!
The Paris Accord is not a panacea; it will not resolve the threat of climate change. Nonetheless, the ideological fallacies and psychological flaws shared by 45 and his supporters do reveal the depth and breadth of the danger they are to the Republic, the Earth, and the likely 10 million Earthling life forms. Tribalism, in particular, is atavistic and pernicious. We are all one tribe. The planet provides a habitat for many more Earthlings than humankind alone. If humanity does not defend all Earthly life, humanity will destroy all Earthly life!
In this context, we must remember Carl Sagan’s description of Earth as a Pale Blue Dot.
"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena….”
“Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”
“The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.”
“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
Carl Sagan is without a doubt the wisest and most benevolent persons I have ever known of or met. We should have listened to him in 1997; it is imperative that we take his comments to heart and act upon them now.
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