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by Iamwhomiam » Fri Mar 10, 2017 7:16 pm
by stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Mar 28, 2017 4:10 pm
Trump signs order undoing Obama climate change policies
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era rules aimed at curbing climate change.
The president said this would put an end to the "war on coal" and "job-killing regulations".
The Energy Independence Executive Order suspends more than half a dozen measures enacted by his predecessor, and boosts fossil fuels.
Business groups have praised the Trump administration's move but environmental campaigners have condemned it.
Flanked by coal miners as he signed the order, the president said: "My administration is putting an end to the war on coal.
"With today's executive action I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations."
During the campaign, he vowed to pull the US out of the Paris climate deal agreed in December 2015.
What is Mr Trump's order changing?
President Trump takes a very different approach to the environment from Mr Obama. The former president argued that climate change was "real and cannot be ignored".
Among the initiatives now rescinded is the Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions, to meet US commitments under the Paris accord.
The regulation has been unpopular in Republican-run states, where it has been subject to legal challenges - especially from businesses that rely on burning oil, coal and gas.
Last year the Supreme Court temporarily halted the plan, while the challenges are heard.
The Trump administration says that scrapping the plan will put people to work and reduce America's reliance on imported fuel.
It says the president will be "moving forward on energy production in the US".
"The previous administration devalued workers with their policies. We can protect the environment while providing people with work."
During the president's maiden visit to the Environmental Protection Agency, he signed the Energy Independence Executive Order, which cuts EPA regulations in order to support Mr Trump's plan of cutting the agency's budget by a third.
He recently appointed climate change sceptic Scott Pruitt as its new head.
What will the impact be?
Matt McGrath, BBC environment correspondent
This order signed by President Trump is both a practical and a philosophical attempt to change the US narrative on climate change.
His supporters say it will create thousands of jobs in the liberated oil and gas industries. His opponents agree the new order will be a job creator - but they'll be jobs for lawyers, not in the coal fields.
Front and centre is practical action on the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the Obama project to cut fossil fuels from energy production. Although it has long been tied up in the courts, the new administration will leave it to fester there while they come up with a much weaker replacement.
There will also be new, less restrictive rules on methane emissions from the oil and industry and more freedom to sell coal leases from federal lands.
President Trump is signalling a significant change in the widely held philosophy that CO2 is the enemy, the main driver of climate change.
US environmentalists are aghast but also enraged. They will be queuing up to go to court. But in many ways that's playing into the hands of President Trump and the fossil fuel lobby.
"Delay is what they want," one green source told me, "delay is winning."
Read Matt's piece in full
Will the US honour its commitments under the Paris climate deal?
While campaigning for the presidency, Mr Trump argued that the agreement was unfair to the US.
The landmark agreement commits governments to moving their economies away from fossil fuels and reducing carbon emissions to try to contain global temperature rise.
Mr Trump has in the past said climate change had been "created by and for the Chinese".
But at the end of last year, he acknowledged that there was "some connectivity" between human activity and climate change.
It is now unclear where exactly the US stands in relation to the deal.
Whatever the US chooses, the EU, India and China say they will stick to their pledges made in Paris.
What has been the reaction?
The president's order will be resisted by environmentalists, who have promised to challenge it in the courts.
"These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American," billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer was quoted by Reuters as saying.
"I think it is a climate destruction plan in place of a climate action plan," the Natural Resources Defense Council's David Doniger told the BBC, adding that they will fight the president in court.
Another green group, Earthjustice, said it would challenge the measure in and out of court.
"This order ignores the law and scientific reality," its President Trip Van Noppen said.
World v Trump on global climate deal?
Trump team moving away from supporters on climate science
Does Trump believe in climate change?
Tara McKelvey, BBC White House reporter
Yes - at least according to a senior aide.
When asked whether the president believes in man-made climate change, the aide said "sure", adopting a matter-of-fact tone.
This marks a shift. In 2015 the president said that climate change was a "hoax".
By November 2016, the president had softened his position on the matter, saying he saw "some connectivity" between man and climate change.
Now the president has gone further - at least, according to his aide.
The president, a one-time climate-change denier, now believes, that climate change is real - and that humans are behind it.
by stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:34 pm
The Trump Administration Just Took Its Climate Denialism to Dizzying New Heights
If you don't say the words "climate change," the administration reckons, it isn't happening.
By Kali Holloway / AlterNet
March 30, 2017
It’s not enough for the Trump administration to end Obama-era efforts to halt manmade climate change, as it effectively did with an executive order on Tuesday. The White House is now reportedly instructing employees of the Office of International Climate and Clean Energy in the Energy Department not to even mention the term “climate change,” or a number of related phrases. Politico reports that during a meeting Tuesday, “a supervisor at the Energy Department's international climate office told staff...not to use the phrases 'climate change,' 'emissions reduction' or 'Paris Agreement' in written memos, briefings or other written communication.”
The latest head-in-the-sand move by the Trump administration is part of an overarching effort by Republicans to spin manmade climate change — which 97 percent of scientists agree is happening — as an issue of debate. Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to roll back President Obama's environmental regulations in order to revive the coal industry and create jobs. Four years prior, he had tweeted that the "concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
“You know what this is? You know what this says?” Trump asked a group of miners assembled for a photo op at the signing of his anti-environment executive order. “You’re going back to work.”
The scene came one day after Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, the largest privately held coal mining company in the U.S., said what we all already know: the industry will not be revived. In an interview with the Guardian, Murray acknowledged that job loss across the coal industry was driven by technological innovation, not over-regulation. "I suggested that [Trump] temper his expectations. Those are my exact words,” Murray told the Guardian. “He can’t bring them back.”
Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, also drew attention to the lie at the heart of Trump’s anti-environmental efforts.
“The regulatory changes are entirely outweighed by these technological changes, not to mention the price of natural gas or renewables,” Muro told the New York Times. “Even if you brought back demand for coal, you wouldn’t bring back the same number of workers.”
Department of Energy officials have denied any prohibition on language, with one spokesperson telling Politico, "No words or phrases have been banned for this office or anyone in the department.”
One employee suggested that while the ban may not be officially codified into State Department rules, it’s clear that there’s an unsubtle top-down effort to change the ethos, culture and lexicon of the agency.
"We have definitively not received anything on banned words, not even orally," the official reportedly told Politico. "But people are doing a lot of reading into tea leaves. People are taking their own initiatives to not use certain words based on hints from transition people. Everyone is encouraged to find different ways of talking about things. There's a sense that you'd better find a way to delink.”
by American Dream » Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:20 pm
by stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:52 pm
by Sounder » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:03 am
I'm not sure how the laws are in Canada, but here in the USA, if anyone commented favorably on this, they would receive a severe talking-to from the Secret Service. Trev England would probably be under arrest.
by DrEvil » Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:31 pm
Sounder » Wed Apr 04, 2018 2:03 pm wrote:
I'm not sure how the laws are in Canada, but here in the USA, if anyone commented favorably on this, they would receive a severe talking-to from the Secret Service. Trev England would probably be under arrest.
Yes he would be under arrest, therefor I imagine Trev to be a protected asset and have doubts about the responders also. Only speculating here but it seems like agency folk post much of this kind of material so as to create a sense of acceptance for this vile verbiage, in order to create an effective honeypot.
Well, and a poison pill to use against those who question the veracity of Global Warming as a centrally important issue.
Another indicator that this is agency approved material is that it uses the tried and true, successful tactic of painting 'deniers' as nut-jobs.
Congratulations, smear tactics always 'work'.
by Iamwhomiam » Wed Apr 04, 2018 10:03 pm
Sounder » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:03 am wrote:
I'm not sure how the laws are in Canada, but here in the USA, if anyone commented favorably on this, they would receive a severe talking-to from the Secret Service. Trev England would probably be under arrest.
Yes he would be under arrest, therefor I imagine Trev to be a protected asset and have doubts about the responders also. Only speculating here but it seems like agency folk post much of this kind of material so as to create a sense of acceptance for this vile verbiage, in order to create an effective honeypot.
Well, and a poison pill to use against those who question the veracity of Global Warming as a centrally important issue.
Another indicator that this is agency approved material is that it uses the tried and true, successful tactic of painting 'deniers' as nut-jobs.
Congratulations, smear tactics always 'work'.
by Iamwhomiam » Tue May 08, 2018 9:18 pm
by Sounder » Tue May 08, 2018 9:59 pm
We conducted a one-year longitudinal study of 600 Americans' climate beliefs.
•
Cluster analyses found three distinct groups based on climate belief trajectories.
•
Climate change believers were most likely to endorse federal climate policies.
•
Climate change skeptics were most likely to report pro-environmental behavior.
Abstract
We conducted a one-year longitudinal study in which 600 American adults regularly reported their climate change beliefs, pro-environmental behavior, and other climate-change related measures. Using latent class analyses, we uncovered three clusters of Americans with distinct climate belief trajectories: (1) the “Skeptical,” who believed least in climate change; (2) the “Cautiously Worried,” who had moderate beliefs in climate change; and (3) the “Highly Concerned,” who had the strongest beliefs and concern about climate change. Cluster membership predicted different outcomes: the “Highly Concerned” were most supportive of government climate policies, but least likely to report individual-level actions, whereas the “Skeptical” opposed policy solutions but were most likely to report engaging in individual-level pro-environmental behaviors. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
by DrEvil » Wed May 09, 2018 4:05 am
Sounder » Wed May 09, 2018 3:59 am wrote:Yes, well unsurprisingly those nutjobs and idiots are in general more ecologically conscientious than are the believers who seem to feel they can offload responsibility onto the government.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 418301488#!
Believing in climate change, but not behaving sustainably: Evidence from a one-year longitudinal study
Author links open overlay panelMichael P.Halla1Neil A.LewisJr.b1Phoebe C.Ellswortha
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.03.001Get rights and content
Highlights
•We conducted a one-year longitudinal study of 600 Americans' climate beliefs.
•
Cluster analyses found three distinct groups based on climate belief trajectories.
•
Climate change believers were most likely to endorse federal climate policies.
•
Climate change skeptics were most likely to report pro-environmental behavior.
Abstract
We conducted a one-year longitudinal study in which 600 American adults regularly reported their climate change beliefs, pro-environmental behavior, and other climate-change related measures. Using latent class analyses, we uncovered three clusters of Americans with distinct climate belief trajectories: (1) the “Skeptical,” who believed least in climate change; (2) the “Cautiously Worried,” who had moderate beliefs in climate change; and (3) the “Highly Concerned,” who had the strongest beliefs and concern about climate change. Cluster membership predicted different outcomes: the “Highly Concerned” were most supportive of government climate policies, but least likely to report individual-level actions, whereas the “Skeptical” opposed policy solutions but were most likely to report engaging in individual-level pro-environmental behaviors. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
In order to measure the behaviors of three different groups (Highly Concerned, Cautiously Worried, Skeptical), the authors depended on the self-reporting of four different categories: Recycling, Public Transportation, Eco-Friendly Products, and Reusable Shopping Bags. The Highly Concerned reported recycling by far the most of the three groups, whereas Skeptical reported more frequent use over the past month of public transportation, eco-friendly products, and reusable shopping bags. However, there are any number of factors that could affect such reporting:
1. If there's a strong correlation with socio-economic status between the three groups, it's possible that skeptical individuals might be more likely to depend on public transportation to get around.
2. It's possible the skeptic's tolerance for what counts as eco-friendly is lower than that of someone who is highly concerned.
3. With respect to shopping bag frequency, well, that's an odd one. No excuse for that.
by Iamwhomiam » Wed May 09, 2018 5:56 pm
Sounder » Tue May 08, 2018 9:59 pm wrote:Yes, well unsurprisingly those nutjobs and idiots are in general more ecologically conscientious than are the believers who seem to feel they can offload responsibility onto the government.
by seemslikeadream » Tue May 15, 2018 8:42 am
Trump Administration Shuts Down NASA's $10 Million Carbon Monitoring Program While CO2 Levels Soar
By Jean-Pierre Chigne Tech Times14 May 2018, 12:00 pm EDT
The Trump administration has killed NASA's Carbon Monitoring System, which was responsible for compiling data from separate satellite and aircraft measurements of CO2 and methane emission across the Earth.
This program allowed scientists to have a picture of the flow of carbon all over Earth.
Carbon Monitoring System
The Trump administration's move to shut down the Carbon Monitoring System was first reported by Science. This move will make it harder for nations to be able to verify that quotas are being met according to the promises in the Paris climate accords. Every nation on Earth, except the US, is part of the accord.
Kelly Sims Gallagher, Director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, told Science that if emissions aren't being measured, countries will not know who is keeping their promises according to the Paris climate accords.
A spokesperson for NASA told Science that existing grants like the Carbon Monitoring System will be allowed to finish but that no new research will be taking its place. NASA cited budget constraints and other research that is marked a higher priority as the reason for the cancellation. No specific reasons were given for the shutdown of the program.
The Trump administration has been proposing budget cuts to NASA's earth science programs which focus on climate change. The last Congressional budget didn't have the Carbon Monitoring System included which showed what was going to happen to the program.
Climate Change Records
It's an ironic time for the Carbon Monitoring System to be killed off from NASA. Earlier in May, data showed that carbon dioxide found in Earth's atmosphere passed a new monthly average of 410.31 parts per million in the month of April. These findings were found by the Scripps CO2 Program.
Measurements were taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. This was the first time that the monthly average exceeded the threshold of 410 parts per million, It was also the first time that there was a 30 percent increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the world.
For centuries the world's concentration of carbon dioxide fluctuated between 200 ppm and 280 ppm. Levels skyrocketed after the industrial revolution showing human activity is what is driving the rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Data has also been gathered from ice cores that contain ancient air bubbles. These air bubbles show the CO2 levels from the last 800,000 years. The ice cores show that the CO2 level has always fluctuated but was never higher than 300 ppm before the industrial revolution
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/22772 ... s-soar.htm
by American Dream » Thu Aug 23, 2018 5:46 am
PUBLIC RELEASE: 22-AUG-2018
Climate change denial strongly linked to right-wing nationalism
CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGYWith Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, as a hub, the world's first global research network into climate change denial has now been established. Building on a brand-new research publication showing the links between conservatism, xenophobia and climate change denial, the network will study how the growth of right-wing nationalism in Europe has contributed to an increase in climate change denial.
Scientific awareness of the greenhouse effect, and human influence on the climate, has existed for over three decades. During the 1980s, there was a strong environmental movement and a political consensus on the issue, but in recent years, climate change denial - denying that changes to the climate are due to human influence on the environment - has increased.
"Two strong groups have joined forces on this issue - the extractive industry, and right-wing nationalists. The combination has taken the current debate to a much more dramatic level than previously, at the same time as our window of opportunity is disappearing."
by dada » Thu Aug 23, 2018 11:19 am
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