One of the first things GWB did in 2001 was to exit the Kyoto agreement and signal he would not participate in future discussions.
We can’t let Trump do the same, not if we want to have a nice planet for our grandkids.
To build momentum for a deal, they set a 2030 deadline for China’s emissions to stop rising and announced their “shared conviction that climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity.” The U.S. has pledged to cut its emissions by at least 26 percent over the next 15 years, compared to 2005 levels.
Trump: Everyone saying Trump called it, climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese to ruin U.S. economy. Obama so weak, makes the worst deals. We have to cut back so that China can pollute more? Kills American jobs. Sad.
Thanks, Obama!
Trump:“what climate change?” The depth of my loathing for the GOP is reaching lows that I never conceived before this election.
It’s not that hard to do, folks. Iowa is already generates 31 percent of its energy from wind and we will push past 50 percent four years from now. You’ve got solar. You’ve got wind. You can do it, too.
It’s truly like the Trump campaign is a bizarre dimensional extrusion from an insane alternate universe when you read something like this.
And this is just one type of pollution. If we can get ourselves and the rest of the world thinking in terms of ecology; recycling-reusing and reducing in all things, then we have this issue going the right way and beyond just emergency planning.
The oceans need help stat as well, we have to think globally even in global considerations.
Excellent, Mr. President.
You were the first president of my life and hopefully not the last for whom my guts were not tied in knots at every single turn.
In spite of the culture of obstruction we face, a sincere and heartfelt, thank you. You gave us hope. Yes. May we use it well.
Democrats produce results.
Vote for change. Vote for progress. Vote for Democrats.
Structural change is slow, but gradually coal is fading as the go-to energy source. However, coal is still nearly 2/3 of China’s energy mix. It still will take 5 years off your life if you live in one of the 120 biggest cities and towns in China.
It’s also not always that easy to do, either. The Pacific Northwest would love to go whole-hog on renewables. They can’t really take advantage of solar the way they might like, though, because they have a lot of cloud cover (clouds coming in off the Pacific get hung up on the Rockies). Those same mountains make it difficult to set up a wind farm, as well. They might be able to go offshore, but that’s likely going to have to be a regional venture (Oregon and Washington going in together, for example) to get the funding together. The very places where it’s needed most - in Coal Country - have exactly the same thing keeping them from investing strongly in wind: mountains.
Going state-by-state. there’s a lot of variation in how well a particular state can take advantage of renewables. The real key will be nationwide infrastructure improvements to the power grid that allow for continent-scale coordination of energy production as well as local small-scale production. Massive wind/solar/hyrdoelectric farms where we can actually plant them would send power all over the nation, banked in massive battery networks to ensure consistent availability. From there, local producers (including individual homes) would reduce their own reliance on the national network, and even supply their own surplus back into the grid, when possible (like a corporate HQ w/a huge set of panels, shut down for the 4th of July, or just someone’s home with few photovoltaics on the roof, when they’re away on vacation.
The problem with that kind of large-scale centralization and radiation is resistance. Actual physical resistance, not political headwinds - the farther you send electricity, the farther it goes. It might be possible to do something like a national fiber optic primary power grid - with the electricity generated by the major facilities running high-energy photon emitters (microwaves, probably) that move through the primary grid and are converted back to electrical power when they get to their regional destination, but that take a lot of time and effort just to work out the technical aspects, let alone the money, time, and political will for construction.
I agree that the grid needs massive improvements in conjunction with local producers reducing the draw on the national network.
That said, every state doesn’t have to cover 100% of its needs – the Midwest and Arizona / New Mexico / California could punch above their weight and send a surplus out West. Ditto for the South sending power to coal country.
Just imagine the renewable power we could generate if even a fraction of every military base was dedicated to power production …
Well, you’re really talking about 3 states - Mississppi, Georgia, and Florida. Virginia, the Carolinas, and Alabama are mostly the Appalachians (Georgia loses about half the state’s surface area to them, but the SE half of the state is reasonably flat - not nearly Iowa/Indiana/Illiniois levels of flat, but… reasonably). Florida gets a lot of sun, but they also get pretty much daily thunderstorms through the sunniest parts of the state, so you have to figure their solar production’s gonna be 15-20% off, and then there’s hurricane season.
Now, up here in NY, we’re getting a lot of juice from the hydroelectric generators up in Niagra, and we’ve got at least 2 (Indian Point 2 and 3) nukes running, but even that’s not enough, and those pesky mountains down in Alabama do kinda run clear up through Maine into Nova Scotia. For some of these states, there’s the possibility of offshore wind or tidal generators, but… that’s a lot of energy demands to be putting on three states 1500+ miles away.