California defies Trump and signs climate deal with China - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Conscript;52320942]I never said to the contrary, I don't even disagree with you. To their credit though, conservatism has typically found its refuge in state power rather than federal, it's because of the city and countryside divide with them mostly stuck with the latter (which is always less relevant). Unlike liberalism, it also has a classic liberal ideological kernel. I don't know of any liberals seriously concerned with bureaucracy or state power. To them, one is always an excuse to hurt (particularly non-white) poor people with cuts, the other tainted as a cover for racism as a legacy of the civil war and civil rights movement. The authoritarian aspect has intensified with security fears, with liberals leading the charge after the 2016 upset and growing nationalist dissent, which is exploited by russia. It's vengeance driven and misguided, they're still not actually dealing with the things that has produced the far right in the first place and made them disconnected, especially as they refuse to share power with progressives.[/QUOTE] What, prey tell, is the defacto cause if you know as you seem to be implying here? Why are the right like this? My guess? Education and the slashing of it since the 60's has left us with adults who are poorly informed and even more poorly capable of informing themselves.

[QUOTE=Conscript;52320727]Suddenly american liberals everywhere care about state power[/QUOTE] are you completely daft? As Isak pointed out, it was liberal cities that have led the charge on [I]several[/I] key issues from marriage rights to abortion rights to pre-existing climate regulations. Honestly, the US pulling out of the agreement means the rest of the world might have more flexibility in some respects. Apparently, there were some concessions given to us in particular due to our (retardedly) carbon-focused political reality. I'm not saying I don't feel a seething bundle of rage at us leaving, but hopefully states can turn it around and the rest of the world can show us the fuck up

[QUOTE=TheJoey;52319865]in the long game if pulling out makes other countries step up, this could ultimately be the best decision..[/QUOTE] what an utterly embarrassing bit of mental gymnastics "let's do shitty things on purpose so [I]other people[/I] step up and fix it!" you've got to be fucking with me

[QUOTE=Conscript;52320727]Suddenly american liberals everywhere care about state power[/QUOTE] Weirdly enough you'll find that this view does not in fact violate the general views of American liberals on the subject of state rights. What liberals think the federal government needs to step in to do is civil rights for the most part. (Also economic regulations in general, though that comes mostly from a viewpoint of leaving it up to states possibly causing issues near borders.) Individual states going above and beyond the federal US climate policies without violating those policies is not an actual issue here. The only real question is the legality of this move but it sounds like it doesn't actually fall under the definition of a treaty so California's probably free to go through with it. Edit: Or to try to explain it more simplistically we tend to be of the mind that federal guidelines should be treated as a baseline and states should be free to go above those guidelines as much as they want so long as they don't fail to meet them.

[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;52321513]what an utterly embarrassing bit of mental gymnastics "let's do shitty things on purpose so [I]other people[/I] step up and fix it!" you've got to be fucking with me[/QUOTE] It's 8th dimensional schutes and ladders.

[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;52321513]what an utterly embarrassing bit of mental gymnastics "let's do shitty things on purpose so [I]other people[/I] step up and fix it!" you've got to be fucking with me[/QUOTE] Especially when the US is so fucking far behind. If anything, it will motivate people to go "well now we're fucked either way".

I get the distinct feeling that Facepunch doesn't like Trump...

[QUOTE=picklebond;52322505]I get the distinct feeling that Facepunch doesn't like Trump...[/QUOTE] 46% of voters, or more importantly, 19.6% of the population, actually cared to vote for Trump.

[QUOTE=picklebond;52322505]I get the distinct feeling that Facepunch doesn't like Trump...[/QUOTE] Doesn't matter, it's not really about wether we like or dislike him - he's objectively a bad president.

[QUOTE=Revenge282;52322858]46% of voters, or more importantly, 19.6% of the population, actually cared to vote for Trump.[/QUOTE] And a fair number of those only voted for him as a vote against Clinton.

Frankly the GOP hasn't really conservative for a while and have become mercantilism fanboys, and very authoritarian.

[QUOTE=NeonpieDFTBA;52319813]China and India are set targets of emissions vs GDP. The idea behind this is that Europe and above all America have benefited the most from the CO2 already emitted so they have the wealth to make quicker transitions to green technology, whilst less developed countries have more lenient targets because they haven't contributed as much and it's far harder for them to afford green technology. IIRC ~33% of current human produced carbon dioxide in the atmosphere came from the USA, and the US has the largest economy in the world, so it's only fair that you lead the way. [video=youtube;1WKoj-kodBw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WKoj-kodBw&t=0s[/video] [video=youtube;Sr2J_1J9w3A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr2J_1J9w3A&t=0s[/video][/QUOTE] I sent my dad these two videos. He says that they're both "anti-Trump" (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he meant that they're more biased towards him than they should be since he said before that he doesn't worship him and acknowledges at least some of his flaws, though I don't really agree that they were being excessively biased) and are therefore not objective. He says that the agreement is a scam that the globalists will use to tax us or something like that (He acknowledges that the agreement is non-binding, but he's suspicious that they'll change it at the last second), and he used the sunlight taxation from 19th century Britain as an example. He's also convinced that Al Gore changed the term "global warming" to "climate change" since people were supposedly wrong about it before according to him. I wish I could argue against this since his arguments are probably either horrible or aren't that great, but I can't say that I know enough about the history of politics (not even in the last 17 years) to properly do that. I mean, let alone the fact that I'm not that good at making arguments involving complex issues in the first place.

[QUOTE=Skerion;52341625]I sent my dad these two videos. He says that they're both "anti-Trump" (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he meant that they're more biased towards him than they should be since he said before that he doesn't worship him and acknowledges at least some of his flaws, though I don't really agree that they were being excessively biased) and are therefore not objective. He says that the agreement is a scam that the globalists will use to tax us or something like that (He acknowledges that the agreement is non-binding, but he's suspicious that they'll change it at the last second), and he used the sunlight taxation from 19th century Britain as an example. He's also convinced that Al Gore changed the term "global warming" to "climate change" since people were supposedly wrong about it before according to him. I wish I could argue against this since his arguments are probably either horrible or aren't that great, but I can't say that I know enough about the history of politics (not even in the last 17 years) to properly do that. I mean, let alone the fact that I'm not that good at making arguments involving complex issues in the first place.[/QUOTE] They changed it from "global warming" to "global climate change" because it's not just a simple matter of "Earth is getting hotter". It is (getting hotter that is), but Earth's climate is more complicated than just temperature. As the total heat capacity of the atmosphere increases, you have more energy potential for storms, disruptions in the usual flows of air and oceanic currents, etc.

[QUOTE=Zero-Point;52345807]They changed it from "global warming" to "global climate change" because it's not just a simple matter of "Earth is getting hotter". It is (getting hotter that is), but Earth's climate is more complicated than just temperature. As the total heat capacity of the atmosphere increases, you have more energy potential for storms, disruptions in the usual flows of air and oceanic currents, etc.[/QUOTE] From my understanding the change came from people being too short-sighted and ignorant to understand that global temperature rise doesn't mean no snow. It means more extreme variance. So global warming can result in severe snowstorms in a place not known for them despite the fact the global average temperature is still rising.

[QUOTE=Skerion;52341625]I wish I could argue against this since his arguments are probably either horrible or aren't that great, but I can't say that I know enough about the history of politics (not even in the last 17 years) to properly do that. I mean, let alone the fact that I'm not that good at making arguments involving complex issues in the first place.[/QUOTE] This site should help you out then, it lists the common climate denial myths and how to respond to them: [url]http://grist.org/series/skeptics/[/url]

[QUOTE=Zero-Point;52345807]They changed it from "global warming" to "global climate change" because it's not just a simple matter of "Earth is getting hotter". It is (getting hotter that is), but Earth's climate is more complicated than just temperature. As the total heat capacity of the atmosphere increases, you have more energy potential for storms, disruptions in the usual flows of air and oceanic currents, etc.[/QUOTE] They never even changed it, the term "climate change" has been in use for at least as long as "global warming". That it suddenly changed from "global warming" to "climate change" is simply a myth, and even if it wasn't, why would they change it to "climate change" when global warming is an equally true term? The Earth as a whole - globally, you might say - is getting warmer. To a point they're interchangeable. I'm gonna say it was a convenient way to try to discredit climate scientists for the period where you could still cherrypick 1998 as your graph's starting point and say "Look! No warming since then!". In a few years time they'll probably just start using 2016 as their starting point instead, but yeah. [url]https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-global-warming-basic.html[/url]

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;52346288]They never even changed it, the term "climate change" has been in use for at least as long as "global warming". That it suddenly changed from "global warming" to "climate change" is simply a myth, and even if it wasn't, why would they change it to "climate change" when global warming is an equally true term? The Earth as a whole - globally, you might say - is getting warmer. To a point they're interchangeable. I'm gonna say it was a convenient way to try to discredit climate scientists for the period where you could still cherrypick 1998 as your graph's starting point and say "Look! No warming since then!". In a few years time they'll probably just start using 2016 as their starting point instead, but yeah. [url]https://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-global-warming-basic.html[/url][/QUOTE] I remember growing up it was always referred to as "global warming" so I assume it was the more popular term at the time.

[QUOTE=Zero-Point;52347034]I remember growing up it was always referred to as "global warming" so I assume it was the more popular term at the time.[/QUOTE] What's popular in the media isn't necessarily a good indication of what's used in the scientific literature, though. Point being, whether the term was/is more popular really doesn't matter, they've both been used for a long time and there isn't some conspiracy to suddenly change the terminology, especially since both describe the data well.