Pirate's Cove

Anthropogenic climate change is an issue that continuously polls last or near last on lists of issues American citizens care about. Raw Story says questions on climate change aren’t sexy enough, so, they are ignored. Nope. Most people just don’t care in the face of real concerns. Which leads to Excitable Greg Sargent at the Washington Post

Memo to debate moderators: Ask questions about climate change this time. A lot is riding on it.

Donald Trump believes climate science is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese to rob America blind, and he vows to try to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord immediately upon being elected president. Meanwhile, as Coral Davenport recently reported, world leaders have been trying to figure out if there is a way to lock in major countries behind the global deal before Trump can do that, because such an action could badly weaken the deal’s long term success.

In other words, international leaders are literally scrambling around to salvage the planet’s long-term prospects from Donald Trump. If he were to try to pull us out, it could not only deal a debilitating blow to the deal itself; one expert has warned it could also precipitate a diplomatic crisis.

If only there were an exceptionally high profile setting in which Trump might be pressed to detail his views on these matters.

Obviously, he’s referring to the presidential candidate debate on Monday night, and he wants questions asked (I guess to bore people?)

…the positions of the presidential candidates on climate issues could have vastly more real world significance than they might have four years ago. Take the Paris accord. It’s not clear yet whether Trump could succeed in withdrawing the U.S. from the deal in the short term, but even if he didn’t, there are other ways that Trump could frustrate its progress, simply by refusing to participate in international meetings about it or by refusing to submit reports documenting U.S. contributions to it.

All Trump needs to do is sign a paper that says “The U.S. will not participate in the Paris accord.” It’s that easy, since it is not a treaty requiring Congressional approval, hence, no force of law.

Then there’s Obama’s Clean Power Plan, a rule that imposes targets on states for the reduction of carbon emissions from existing power plants. The plan is currently held up in the courts, but if it ends up proceeding, it will be key to long term efforts to reduce carbon pollution, and to meeting our commitments as part of the global deal. Trump has vowed to repeal the rule, along with untold other regulations, but that might be harder than it looks. Still, there are various ways he could undermine it.

Again, Trump could simply use his pen to wipe it out, since it is not something passed by Congress. And liberals would have no standing to complain, after all the times Obama used executive actions, including those in contradiction to the law.

The debate moderators would do us all a service by prodding the candidates to discuss and illuminate these differences. A lot is riding on them — perhaps even more than on whether Trump comes across as “presidential” and Clinton comes across as “likeable,” if such a thing is possible.

Yes, perhaps they could ask Hillary how her plan will increase the energy costs, food costs, cost of living, remove their liberty, and increase the power of government over everything. How it will put people out of work. So, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Trump could frame it all in a manner that will highlight exactly how much the policies of the Cult of Climastrology will hurt average citizens. Perhaps it is high time we actually had this debate beyond the “spreading awareness” stage, and outside of the pages of the Opinion section, where people who write about how we have to Do Something are not only being hypocrites, but make enough money that the policies wouldn’t really harm them.