Realistically, even with the stuff Barack Obama put in place there was nothing substantive to actually reduce so-called carbon pollution. But, you know, TDS, this from hyper-Warmist Coral Davenport (who fails to demand that the NY Times give up their own use of fossil fuels and make the company net zero)
What Will Trump’s Most Profound Legacy Be? Possibly Climate Damage
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will use the next four years to try to restore the environmental policies that his predecessor has methodically blown up, but the damage done by the greenhouse gas pollution unleashed by President Trump’s rollbacks may prove to be one of the most profound legacies of his single term. (snip)
Moreover, Mr. Trump’s rollbacks of emissions policies have come at a critical moment: Over the past four years, the global level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere crossed a long-feared threshold of atmospheric concentration. Now, many of the most damaging effects of climate change, including rising sea levels, deadlier storms, and more devastating heat, droughts and wildfires, are irreversible.
So, wait, does this mean that other countries are still putting out emissions and not doing much of anything to reduce them? I know you’re thinking “China and India”, but, really, most nations are only making pledges, not really doing much.
And abroad, the influence that the United States once had in climate talks was almost certainly damaged by Mr. Trump’s policy rollbacks and withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Those actions slowed down international efforts to reduce emissions and prompted other governments to follow the American lead in weakening emissions rules, though none have followed the United States out of the agreement.
Why couldn’t they do stuff on their own? They weren’t really doing much more than pledges while Obama was around.
“We’ve lost very important time on climate change, which we can ill afford,†said Richard Newell, president of Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan energy and environment-focused research organization in Washington. “There is severe damage. To ignore climate for four years, you can’t put a price on that. It’s a huge issue that needs to be confronted with long-term momentum and extreme dedication, and we have lost that.â€
Why lost time? Certainly those who Believe could have made changes in their own lives, and in other countries, right? But, hey, TDS is fun!
Coral Davenport wrote:
Well, Hell, if they are now “irreversible,” why waste money trying to change them?