Trump Digs Coal
One day soon we may come to revile Trump for reasons even greater than what he’s doing to the environment. Treason comes immediately to mind.
In any case, a second report just showed 2018 as having the highest carbon emissions on record. And Donald Trump’s response? Build more coal plants. Yes, his own administration found that climate change is causing catastrophic damage to the U.S, but Trump remains on a tear to roll back regulations that will ultimately make it easier to build new coal-fired power plants.
That a hideous human being is doing that is not in the least surprising. That nearly 40% of Americans still support him is, however, astounding.
Craig,
Lately, your rants against the President have a least been referenced to some publication, (usually obscure or Facebook) but now you seem to abandoned even that practice, favouring instead;
” a second report just showed 2018 as having the highest carbon emissions on record”.
What report, where, and who was the author ? This information is all deemed unnecessary to justify the President, Coal Industry and millions of Americans guilty of “treason” !
You’ve become fixated on the evils of a President you obsess about to the point where you are no longer rational in your hatreds.
I realize it’s hard to discover your advocacy and ideology are proven inaccurate and erroneous, but it’s time to stop ranting and restructure your activism in tune with changing circumstances.
The truth is nations need energy to grow. Their citizens demand economic growth and the best and most economical forms of energy are oil, natural gas and coal. Other forms of energy, such as nuclear, solar, wind, hydro and geo-thermal all can be valuable contributors where location and circumstances permit, but right now fossil fuels still provide the engines of growth.
All though clean tech solution in the usage of energy are useful in reducing demand, the really significant reductions of climate change emissions can only be made at the point of generation.
The Paris Accord has proved one important reality, this sort of talkfest and “symbolic” agreement is a waste of time and money. It was never designed to really produce any practical result, outside of inflating a few politicians ego’s.
Even the most virulent enemy of President Trump, the New York Times, has been forced to lament “Even as coal has fallen out of favor in some markets, the rise in emissions has been driven by stronger demand for natural gas and oil, scientists said. And even as the use of renewable energy like solar and wind power has expanded exponentially, it has not been enough to offset the increased use of fossil fuels”.
This is not due to any “big oil” lobbying etc, just the realities of economics, social aspirations, and renewable inadequacies.
Not one of the G20 countries has met the CO2 emissions targets pledged in the Paris deal agreement, (although the US is the closest). President Barack Obama’s boast that his Paris agreement would be “an historic enduring agreement that reduces global carbon pollution and sets the world on a course to a low-carbon future”, has been revealed as the meaningless sham it always intended to be.
It’s very hard to see a dream (no matter how flawed) crumble and collapse into dust.
It’s even harder to accept that President Trump was right to reject such an absurdly impractical, hypocritical agreement.
If emissions are continuing to rise, and there can be no doubt that’s true, then t reductions at user level, although important, are not sufficient to provide the sort of major reductions required.
That can only occur by reducing emissions at the source of generation.
What has become obvious, once all the vested interests, hype and ideology is cleared away, is there are only two approaches to resolving the problem of reducing and even reversing the growth of climate change emissions.
I class these as the ‘Practical’, and ‘Impractical’;
1) Impractical. Persist with the same failed policies. Campaigns for carbon taxes, heavily subsidized renewable generation, banning nuclear, coal and fossil fuels, promoting a social revolution etc. Substituting “moral indignation” for reality.
2) Incorporate advanced Clean(er)Coal and hyper-efficient fossil fuel technology, with advanced nuclear (thorium) technology and an integrated smart use of renewables, including advanced user technologies. By harnessing the dramatic emission reductions available from Clean Coal tech, with the use of by-products to reduce emissions from other industries,huge emission reduction are possible without economic or social disruption.
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That’s the challenge facing every politician in major industrialized nations, every citizen of the world.
There are just two choices. The environment doesn’t care which we choose, only we care about what sort of environment we want for ourselves and our children.
It’s very important for all environmental advocates to support the rapid introduction and deployment of Clean Coal technology.
Clean coal technology could reduce total global emissions from all sources by as much as 17%!
Such a reduction would reduce global emissions to the level the 1920’s. Even more reductions would occur by facilitate the growth of integrated renewables and user reductions such as EV’s etc.
President Trump may have many flaws and disagreeable personality traits, but if the Democrats waste time and energy to the detriment of the economy destroying the President’s agenda, and American prosperity out of sheer spite, the American people won’t thank them for their efforts in 2020.