It's getting Hoth in herre...
Donald Trump has announced his plan to screw over the planet -- or at least the living things on it -- by withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord, and while climate deniers and fossil fuel companies are very happy about the development, there's already a whole bunch of folks who would prefer not to roast to death, which is of course hyperbole anyway. As ecosystems collapse, humanity would face a whole lot of starvation, wars, and pandemics long before we roast, so there's the good news.
Immediately after Trump's Rose Garden announcement (good news: some rose varieties can handle temperatures up to 100 degrees F!), a group of 83 city mayors in the USA pledged to adopt the greenhouse gas reduction goals of the Paris agreement for their jurisdictions -- actually, that had been 61 mayors, but as of Friday morning another 22 mayors had signed on. The Mayors National Climate Action Agenda issued this statement:
We will continue to lead. We are increasing investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. We will buy and create more demand for electric cars and trucks. We will increase our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a clean energy economy, and stand for environmental justice. And if the President wants to break the promises made to our allies enshrined in the historic Paris Agreement, we’ll build and strengthen relationships around the world to protect the planet from devastating climate risks.
In addition, the governors of New York, California, and Washington announced the formation of the "United States Climate Alliance," promising to organize states whose people want to stick with the Paris agreement -- if you go by polling, that would be majorities in all 50 states, although obviously a lot of their Republican governors and legislatures won't be signing up. In a statement, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called Trump's decision "reckless" and an abdication of leadership that would leave the U.S. "taking a backseat to other countries in the global fight against climate change." He signed an executive order confirming his state would comply with the Paris goals and added, "We will not ignore the science and reality of climate change."
California Gov. Jerry Brown, who has already said California will do its own damn climate science if Trump cuts NASA funding, was exactly as blunt as you'd expect (even though he's not a fan of blunts):"This is an insane move by this president -- the world depends on a sustainable future," Brown said. "It's tragic, but out of that tragedy I believe the rest of the world will mobilize, will galvanize our efforts."
It's not just crazy liberal governors and mayors, of course -- a whole lot of corporations think rising sea levels and extreme weather events might not be so good for business, and plan to continue their own efforts to use cleaner energy. Before Trump announced his decision, 25 companies bought full-page ads in national newspapers urging him not to, and after the announcement, Tesla Motors/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced he'd resign from a presidential economic advisory council, as did Robert Iger, the CEO of Disney (which includes the ABC TV network). Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, said that if the president is going to be a doodyhead on climate, then businesses will have to do better:
And so on -- other businesses pledging to keep working to fight climate change included Google, Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM. And then there were the surprises: Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, got on the Twitter machine for the very first time ever to take exception to Trump's move.
Of course, if he were really serious, he could threaten to take all the former Goldman Sachs executives in the Trump administration and go home. He'd only have to activate the homing microchip in their heads, you know.
Another surprise: Shell Oil said it wants to always have Paris, too, sweetheart:
Not everyone gathered around a tree sapling and sang Kumbayah, of course. On CNN, twice-failed presidential candidate Rick Santorum supported leaving the Paris agreement and explained you can't trust green energy because it's so terrible. Solar and wind, you see, are "not reliable, not consistent":
After people started making fun of him, Santorum got really angry at all the stupid liberals who don't recognize that the sun doesn't shine at night, and sometimes the wind doesn't blow, you big dummies!
You'd almost think Santorum had never heard of the electrical grid, which uses power from a whole bunch of sources, huh? Also, secret message: No one thinks we can go to all wind and solar overnight. Really! Yr Dok Zoom is reminded of the girl in his 11th-grade history class, in 1978, who had a great comeback to another classmate's speech about solar energy. The first kid ended his speech by saying oil companies would never go for solar, "since you can't put a meter on the sun," and the girl's hand shot up: "It would be stupid to put a meter on the sun. It'd melt!" I didn't help -- I said, "That's not a problem. You could put the meter on at night." Her reply? "No, it would still melt in the morning." We should not let high schoolers set energy policy, is what we are saying.
Ted Cruz had his own thoughtful comeback to Elon Musk, explaining that nothing the man says can be trusted because Musk is a huge hypocrite:
Haw-Haw, gotcha, stupid liberal! All the energy saved by the electric cars you make are negated by using a single private jet! Frankly, we won't be surprised if Musk's reply will be to roll out a prototype jet that runs on his own brain waves.
Vanity Fair's Tina Nguyen took a look at rightwing Twitter and speculated that much of the impetus for Trump's abandonment of Paris was simply to troll liberals, since wingnuts may not have given much thought to science or energy policy, but they sure were happy yesterday:
Mike Huckabee continued his record-breaking streak of never-funny jokes on Twitter with this hilarious observation on environmental concerns:
Haha! Liberals wet their pants!
Speaking of, it's difficult to beat reputed pee-drinking enthusiast Todd Starnes for a reaction that celebrated his own stupidity, because in the good old days there warn't no climate nohow:
I’m old school. Back when I was growing up we did not have climate change or global warming. We had something called weather. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter. It’s an inconvenient truth, but it needed to be said.And many of us appreciate President Trump putting America first – instead of a bunch of godless European vegetarians who don’t put ice in their soft drinks [...]
So, let’s celebrate, America! I’m marking the occasion by firing up the grill, smoking a pork butt, cranking up the air-conditioning and driving around the neighborhood in a gas-guzzling SUV. And later tonight, I’ll remove an ice tray from my freezer to watch the ice cubes melt.
By god, in the good old days, nobody went a-botherin' us with godless science talk about "vaccinations," either. We'd get polio and be in an iron lung, and we'd like it! And on TV, the doctors would tell you which brand of cigarette was best for your health, too, until liberals invented "cancer" (hat-tip to the commenter I stole that from, whose name I forgot to note).
And for some real old-timey Science Denial, let's close with Michigan congressman Tim Walberg -- just guess which party! -- who declared in a speech to constituents last week there's nothing to worry about at all, because climate science is almost certainly all fake. But if it's not, there's still no problem at all:
I believe there’s climate change [...] I believe there’s been climate change since the beginning of time. I believe there are cycles. Do I think man has some impact? Yeah, of course. Can man change the entire universe? No.Why do I believe that? [...] Well, as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.
As far as we know, Rep. Walberg has not yet volunteered to cancel his family's medical or car insurance in the belief that God will take care of everything. You'd think he'd have a little faith.
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[Curbed / Business insider / NYT / Vanity Fair / Fox News / HuffPo / Image by Scott Johnson at Extra Life]
