Pulling Out of Paris Won't Doom the Planet
Trump may be nuts but liberals need to get a grip.
President Trump has not always talked about climate change in a sensible fashion. He once tweeted that it was a Chinese concoction meant to
make American manufacturing uncompetitive, apparently oblivious that it was a hobbyhorse of Western enviros much before the Middle Kingdom even heard about it. And, indeed, his "us versus them" style of paranoid politics was richly on display in the Rose Garden yesterday when he announced his decision to pull out of the Paris climate change agreement. He stated:
The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris Agreement. They went wild. They were so happy. For the simple reason that it put our country, the United States of America, which we all love, at a very, very big economic disadvantage. A cynic would say the obvious reason for economic competitors and their wish to see us remain in the agreement is so that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted major economic wound. We would find it very hard to compete with other countries from other parts of the world.
Trump may be nuts, but that does not justify the liberal hysteria over the pull out, I note in my column at The Week. The truth is that this deal wasn't going to save the planet, and the deal's collapse won't doom it.
To the contrary, Trump's withdrawal rips the mask off the agreement's silly assumption that nations like China and India will actually deliver on the emission cuts that they promise on paper. And this might finally trigger a search for workable solutions that don't involve putting the globe on an energy diet.
I note:
Global warming cannot and should not be fought by massive international agreements. The battle will only be won when America's technology and energy sectors develop innovative solutions that present consumers with cleaner energy options that are obviously cheaper and better than what exists today. The Paris Agreement is so fixated on blaming and punishing humans because enviros barely care about finding solutions that would meet their needs.
Go here to read the column.