While you can try to be idealistic and point the finger at total CO2 emissions, it's not a practical target for developing countries like China.

It's not a matter of them trying to "grow their economy faster than their emissions". They are a developing country, and their economy will grow fast, whether you like it or not. Telling China to limit their total CO2 emission to pre 2005 values is like telling a teenager in the middle of puberty to limit their food consumption to the same amount as when they were 9 years old. It's just not an option.

Now you may say "But their total emissions is still increasing! This is just a farce and they're doing nothing!" Well, saying that they're doing nothing is not true. Do you know what China's emissions would look like if they did nothing to limit them? Having China's emissions plateau is already quite an achievement, as the alternative is far far worse.

Now you may say "China's not putting funds towards green energy!" Well, that's also not true. China already surpassed the US, in spending on renewable energy. In fact, China spent $103 billion on renewable energy in 2015, far more than the US, which only spent $44 billion. Also, they will continue to pour enormous amounts of resources into renewable energy, far more than any other country.

"But China is building more coal plants!" Well that's not really true either. China just scrapped over 100 coal power projects with a combined power capacity of 100 GW . Instead, the aforementioned investments will add over 130GW in renewable energy. Overall, Chinese coal consumption may have already peaked back in in 2013.

So in the world of reality, how is China doing in terms of combating global warming? It's doing a decent job. So no "@Diogenes", China is NOT the single biggest factor in our future success/failure, because it is already on track to meeting its targets.

Don't let China distract us from our own responsibilities and how shitty of a job Trump is doing.

I'm torn by our pulling out of Paris. I think it's critical that we all cooperate to reduce our Co2 emissions. But I also understand that at least what China offered (not) to do is the single biggest factor in our future success (failure).

Their "reductions" are tied to points of GDP compared to 2005 levels, meaning that they can either reduce their emissions, or grow their economy faster than their emissions grow. The latter is what is happening.

Their contribution is to try to have their reliance on coal "peak" by or prior to 2030. At the moment, they are emitting over 30% of the world's Co2, with the US at about 17%. But even when and if China's Co2 emissions peak, they almost certainly won't fall...they will plateau. As we speak, China is building dozens of new coal-fired power plants...and these new plants, along with those already built, have life spans of at least 50 years. So when you hear talk of China's already reducing their emissions, they aren't speaking of real reductions, rather lowered percentages as a ratio of growing GDP. For example, China emitted over 5,800,000 kilotons of Co2 in 2005, and 10,600,000 kilotons in 2015. Yet China's nominal GDP was only US$2.3 trillion in 2005, and a whopping US$11.1 trillion in 2015. So as a ratio of GDP, China's emissions appear to have decreased. The opposite is true, and they'll continue this farce for as long as possible. Now, some will answer with things such as:

A. But America pollutes more per capita!
B. But China deserves to have a per capita GDP that rivals that of the US!
C. You should be comparing GDP per capita or PPP!

To which I answer...our planet's climate and environments don't give a damn about these abstractions. What matters is the TOTAL amount of greenhouse gases being emitted.

So, I guess we won't keep warming under two degrees Celsius. Because it's more important that China's per capita GDP of about US$8,000 grows to match the US$56,000 of the US. In effect, if populations stayed the same, and the US economy stagnated...we'd need to wait for China's nominal GDP to grow to US$77.7 trillion compared to the US's $17 trillion.

Let me just add that if China were allowed to grow that powerful, polluting all the while, then the free nations of our planet would have graver problems than climate change.

You may think that China is a poor country without the current means to effect a major transition. To which I'll answer that their government and state-run corporations could stop buying foreign businesses and real estate, as well as not building more missiles, planes, rockets, blue-water navies, and man-made islands...and perhaps put those funds toward an honest shift toward green energy.

I guess I'm lucky enough to live in a country where less than one-fifth of the electricity is generated by coal. So I don't much think of coal vs. nuclear in terms of the cancer risks as such. I'll never be close enough to the fuel of a nuclear reactor. And I'll likely be exposed to more toxicity from traffic than coal plants.

Also, our CANDU reactors can be powered by decommissioned bombs.

"CANDU reactors are unique in that they use natural, unenriched uranium as a fuel; with some modification, they can also use enriched uranium, mixed fuels, and even thorium. Thus, CANDU reactors are ideally suited for using material from decommissioned nuclear weapons as fuel, helping to reduce global arsenals."

https://cna.ca/technology/energy/candu-technology/

There is still spent fuel to be managed, which isn't trivial, but I'm okay with at taking a few bombs out of circulation in the mean time.

Nuclear is certainly better than coal... but wind/solar/hydro/geothermal is the way to go.

Another thing to consider about solar and wind being cheaper (per kWh) is that both have quite a bit of economy of scale working for them. They will continue to get cheaper as we build and use more of them, but not a whole hell of a lot.

Modern nuclear, on the other hand, has pretty much zero economy of scale going for it at this point. If we bought in, not only could we completely eliminate coal (still gotta have something in times / areas that don't get a lot of sun or wind), but the costs would go down a LOT between 1st prototype components and stuff that settles out as standard before the thousandth one built.

Coal is responsible for many orders of magnitude more deaths and radioactive emissions than all nuclear incidents combined. But people don't care about simple things like facts or numbers. Talking about renewables when a significant portion of baseload power is still produced by coal is pointless. Let people have their feel good green tech (made in China, powered by a lot of coal of course ; ), but replace coal with modern nuke.

Denying the place of recent generation nuclear power as a viable strategy of supplying cleaner baseload power is much like denying man made climate change. Fucking moronic.

Thorium salt reactors do produce waste, but it's incredibly safe compared to breeder/lwr reactor byproducts. In fact, you can introduce older reactor waste in to the liquid mix in small amounts and the LFTR will break it down to less harmful components by accelerating decay in the core.

http://lftrnow.com/

"LFTRs can also burn radioactive “waste” we are currently storing, made from the LWR units of today. We could actually reduce our radioactive waste using LFTRs and other Molten-Salt Reactors (MSRs) (more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1fqB6p9pgM)."

So LFTR is a strategy for both power supply and cleaning up existing waste storage. Who'da thunk it??

I know, like the repeal of this: https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-department-finalizes-stream-protection-rule-safeguard-communities-coal-mining

The repeal is here:
https://www.osmre.gov/programs/rcm/streamprotectionrule.shtm

I like that rules crafted over 5 years,
(2011) https://www.osmre.gov/resources/testimony/2011/110411.pdf
(2016) https://www.osmre.gov/resources/testimony/02032016.pdf
slowly & carefully, with the input of industry leaders and in a bi-partisan way, are treated like waste paper.

B/C, fuck water, right?? Ask the people in Flynt, you can get by without it. If they're inconvenienced, it's probably just because they are liberal frail snowflakes.

That's what they get for not being born into a millionaire's family.

@bcglorf

i don't think using @drradon 's example of anarchy a good use as a rebuttal.

now may be larken rose's vision is an extreme example,taken from the von mises institute,and where they dreamily offer a counter to police with a "non-aggression principle".while cute and adorable,humans tend to be far more vicious and violent in nature,especially when desperate.

but again,i think our respective approaches to authority will not find common ground here.

i do not seek a leader,but i am ok with a representative,though i do not seem to have any in my government at the moment.

i find it curious,amazing and not a little disturbing just how easily people will quietly,and tacitly accept a police that has become more and more draconian,violent and aggressive while SIMULTANEOUSLY decreasing the citizens rights to protect themselves,defend themselves and resist unlawful police practices.

because they simply change the law to make what WAS illegal...legal.with a stroke of a pen.

and i simply cannot respect when an american says,without any sense of justice or history,to just sit down,shut up and do what you are told.

while claiming they are a patriot,waving their american flag made in china.

the history of law enforcement in this country reveals that their main job,their main focus and duty is NOT to the poor,the dispossessed or the marginalized.

the police's job is to protect those who hold assets,who have money and wield political power.

and before you say anything,i am quite aware that there are some,and they are the majority,who do their job with honor and distinction.my argument is not about singular police officers but rather the systematic problems inherent in the system.

lets take my city for example.
i am blessed enough to live adjacent to a very wealthy and influential housing development.

average police response time?=7 minutes.

right down the street,not 10 miles down the road,is a depressed area of town.industry and manufacturing abandoned that area 20 years ago.it is stricken with prostitution,heroin addicts and abject poverty.

average police response time?=22 minutes

yet the main police station is in THAT area.

or should i bring up the history of american labor movement?
where the coal miners in west virginia decided to strike,and because the owners of the mines were politically connected.the governor sent in the state police to...and this should send chills down your spine...shoot any miners unwilling to go back to work.

and they did.
they murdered any coal miner still willing to stand up against the owners of the mine,and this included women and children.

now lets examine that for a minute.
workers for a coal mine decided to strike for better working conditions (which were horrible) and actually have a day off,besides sunday (because:god).

the owner of the mine,who was losing immense of amount of money due to zero production of coal,called the governor to have the state police,a civil institution,sent in to put those people down.to force them to either get back to work or face violence.

*now the owner brought in his own mercenary group to assist in the process of intimidation,strong arm tactics and violence.

i will add one more story that is personal,and comes from my own family,and may possibly explain my attitude towards police in general.

my father was born in 1930,in alton illinois.
now that small town had been hit particularly hard during the depression.my father spoke of not having indoor plumbing until he went into the navy,and how the floors in his childhood home were simple boards over dirt.

he grew up extremely poor,and my grandfather struggled to find steady work,and i gather from what my father told me.my grandpa made bootleg beer out of the bathtub.so he and his 6 brothers and 1 sister had to bathe in the mississippi river while grandpa tried to make money by selling illegal hooch.

my father also regaled me with stories of the chores he had as the youngest of 8 kids.it was his job every morning to head to the train tracks and pick the coal that dropped from the coal carts.(which he admitted to being lazy and stole directly from the very full coal cart itself while his brother kept an eye out for the station master).

my point is that my father grew up in desperate and poor times.

but one story always stood out,and i think it is because it has a wild west feel to it that always transfixed me,and i made him tell me the story over and over as a child.

when times are tough,people will do whatever they have to in order to survive,so my grandfather making illegal hooch was not the only illegalities being played out in that small town.neighbor upon neighbor did what they had to,and most were considered criminals in the eyes of the state.

so i guess one of my grandpa's friends was on the run from the law,and sought refuge at my grandpa's home.which he allowed,because neighbors take care of neighbors,at least they used to.

well,in a small town everybody knows everybody,and eventually three police officers showed up at my grandpa's house,and demanded that he turn over (i forgot the guys name).

and i remember the pride on my fathers face whenever he retold this story....

my grandfather stood tall on the top of his stairs facing his front door,holding his gun he was given during WW1 and told the police officers (which he knew.small town remember?),that if they took one step into his home..he would blow their heads off.

now this is a story retold from a childs perspective many years later.i am sure my fathers memory was a tad....biased..but i would bet the meaty parts were accurate.

now my question is this:
how would that exact same scenario play out in todays climate?

well,we would see on the 6 o'clock news how a family was tragically shot to death for harboring a criminal and that the police had done EVERYTHING in their power to avoid this kind of violence.

i know this is long,and i hope i didn't lose you along the way,but i think we should not dismiss the very real slow decent into a society that silently obeys,quietly accepts more and more authoritarian powers all in the name of "safety",and that any form of resistance is to be viewed as "criminal" and "troublesome".

so while i agree that "when should we shoot a cop" should be in the realm of:let us try to never do that.

i also cannot agree to placing cops on a hero platform as if their job is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reproach.they are human beings,of limited intellect,whose main job it is to protect those who own property,have wealth and wield political power.

and with the current disparity and blatant inequality their job has been more and more focused on keeping those 30% undesirables down.

the poor,the destitute,the marginalized,the addict and the junkie and the petty criminals.

those are a threat to the "better" citizens.they are a blight on a community that should be cleansed from the tender eyes of those who are deemed more "worthy".

rich folk may wring their hands,and lament the plight of the poor and wretched,but for GOD's sakes! they don't want to actually SEE them!

so a police officer can do all the mental gymnastics they want in order to justify their place in society,but at the end of the day,they serve the elites.

and they always have.

I gave him? Are you under the impression I represent all media?
Edit: I do agree he's playing them with insignificant but sensational tricks/scandals to get less coverage of his administrations actions, but it's working less and less as people realize it's all intentional distraction.
I would say lip service was 40% his votes, racists 20%, DNC tricks 20%, and unearned, inappropriate free media face time 20%, with a 10% margin of error.

Being able to read well is not at all trivial, it's essential for ANY other improvement. If he can't read, he's forever under the thumb of non elected advisors that can legally lie to him about what he's signing into law.

He's already under at least 3 nonpartisan investigations that may do just that, with more coming. The only hope there is to erode enough support for him that the Republicans can't halt or ignore them without committing political suicide. His actions are doing a good job of that, but not good or fast enough....yet.
Maybe if they realize that stances like pro coal means pro coal companies, not pro coal miner, they'll come to their senses....fingers crossed. I just wish his supporters would read his (ghost written) book and realize what he's done to them.

Is it that hard to agree with me?

Your just rewording exactly what I said. Your just rewording exactly what Bill Burr said. Trump didn't win by bringing out a whole bunch of brand new racist voters that stayed home when Obama was running. It was Hillary's failures, and her party's failures that were the difference in Trumps win.

I know that leads to a more uncomfortable reality were we don't have the black and white ability to blame everything on the evil racists who voted Trump in, but it is the reality. Clinton and her party LOST the votes of too many people, the numbers on the Republican side show pretty clearly it wasn't extra votes Trump gained by courting racists that turned the election.

That reality though demands a lot of self reflection from the Democratic party about how they failed and why, and they have to do it at the time when the country needs them as a counter balance the most. The trick is, if they don't get back the voters they lost they can't be a counter balance.

Here's part of the problem: people blaming Trumps win on racists voting for him, or choosing to believe that everyone who voted for Trump is a racist. That's just not the reality that is confronting you guys in the US. Most voters in this election, like all the past elections, voted their party ticket as they and their grandpa always have. That's the one of the biggest influences on how folks vote. Surveys also show that given the choice between a ideals and jobs, people choose jobs. The democratic party was promising carbon taxation at the same time as Trump was promising to bring back coal and oil jobs. Now all the counties that rely on coal or oil have a very different reason to vote for Trump outside of his racist remarks.

Oh, and check out Bill Clinton's remarks on Robert Byrd. Does that association to the KKK make it hard for racists to choose between Trump and Clinton?

People don't trust politicians in general and assume them all to be evil, corrupt and untrustworthy so dismissing some of Trumps worse parts came a bit easier for many.

@enoch
I did my best :-) I honestly feel threatened by this attitude of feeding the bear crumbs and pretending he is a friend. Also cant help liking Abby, so very disappointed.

@newtboy
For russia Assad is a (replaceable) puppet, bolstering Assad is just using that puppet for their own needs. ISIS is a threat because it directly supports terrorist groups within Russia. Sending in their air force and that coal powered smoking joke of an aircraft carrier was a military excercise with minimal losses and huge political and home security gains. Expensive though.

One cant just send in a task force to take out a dictator simply because one believes it would be the right thing to do. Countries generally have a limitless supply of local mafioso would-be dictators or religious leaders which the local population prefers to foreign rule. Religion and politics are just a thin veil for local tribal wars. In spite of Syria being a fairly civilised country before the current events I doubt there was ever a "democratic" alternative to Assad. Sometimes you just get lucky and the dictator decides he wants democracy (South Korea, Chile, Gorbatchev inadvertently).

F**k the whole middle east actually IMHO, twice. The Kurds never get any love from anyone and they´ve survived in the middle of this crazy shitstorm for millenia. Yet they will never have a country of their own. Even "Palestinians" created only in the last few decades appear to be closer to that goal. Not fair at all.

Few points...

We have no options for serious load shifting to utilise all that solar power in the evenings when it would make a difference. And power companies refuse to trust it for baseload power, so they still generate what they estimate they need for base load,and pay for rapid generation to handle spikes. Most electricity generated from home solar in Aus is wasted.

Without battery backups, the best production of the day goes to the energy company for 8 cents, and we buy back power from them (generated by coal of course) at night for 36 cents. Our energy companies aren't going to pay a premium for power they really don't give a crap about.

Most panels in Aus face north/east, to generate the largest amount of energy. When most people aren't home to use it. Instead, panels should face north/west to generate the most power in the afternoon when we come home from work/fire up air conditioners/start cooking etc. And even then, the power than is generated is but a fraction of what is consumed during peak periods due to the setting sun.

Annnnd most people in Australia do not even check their systems to see if they're still doing anything... It's estimated 14% of all home solar systems are currently non-functional due to faulty panels, inverter or both.

Until the point in time comes when energy companies can create a way to load shift solar production to ensure continuity of power, or household power storage units pricing comes down enough to be viable, non industrial solar in Australia is mostly feel good propaganda.

And while a number of coal plants have closed recently, it's not due to lack of demand as solar take up reduces requirement for coal fired power... It's because the plants are not viable any more to run and owners do not want to run at a loss. Each one that closes represents a significant portion of our overall generation being lost, with no core plan for continuity (wind and solar are not being considered as a core strategy currently).

I'm all for saving the planet, but the science/facts on solar outweigh the feel goods. Perhaps instead of patting ourselves on the back, we should be thinking about a better plan.

Serious contender for comment of the month over at NC. Excerpt:

Flyover people and the uncomfortable urban poor fight the never-ending wars. We provide commodities like food and coal and oil and metals. We provide cheap labor. Comfortable people have decided that most of us aren’t really needed. Immigration, free trade, and automation have made us redundant but we’re not going away. At least we’re not going away fast. Flyover people and the uncomfortable urban poor have no real place in establishment Democratic or Republican thinking. We are the establishment’s problem and the establishment is our problem.

I instantly thought of coal and corn dust. You would expect coal dust to be explosive, but corn? Yep, sure enough, it's also explosive. Apparently so is talc.