48 Reasons to Hate Trump/Pruitt

[Quintessence]

Environmental issues never get as much screen time as they should, so here we go. While president dump (an apt modification of the name given the topic I'm about to spill) might be failing on many agenda items, they are succeeding quite well when it comes to helping pollute the environment and destroy biodiversity for future generations.

The New York Times recently released on analysis of just how bad it is so far with 48 environmental rules and regulations that are being phased out (or have been phased out). There's always more to the story than these brief snippets tell, of course, and not all of these phaseouts are necessarily that bad or catastrophic, but the paint an overall picture of a president who doesn't give a $#@% about ecosystem services which in turn have a huge impact on human health and welfare (never mind the rest of the organisms on this planet).

You can read the full list here - 48 Environmental Rules on the Way Out Under Trump

Here are a few of my favorites (such as it is):

"Rejected a proposed ban on a potentially harmful insecticide
Dow Agrosciences, which sells the insecticide chlorpyrifos, opposed a risk analysis by the Obama-era E.P.A. that found the compound posed a risk to fetal brain and nervous system development. Mr. Pruitt rejected the E.P.A.'s analysis, arguing the chemical needed further study."
(Because who needs a brain, right?)

"Withdrew guidance for federal agencies to include greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews
Republicans in Congress opposed the guidelines, which advised federal agencies to account for possible climate effects in environmental impact reviews. They argued that the government lacked the authority to make such recommendations, and that the new rules would slow down permitting."
(Because climate change is a Chinese conspiracy anyway, right?)​

Thoughts?

 

[Quetzal]

Because climate change is a Chinese conspiracy anyway, right?

I had a thought the other day. Folks are willing to accept NASA and other space agencies on just about everything except climate change. Think about it...

NASA: Hey guys, we found these gravitational waves. These are super awesome but we don't know too much about them yet.
People: Cool!
NASA: Yo, guess what?! We just released a paper about a possible planetary body, maybe even a black hole, that is pulling the orbit of Pluto. Unfortunately, we can't see it just yet.
People: No way, that is great!
NASA: Get this, we want to take a giant drill and put it on an asteroid for a sample and bring it back. But it might not return anything and the technology is untested.
People: Do it!
NASA: By the way, we have a 95% scientific consensus along with mountains of primary source data that indicates there could be catastrophic events due to climate change. Our research and consensus also suggests that it might be influenced by man.
People: HOAX! FAKE NEWS! LIBERAL CONSPIRACY!

 

[Mindmaster]

NASA: By the way, we have a 95% scientific consensus along with mountains of primary source data that indicates there could be catastrophic events due to climate change. Our research and consensus also suggests that it might be influenced by man.
People: HOAX! FAKE NEWS! LIBERAL CONSPIRACY!

Climate change is inevitable, but the largest cause of global warming is solar weather. The largest constituent of greenhouse gas is water vapor, and what could we do about that? If I presented you a scale of temps for about 10,000 years you'd see rises and falls (globally), but if I clip it at 2,000 it only shows a warming trend. (This is what the NOAA has been doing, as well as NASA.) Most conservatives do not deny climate change, they deny sharpshooting and omitted data. That's the thing, there is nothing to discover about "climate change" we know it's happening, and actually there is nothing we can do about it. Basically, I think the conversation is a waste of time be because one mega solar flare and the earth is a boiling pot of water. It really does have more to do with the sun than anything... The idea that there is a warming trend (in relation to history) is a hoax though, so yeah I won't believe it because you can dig around on the web and get data for 100,000 years or more.

As far as @Quintessence's points, the planet will continue no matter how many poisons we create on it to kill ourselves with. It should perhaps isn't valid to present it in the context of "saving the planet" (which will do just fine without the parasite called humanity), but rather saving ourselves. I've always been against pollutants because death by chemical agents and the complications the cause (lifetime duration) are a larger problem. These poisons also destroy ecosystems,... Ultimately, such things screw with drinking water/food supply/etc. Still, even these poisonous agents can be useful if they are minimized in use or counteracted in some way. Insecticides, in particular, are a necessary evil - as we have to grow more crops to feed ourselves we need better fertilizers and better pest control (or the pests multiply with our food...). Sustainable farming can happen though, it just isn't commercially viable and that's a problem when you are competing with people internationally who do not have to play by these rules. If I can get my corn half price in India, why do I buy it here where they have to play with the EPA? The answer is not to grow the crop or use the pesticide... It's not a useful answer...

We have to address these poison concerns on a global scale, but the climate will change anyway, lol.

 

[sun rise]

Climate change is inevitable, but the largest cause of global warming is solar weather. The largest constituent of greenhouse gas is water vapor, and what could we do about that? If I presented you a scale of temps for about 10,000 years you'd see rises and falls (globally), but if I clip it at 2,000 it only shows a warming trend. (This is what the NOAA has been doing, as well as NASA.) Most conservatives do not deny climate change, they deny sharpshooting and omitted data. That's the thing, there is nothing to discover about "climate change" we know it's happening, and actually there is nothing we can do about it. Basically, I think the conversation is a waste of time be because one mega solar flare and the earth is a boiling pot of water. It really does have more to do with the sun than anything... The idea that there is a warming trend (in relation to history) is a hoax though, so yeah I won't believe it because you can dig around on the web and get data for 100,000 years or more.
...
We have to address these poison concerns on a global scale, but the climate will change anyway, lol.

That is not science. It's arm waving falseness. The science is clear but to accept the science means that action is needed and the necessity for action causes denial. And part of that is cherry picking the data to show what you want it to show.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It's painfully, woefully ironic how people will embrace science except when it poses a threat to their religious views and/or when it means having to not live such a destructive and squanderous life that the Earth cannot support.

 

[Mindmaster]

That is not science. It's arm waving falseness. The science is clear but to accept the science means that action is needed and the necessity for action causes denial. And part of that is cherry picking the data to show what you want it to show.

The science community as a whole is sharpshooting this data hence my comment. You can't look at 2,000 years of climate data and establish what is anything but a short term trend. (Our planet is billions of years old, lol) Anyway, to raise the temp 2 degrees in an area the air has to be about thick enough to chew with pollutants - have a look at Linfen, China. They can't hang a piece of laundry out without it being covered in black soot in some days. The whole earth would have to look like this, or at least a majority of it to have such an event globally. It's just not going to happen in the USA, because we're just not this industrialized. (Most of America past the midwest is pretty devoid of industry...) Worst case, in the USA we'd all be moving toward Colorado.

Science only really shows you what you want to see, and these are the same people that came up with the DSM IV... All I have to say is you can't believe everything they say just like you cannot believe everything anyone else does. There are political motives, and financial motives for them to say what they do.

 

[Laika]

Environmental issues never get as much screen time as they should, so here we go. While president dump (an apt modification of the name given the topic I'm about to spill) might be failing on many agenda items, they are succeeding quite well when it comes to helping pollute the environment and destroy biodiversity for future generations.

The New York Times recently released on analysis of just how bad it is so far with 48 environmental rules and regulations that are being phased out (or have been phased out). There's always more to the story than these brief snippets tell, of course, and not all of these phaseouts are necessarily that bad or catastrophic, but the paint an overall picture of a president who doesn't give a $#@% about ecosystem services which in turn have a huge impact on human health and welfare (never mind the rest of the organisms on this planet).

You can read the full list here - 48 Environmental Rules on the Way Out Under Trump

Here are a few of my favorites (such as it is):

"Rejected a proposed ban on a potentially harmful insecticide
Dow Agrosciences, which sells the insecticide chlorpyrifos, opposed a risk analysis by the Obama-era E.P.A. that found the compound posed a risk to fetal brain and nervous system development. Mr. Pruitt rejected the E.P.A.'s analysis, arguing the chemical needed further study."
(Because who needs a brain, right?)

"Withdrew guidance for federal agencies to include greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews
Republicans in Congress opposed the guidelines, which advised federal agencies to account for possible climate effects in environmental impact reviews. They argued that the government lacked the authority to make such recommendations, and that the new rules would slow down permitting."
(Because climate change is a Chinese conspiracy anyway, right?)​

Thoughts?

In a nut shell, this is why the media portraying Trump as incompetent is dangerous. It misses what's really going on by focusing on the Presidents tweets instead. It lets the more serious things go unnoticed.

The science community as a whole is sharpshooting this data hence my comment. You can't look at 2,000 years of climate data and establish what is anything but a short term trend. (Our planet is billions of years old, lol) Anyway, to raise the temp 2 degrees in an area the air has to be about thick enough to chew with pollutants - have a look at Linfen, China. They can't hang a piece of laundry out without it being covered in black soot in some days. The whole earth would have to look like this, or at least a majority of it to have such an event globally. It's just not going to happen in the USA, because we're just not this industrialized. (Most of America past the midwest is pretty devoid of industry...) Worst case, in the USA we'd all be moving toward Colorado.

Science only really shows you what you want to see, and these are the same people that came up with the DSM IV... All I have to say is you can't believe everything they say just like you cannot believe everything anyone else does. There are political motives, and financial motives for them to say what they do.

Human civilisation is maybe 10,000 years old and has only ever lived in a period of relative climate stability (known as the Holocene optimum I think?). We don't know if we can adapt to temperature changes outside of that, especially if they are rapid. It might not be a big deal for the planet in its billions of year worth of history, but for the human race it could be a different story.

The worst case scenario is that we screw up the biological and ecological systems that we rely on for food and fresh water. It may be a question of degrees of how much we screw up, but it won't end well. Our economic, political and social systems aren't very good at coping with those kind of changes because they are dependent on people being content enough to accept them and not use violence to overthrow the government. This is just on the way down. We don't know what it would look like when the climate will stabilise at 2-6 degrees higher or what kind of things human societies will have to do to "adapt". Nor are we really certain how long it would take for the climate to stabilise (I've heard estimates ranging from 30 to 300 years for global temperatures to stop rising if we stopped polluting now but to get the carbon out of the atmosphere using natural processes would take thousands of years). We don't know what kind of moral "adaptions" will have to take place for civilisation to continue and that is probably the most scary thing about it.

Yes, there are commercial incentives involved in making science because science is not a "purely" theoretical activity but is also an economic one. The presentation of the evidence may be distorted and sensationalised to get into the media, but the evidence itself is not fabricated. The graph below shows temperatures in millions and then thousands of years, so the predicted jump at the end of the graph is more sudden that it would first appear.

 

[Mindmaster]

Yes, there are commercial incentives involved in making science because science is not a "purely" theoretical activity but is also an economic one. The presentation of the evidence may be distorted and sensationalised to get into the media, but the evidence itself is not fabricated. The graph below shows temperatures in millions and then thousands of years, so the predicted jump at the end of the graph is more sudden that it would first appear.

I don't deny there is a short term warming trend, mind you. I just think the cataclysmic predictions are silly when there is a pattern of back and forth in such things. On the poison/environment issues, my opinion is that these are always bad but inescapable. As we as a species scale up so does our accidental and intentional manipulation of the environment, and no doubt as time goes on we will have to intentionally interfere with Earth processes just to keep them scaling with our growth. Option B is eugenics, population control, and exodus - I'm cool with that, but is everyone else? Anyway, it basically comes down to screwing up the planet to allow us to continue on for awhile if we aren't going to consider these other options.

You basically can screw with the planet, or optimize our race to survive better on the planet. It really boils down to such simplicity...

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

It's painfully, woefully ironic how people will embrace science except when it poses a threat to their religious views and/or when it means having to not live such a destructive and squanderous life that the Earth cannot support.

I think I might simplify that to "many people accept science that gives them what they want, and reject the science that tells them they can't have it."

They'll do that with religion, though, too. Go figure!