13
   

Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

 
 
hightor
 
  3  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 11:14 am
@Lash,
Biden has done more to address the USA's climate responsibilities than many other world leaders have done in their jurisdictions. And he'd have accomplished more if Manchin had allowed it. Yes, the measures are incomplete. But they are a beginning and they can be improved with additional legislation as the evidence and the consequences become known:

Biden Signs Historic Climate Bill as Scientists Applaud

Climate scientists are excited for the billions of dollars the Inflation Reduction Act will pour into fighting climate change but urge further action

Quote:
Several US agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), will see a significant influx of cash from a massive climate and tax bill that US President Joe Biden signed on 16 August. Scientists around the world welcome the legislation, called the Inflation Reduction Act, which pledges US$369 billion in climate investments over the next decade — while acknowledging that more work is needed to counter global warming.

The legislation would cut US greenhouse-gas emissions by about 30–40% below 2005 levels by 2030, scientists estimate, bringing the country closer to delivering on its pledge of a 50% reduction, which Biden made last year. And it signals to other nations that the United States, a major emitter that has historically pumped the largest share of greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere, is on board to address climate change, scientists say.

After former president Donald Trump took steps away from climate action, “it returns the US to a position of leadership”, says Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “It helps create a global climate for action.”

That’s because the 2015 Paris climate agreement — which aims to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels — works on the basis of ‘reciprocal action’, says Michael Pahle, an energy researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. That means that governments take the actions of other nations into account when setting their climate agendas.

If the United States hadn’t raised the bar with this legislation, many countries could have eased off their own commitments by pointing to its inaction despite its big responsibility, Pahle says. “The Paris mechanism is all about reciprocity, and large emitters are decisive in setting the standards.”

Money for climate

The Inflation Reduction Act allocates around $490 million for climate and weather forecasting at NOAA, including $50 million for climate research grants; $190 million for buying high-performance computing equipment; and $100 million for purchasing hurricane-observing aircraft.

Through a competitive grant programme, it also funds research into eco-friendly jet fuel, thereby curbing emissions from air travel. And it provides $60 billion in grants and tax credits for clean-energy investments and projects to clean up pollution in disadvantaged communities.

The biggest chunk of money from the legislation goes to clean energy, with $128 billion in tax credits over the next decade for businesses shifting to greener power sources, such as solar, says Brian O’Callaghan, an economist at the University of Oxford, UK. That’s about 13% of today’s renewable-energy market. “The scale of this bill is enormous, particularly on energy,” O’Callaghan says.

More than $60 billion is slated to go to US manufacturing of clean-energy technologies, such as solar panels and electric vehicles, and billions more are included in tax credits for decarbonization, clean-vehicle purchases and household-level efficiency improvements — making this the largest climate investment in US history.

Making good on promises

Despite their excitement over the legislation, scientists say the United States must do more. Even if all nations hit their climate targets, the global temperature will rise above the 1.5 °C mark, says Roxy Matthew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune.

Low- and lower-middle-income nations would be the most affected, he says. “South Asia, particularly India, is already in a hotspot, with a threefold rise in extreme rains, 50% increase in cyclones from the Arabian Sea and rising heatwaves in the recent decades,” he says.

Mohamed Adow, a climate-policy expert at Power Shift Africa, a think tank based in Nairobi, says the United States needs to take responsibility for its historical emissions and help to deliver the climate finance promised to poorer nations in the Paris accord. Rich nations pledged to give $100 billion a year until 2025 to poorer ones, but the money has not materialized. “That’s what we need to see for a real jump in progress on the global stage,” he says.

Ideally, poorer nations, which will be most affected by global warming, would benefit from this enormous US investment, researchers say. For that to happen, the Biden administration needs to craft foreign policy that allows for knowledge sharing, says Shayak Sengupta, an energy-policy researcher at the Observer Research Foundation America, a Washington DC-based affiliate of an Indian think tank. “All of this industrial policy will create know-how and goods that can flow between the United States and other countries if we design the policy incentives correctly.”

Votes for climate

Whether the legislation will build goodwill among lower-income nations ahead of the next international climate summit, to be held in Egypt in November, is unclear, Sengupta says. “Some countries may view this bill as long overdue and as the bare minimum on the part of the US.”

The United States is where the European Union was a decade ago in terms of climate action, Pahle says. Even with the Inflation Reduction Act, green investments by the United States since 2020 lag behind those of France, Italy and South Korea when historical emissions are factored in, according to data from the University of Oxford’s Global Recovery Observatory.

The Inflation Reduction Act isn’t perfect, Mann says. But rather than carping on the limitations, critics should take the win and encourage people to vote in the US midterm elections in November, he adds. Crucial seats in the US Senate and House of Representatives will be up for grabs. “My hope is that there will be an even larger majority of climate-forward legislators in Congress after the midterm elections — a large enough majority that we can pass legislation with more stringent measures.”

sciam

It's disingenuous of you to equate Biden's accomplishments with the ignorance displayed by Trump and the GOP on the matter. And it's dishonest as well. FFS, Trump's team wants to defund NOAA because they see its coverage of extreme weather as climate change propaganda. And they'll certainly be dismantling other climate provisions as well. I asked this question, "But shouldn't we at least elect leaders who accept our responsibility for our destructive habits instead of a grifting clown who denies that there's even a problem?"
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 11:29 am
"No one wants a Trump presidency more than Netanyahu, because that is his ticket to wiping Palestine off the map."

Lexis Zeidan, Uncommitted co founder.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  0  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 11:31 am
https://www.heraldnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/37797862_web1_M-1102-24-stein-jones-754x1024.jpg
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  3  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 11:33 am
The American Greens once had Roseanne Barr running as a presidential candidate, narrowly losing to Stein.

Nuff said.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  4  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 11:34 am
@hightor,
I have just read two reports (in Der Spiegel and the Süddeutsche Zeitung) by their Russia correspondents on how Russian propaganda has prepared Russian citizens for the US election.
Nothing new for me, I've already read all about it in this thread.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  2  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 11:36 am
@izzythepush,
And have made honest adjustments when needed: open and honest.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 11:38 am
@Walter Hinteler,
Walter Hinteler wrote:

Lash wrote:
I don’t think anyone here is acting in good faith.
On the basis of what sources do you arrive at this belief?




Based purely on her own example.
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 12:19 pm
@bobsal u1553115,
Once you become that cynical it makes it almost impossible to recognise sincerity.
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  -2  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 12:41 pm
@izzythepush,
It was crystal clear.

The US doesn’t call on NATO; the US IS NATO.

Your friend with former benefits was Russia—and as Europe withers, Russia strengthens.

I wager he will stop at Ukraine. Time will tell.
izzythepush
 
  2  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 12:53 pm
@Lash,
How was Russia a friend to the UK?

Some concrete examples please.

0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  4  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 01:04 pm
@Lash,
Lash wrote:
Your friend with former benefits was Russia—and as Europe withers, Russia strengthens.
This, in the German translation, is to be heard here quite often ... by the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance on the extreme right and the AfD pro-Russia movement.
Walter Hinteler
 
  3  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 01:42 pm
@Walter Hinteler,
Walter Hinteler wrote:
Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance on the extreme right and the AfD pro-Russia movement.
Correction:
The Wagenknecht Alliance is on the extreme left and the AfD on the right.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  3  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 02:39 pm
I gather that Walmart presently has Trevor's Tremendous Troll Food on special.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  1  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 04:52 pm
@Lash,
So you are and Putin are tight and he whispers in your ear, eh? What in the world even makes you say that? He's already threatened the Baltic states and Poland. Did he tell you that, or was he just posturing for the press?
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  2  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 05:05 pm
@Lash,
Lash wrote:

It was crystal clear.

The US doesn’t call on NATO; the US IS NATO.

Your friend with former benefits was Russia—and as Europe withers, Russia strengthens.

I wager he will stop at Ukraine. Time will tell.


Why would he stop with Ukraine? In what way is he strengthening, having to resort to North Koreans who are being slaughtered. If he loses any more tanks and planes, he'll be arming his troops with Nerf bats and sending them to battlefields on skates.

What you don't get about NATO is everything.

You just aren't even worth the effort to respond to.

You are so far up the Mango Jebuses ..., well, you know that better than anyone.
Lash
 
  -3  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 06:08 pm
Wonderful to get Clare Daly’s opinion of European Greens and my candidate, Dr. Jill Stein!!

European Greens are in governments across Europe enabling and arming Israeli genocide in Gaza...they are complicit!! Attacking @DrJillStein is their latest act of service to war & the military industrial complex. Shame on them! We stand with @DrJillStein
blatham
 
  3  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 08:22 pm
From the Annals of Authenticity

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GbbEkBaa0AA4RQK?format=png&name=small
bobsal u1553115
 
  2  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 09:12 pm
@blatham,
You misspelled anal.

Lewandowski actually is garbage.
0 Replies
 
bobsal u1553115
 
  2  
Reply Sat 2 Nov, 2024 09:15 pm
@Lash,
Demonstrates your total misunderstanding of Greens. The US Greens are not a thing like European Greens who loathe Mango Jebus.

US Greens are GOP Reds.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  4  
Reply Sun 3 Nov, 2024 12:48 am
@Lash,
Lash wrote:
Wonderful to get Clare Daly’s opinion of European Greens and my candidate, Dr. Jill Stein!!
What else to expect from a Trotskyist and Eurosceptic? (Her views are chaired by The Wagenknecht Alliance and parts of Die Linke here in Germany, too.)
 

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