2017.06.04 Trumping Thought : Paris
Perhaps the best example of the discord in my mind about the gulf between how it seems like the world should be and the way the world is can be summed up by Trump's announced plan to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Accord. Because of not just the intensity of my feelings about it, but the multiplicity of its constituent idiocy.
First, and most obvious, is the fact that the United States absolutely should be part of the solution on climate change. The US is a key factor in the problem, and also has a lot to potentially contribute to the solutions.
Second, there's absolutely no benefit of any kind for withdrawing. It's not like there are things to weigh, for and against. The economic impact will be overall quite negative, both in terms of quantity and quantity of jobs on US territory (some shitty mining jobs versus many more higher-paying tech jobs in renewable energy). Trump cited that it was not a good deal for the US, when in fact it is impossible to imagine something with more favourable terms for the US that the entire rest of the world (besides Syria and Nicaragua) would sign up for. Besides which, everything the US had agreed to do was already voluntary and negotiable. The only thing that can be seen as being derived from this move is for Trump to get a certain amount of credit from his base of fundamentally stupid supporters.
Third, in terms of technological strategy, this essentially just cedes global leadership to the EU and China in terms of international cooperative credibility. Sad.
Fourth, and this one is extra-stupid, Trump is doubling-down by not only making catastrophic climate change more likely, and not only likely making the US more dependent on fossil fuels for a longer term, he is ALSO doing so when he's proposing to sell off much of the strategic petroleum reserve in a futile effort to make their shitty budget work. And somehow, through extra-amazing stupidity, managing to sell it off at an amazingly low point in oil value, while simultaneously increasing the odds that it will be desperately needed in the future.
It's like Trump is trying to be President Nero, and just watch it all burn.
What claws in my gut is the knowledge that, fundamentally, democracy works. Trump really is representative of a non-trivial number of people in the US. Both in terms of intent and intelligence. To do things better, we have to make people better. I just have worries about doing that before it becomes impossible to make the world we depend on well enough to sustain us in perpetuity.
Rationally, I know that there is still much that people, and cities, and states can do in the US - even without the tacit support of the federal government. And we will.
Nevertheless, a quote comes to mind:
Americans will always do the right thing - after exhausting all the alternatives.
-Sir Winston Churchill
