President Trump’s speech on the Paris Agreement was full of confusion and bogus claims

President Trump’s speech yesterday about the Paris Agreement on climate change was full of confusion and bogus claims.

President Donald Trump.

The key passage from the President’s speech was: “Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord…but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers. So we’re getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine.”

It is not clear what this means. Article 28 of the Paris Agreement (PDF) states that any Party wishing to withdraw would need to wait at least three years from 4 November 2016, the date it came into force, and that the process would take 12 months. This means the earliest that the United States could complete its withdrawal would be on 4 November 2020, the day after the next Presidential election. So it is not possible for the United States to withdraw immediately.

Read the story - “President Trump’s speech on the Paris Agreement was full of confusion and bogus claims.”

Jay Weatherill's big energy call is a survivalist fix of last resort

 You really can’t accuse Weatherill of impatience, or
 going off half-cocked. Tuesday’s landing point
has been more than 10 years in the making. 

If you happen to be looking on at events in South Australia on Tuesday with confusion, let’s keep it simple.

Think of South Australia as an energy survivalist, battening down the hatches and hoarding the canned goods, and perhaps it will start to make more sense.

On Tuesday, the SA premier, Jay Weatherill, committed to sourcing $550m worth of canned goods. A new gas-fired power plant. A massive new battery farm. A “fix” to boost gas supply. New ministerial powers to direct generators and the energy market operator.

A whole lot of canned goods, right there.

Before we conclude something has gone horribly awry in challenging times, let’s be very clear. The SA government has been left with little choice.

Over the past six months or so, the state grid has been exposed as unreliable.

Reading the likely trends, the SA government has made the decision the state can’t be in the position of relying on Victoria for power in emergencies, because Victoria is going to encounter its own reliability problems once the Hazelwood coal-fired plant shuts down.

Read Katherine Murphy’s story on The Guardian - “Jay Weatherill's big energy call is a survivalist fix of last resort.”

The confusion and clarity of what you see

Spiritual teacher and intuitive healer Matt Kahn (pictured) said:

“Most people do not see their beliefs. Instead, their beliefs tell them what they see. This is the simple difference between clarity and confusion.”

'Bring it on!' - confusion between climate and weather

S

ome welcome global warming, saying “Bring it on!”

Those same people argue they enjoy warm weather and would prefer that things were hotter, rather than cooler.

The trouble is, they argue in ignorance for they confuse the weather with climate and while an increase of a degree or two often makes for a more pleasant “here”, that same one or two degree increase globally can bring catastrophe.

Read more about this confusion in Elizabeth Farrelly’s piece in The Sydney Morning Herald - “Two degrees or four? It's a personal choice for survival in the near future”.

Oh! The confusion of climate change

In Australia is was droughts
 and floods and now in the
 U.S. it is a cold snap.

Climate change confuses many for rarely is it consistent and therefore understandable.

It wracked Australia with a decade-long drought, followed that up with record floods in the north and the  south, disabled many parts of the world with record making heatwaves, swooped in with cyclones of unprecedented power and now in eastern USA people are being left shivering as a cold snap described as “astonishing and dangerous” descends.

A report entitled: “An astonishing, dangerous cold snap isabout to descend in the U.S.” published in The Washington Post tells of the storm’s ferocity.

Stone's avoidance understandable

Efforts to have the Federal Member for Murray, Sharman Stone, join us Beneath the Wisteria have been met with only avoidance and in reading this story in The Guardian, it is clear why.

The Guardian's Oliver
Milman in Melbourne.

Federal Coalition plans to combat climate change are not only inappropriate, but clearly inadequate.

The story, headed “Abbott's tree-planting plan not enough to combat climate change, study says”, quotes a report that warns that in absence of significant cuts to fossil fuel emissions would undermine any attempt to store carbon in trees and soils would be fruitless.

The report, entitled “Untangling the Confusion Around Land Carbon Science and Climate Change Mitigation Policy”, says that there is public confusion over the offsetting of carbon emissions by carbon “sinks” such as forests.