misterdog
Not the canine kind
we appear to be nailing our colours to the mast/k of Trumpism
How exactly ?
Have we also pulled out from the Paris accord, I have either missed it or my timeline is slow.
we appear to be nailing our colours to the mast/k of Trumpism
How exactly ?
Have we also pulled out from the Paris accord, I have either missed it or my timeline is slow.
The bastard offspring of Hawking and Dawkins?Hawkins said we have 100 years to find a new planet to live on as Earth becomes world wide sauna. Make that 50 now.
Dear Friends,
Youll have to excuse my anger this evening, but weve just had confirmation that Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the global deal which sought to stop the planet reaching the point of no return on greenhouse gases.
The other 194 countries who have signed the Paris Agreement will rightly do their best to save it, but that is a lot easier said than done when the worlds second biggest polluter is refusing to keep their side of the deal.
That this abysmal President should commit such an act of global, generational vandalism sacrificing the future of our planet, and inflicting damage that our grandchildren will be unable to undo is sadly predictable, but no less sickening for that. The opprobrium of the world should rightly ring in his ears.
But he is not the only one. Also guilty are his so-called allies in our own Tory government, who have failed to raise even the quietest peep in protest.
This, despite claiming three times in their manifesto last month that they were leading global action on climate change. This, despite David Camerons words when urging fellow world leaders into action in 2015: Lets just imagine what we would have to say to our grandchildren if we failed.
And the Tories cannot claim they did not see it coming.
In November, two weeks after Donald Trumps election, I stood in the House of Commons and urged Boris Johnson to make climate change the governments first priority in talks with the President-elect.
I said Theresa May must have the moral backbone to tell him that he is wrong on climate change and must not scrap the Paris treaty.
In reply, Johnson told me that it is vital that we are as positive as we can possibly be about the new administration, and that my concerns over climate change were premature.
He said the government would use our influence, which is very considerable, to help the United States to see its responsibilities, as I am sure it will.
At the end of March, with the warning signs flashing ever more insistently over Trumps attitude to the Paris Agreement, I raised the issue again in the House.
I told Boris Johnson that the only way to get listened to by Trump was to stand up and challenge him, and I asked him to begin by telling the Trump Administration that we will not stand by in silence while they wreck the Paris Agreement.
Once again, Boris Johnson said there was nothing to worry about, and that I was being far too pessimistic. He said the US remained a supporter of the Paris Agreement, and was moving towards a position on climate change that is much more closely aligned with our thinking.
We have heard the mutterings of the Right Honourable Lady, he concluded patronisingly, but let us see what the American administration actually do. I think she will be pleasantly surprised.
Well, we can now see what the Trump administration have done, I am not surprised, and it is certainly not pleasant. But it begs the question: what on earth have he and Theresa May been doing to stop this disastrous outcome?
They have had almost seven months since the US election to exert their influence on President Trump, and warn him that adherence to the Paris Agreement was a red line for the special relationship.
Between them, they have visited Washington three times since November, as well as having numerous other meetings with their US counterparts, the most recent just last week.
It is hard to think what is worse: did they not use those meetings to tell Trump how vital the issue of climate change was for Britain; or did they do so, only to be comprehensively ignored when it came to his decision?
If it is the former, then they are just as guilty as Trump for knifing the Paris Agreement, but if it is the latter, then we have an entirely different problem.
This is supposed to be let us remember our closest ally, to whom our government has given total acquiescence in every action since Trump came to power, right down to Theresa May holding his hand just hours before he signed the Muslim travel ban.
The Tories will even force HM The Queen to go through the indignity of receiving Donald Trump on a State visit later this year, less than ten months into his Presidency, compared to the likes of Bill Clinton, who had to wait three years for the honour.
All this slavish obedience and fawning obsequiousness, and what does Britain get in return? Surely, as Boris Johnson promised, it would at least be the ability to exert some influence on climate change, and talk Donald Trump into sticking with the Paris agreement.
But no, not a bit of it, and whatever attempts the Tory government may have made to persuade the President have ended in dismal failure and abject humiliation.
That is damaging enough in itself, but ask yourself what it says about Theresa May and Boris Johnson, and their ability to get the best deal for Britain on Brexit.
Just this week, we were told that the Tories were re-launching their election campaign around the premise that Theresa May is the person we want around the negotiating table in Brussels.
That was already laughable, given her abrupt capitulation on social care policy and her cowardly refusal to take part in the BBC leaders debate on Monday, both serving as further evidence that she buckles and hides at the first hint of pressure.
As Jeremy Paxman observed on Monday, this is not a leader who marches towards the sound of gunfire, but runs as fast as she can in the opposite direction, screaming that it was never her idea in the first place.
But now, thanks to Trumps decision on the Paris Agreement, it is not just her lack of backbone, but her hopelessness at diplomacy that has been exposed.
After all, this was easily one of our top three priorities for cooperation with the new administration, and definitely our top demand. She had seven months to seal the deal. And she had huge amounts of political credit in the bank from her subservience on other issues.
All of those advantages, and yet when push came to shove Theresa May displayed all the negotiating skills of a used teabag, and got precisely nothing for her efforts.
Even earlier today, as Trumps decision hung in the balance and leaders around the world were lining up to pressure him to do the right thing, all Theresa May had to say was: Its up to the President to decide what position the US is going to take on this matter. What an utterly pathetic dereliction of her duty on behalf of our country and our planet.
And if these are the results of her feeble attempts to persuade Britains closest ally to stick to an existing agreement on climate change, then what chance has she got of securing the new deal we need with the rest of Europe on trade and jobs?
Unable to take pressure and incapable of winning arguments, the honest answer is that she has no chance, and the inevitable result will be no deal, leaving Britain to crash out of Europe in chaos two years from now, with millions of jobs and half our trade in jeopardy.
That will not like Trumps rejection of the Paris Agreement be an act of global vandalism visited on future generations, but an act of economic vandalism inflicted on this one. And if we are relying on Theresa Mays negotiating skills to save us from that fate, then we may as well give up now.
Or alternatively, we could put a leader round that negotiating table who knows all about facing down pressure and winning arguments, who is renowned for telling the truth and sticking to his principles, and who would never hesitate to tell someone like Donald Trump that he is wrong.
These are all the tests that Theresa May has failed, and if she is too weak, too inept and too unprincipled to win the arguments, get the best deal for Britain and stand up to Donald Trump, then we need her to make way for someone who will.
Weve got a week left to do it, so lets get out there tomorrow and over the weekend, and get Jeremy Corbyn into No.10.
Best wishes,
Emily
The bastard offspring of Hawking and Dawkins?
Begob! There's me bus!Too clever by half Drood. As I was saying to my main man Mr Almighty last night, the middle classes are becoming too smart. And He agreed. Be careful how you go.
I'm not sure if it counts as nailing our colours to Trump's mast but neither Theresa May nor Boris Johnson have tried very hard to persuade Trump to stick with the Paris agreement. Or if they have, they've failed miserably. Here's what Emily Thornberry just posted via FB:
Begob! There's me bus!
What is the predicted impact of the Paris Accord on global temperatures? How does the US leaving change that? You should produce upper and lower bound estimates with reasoning. And then justify your models against reality.Paul's wrong, as usual.
Joe
What is the predicted impact of the Paris Accord on global temperatures? How does the US leaving change that? You should produce upper and lower bound estimates with reasoning. And then justify your models against reality.
Or you can continue to froth meaninglessly. I think it is better to pursue a scientific direction than a political one, but you've never chosen that path in this subject.
Paul
Where are you getting this sh*t from?People need to educate themselves about CO2, starting with how little of it is is in the atmosphere (0.038% of it is CO2), not enough to have any effect on the planet's temperature. Then move on to the fact that it doesn't actually trap heat.
Then perhaps go to the fact that the planet hasn't shown any warming in 20 years (according to satellite data), then go to indisputable facts that none of the predicted disasters that were supposed to have happened by now have actually taken place.
Trouble with facts is, they are difficult to argue against.
People need to educate themselves about CO2, starting with how little of it is is in the atmosphere (0.038% of it is CO2), not enough to have any effect on the planet's temperature. Then move on to the fact that it doesn't actually trap heat.
Then perhaps go to the fact that the planet hasn't shown any warming in 20 years (according to satellite data), then go to indisputable facts that none of the predicted disasters that were supposed to have happened by now have actually taken place.
Trouble with facts is, they are difficult to argue against.
Why don't you produce the peer-reviewed studies that show everything will be just fine. I'd like to see the evidence, with confidence intervals, taking everything into account from the non-observed increase in the average global temperature to the non-changes in weather and climate patterns, to the non-acidified oceanic pH to the non-disrupted hydrological cycle to the non-altered phrenology of flowering plants, to the non-altered migration of animals to the non-stressing of crops to the ...