The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Sunday, December 2, 2018

"I don't believe it." "I'm very smart."

Is he really as stupid as he seems to be?

Or is it all some kind of act?

And in which case is he more despicable and wholly unfit for the job?

As if to justify his dismissal of the report, Trump explained that smart people realize that if there were a problem US cuts to emissions would do no good so long as the rest of the world refused to cut emissions and continued to contribute to the problem.

A reporter pointed out that the whole rest of the world signed onto and still supports the Paris Accords, while the US under Trump and his government is the only country to have reneged on its commitments under that accord.

US alone in not supporting climate language in G20 communique

The United States was notably alone in not agreeing to part of a joint statement from the G20 summit regarding climate change.

A clause in an agreement says the US “reiterates its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and affirms its strong commitment to economic growth and energy access and security, utilizing all energy sources and technologies, while protecting the environment.”

The communique document obtained by CNN includes a section on climate that says signatories to the Paris climate accord reaffirm the agreement “is irreversible and commit to its full implementation, reflecting common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances.”

Donald Trump buried a climate change report because 'I don't believe it'

President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed a study produced by his own administration, involving 13 federal agencies and more than 300 leading climate scientists, warning of the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change.

Why, you ask?

"I don't believe it," Trump told reporters on Monday, adding that he had read "some" of the report.

. . . .

Just over eight years ago, he tweeted this: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." 

In 2014, he penned this tweet: "It's late in July and it is really cold outside in New York. Where the hell is GLOBAL WARMING??? We need some fast! It's now CLIMATE CHANGE."

And then, this from last Wednesday: "Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?"


(Here are 20 more times in which Trump has dismissed the idea of global warming and/or climate change.)


All of which brings me to last Friday -- 48 hours after Trump's how-can-the-world's-climate-be-changing-if-it's-cold-in-half-the-country-on-one-day tweet -- and the moved-up release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment.


If you missed the study's release, well, that was the point. 


It was originally slated to be made public next month but was suddenly released on the day after Thanksgiving, aka Black Friday, when the country shops, eats, hangs with family and pays a total of zero attention to what's going on in politics. 

Outside of Christmas and the actual day of Thanksgiving, there's no better day to drop bad news that you don't want people to see.

Because there are VERY few coincidences in politics, the decision to speed up the release of the report to the day after Thanksgiving -- rather than, say, today -- was clearly a move by the administration to cover up what they see to be bad news. 


Or, better put, news that challenges Trump's fact-free position that all of this talk of global warming and climate change is belied by, uh, the fact that it was cold in the Northeast on the day before Thanksgiving.

Trump Says He’s Too Intelligent to Believe Climate Change Report

The Trump administration’s effort to delegitimize its own climate change report continued Tuesday night, with President Trump declaring himself not a “believer” of the 1,600-page National Climate Assessment, which paints a dire picture of the coming effects of global warming.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Trump cited his own “high levels of intelligence” when asked why he was skeptical of the report, which was prepared with the input of 13 different federal agencies and 300 scientists. 

“One of the problems that a lot of people like myself — we have very high levels of intelligence, but we’re not necessarily such believers,” Trump said.

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