Paris Accord and America

I am going to look for a silver lining here so as to perhaps calm any panic that this Trumpian Act of knowing what is best for America by withdrawing the USA from the Paris Accord may have caused my readers.

1st, remember this is only possible because President Obama couldn't get the 67 votes in the Senate to ratify the Paris Accord as a Treaty and the U.S. is still bound by an earlier Treaty.  So, if there is a different President in 4 years, they can presumably reinstitute the Paris Accord in the same manner.

2nd, remember that certain large states can have an outsized influence on how the U.S. actually performs in managing certain issues that will effect how we reduce greenhouse gases.  California, New York and like minded states can issue regulations that force cars throughout the U.S. to use fuel more efficiently.  They also consume a lot of electricity.  So anything they do to encourage renewable energy can assist the U.S. in reducing green house gases.

3rd, coal is not coming back in any large way.  No electricity company is building coal plants.  They are building gas plants because natural gas has a big cost advantage over coal and consumer demand for renewable energy is encouraging expansion of such facilities.  I am for example, by contract, only consuming wind generated electricity.  I don't know how, with a grid composed of nuclear, gas, coal, hydro, wind and solar, they can know that I get only wind, but I suspect since electricity is a commingled energy, that I am paying for wind and then that cost gets subtracted out of the costs everybody else pays.  In effect, I am guaranteeing the wind company my revenue.

4th, the West Coast and the NorthEast (absent Maine & NH), as well as the Democratic minority in every other state, are in open revolt.  We support doing anything within the circle of legality to oppose everything in the Trump Agenda and we will encourage our states to do the right thing where they can get something done in the State government.

But meanwhile, there is absolutely nothing Donald Trump does that makes me anything other than depressed and angry at his supporters.  But we need some of those supporters to switch sides, so we have to respect their opinions no matter how difficult that is and try to convince them with hard examples that Trump is not managing the country to benefit them.