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robzo100 on 07 June 2017
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Final-Fan said:
robzo100 said:

Between the links I put for the Paris Agreement there are definitely differences in details that result in the reader not knowing for certain what "is."

I see this as a fair point worth putting front and center to get to the bottom of, but it does not actually change the main points of my argument(s).

Please provide some examples. 

The first step in resolving a difference of opinion about how to respond to the facts is to make sure we are in agreement on what the facts are.  For an extreme example of this, I know a guy who used to think that "trade deficit" meant one country was literally handing the other a big pile of money.  Obviously he had a different idea about what to do about trade deficits! 

As they were brought up:

- Source1 (Vox: Four Things to Know...)

- Source2 (Slate: trump thinks we spend billions...)

- Source3 (NPR: So what exactly is in...)

 

Source1 states "richer countries, like the US, are supposed to send $100 billion a year in aid by 2020 to the poorer countries" misleading us to think this is specifically a US-goal. Source2 is misleading on the grammatical plurality/joke of 6 billion while also saying the 3 billion pledge "...isn’t even an annual contribution" making no distinction between that and the 2020-annual "project." Source3 explains that the 100-Billion goal "...is identified as a 'floor,' not a ceiling" which is quite misleading and/or confusing when all sources stress the casual non-abiding nature of the agreement despite meaningless addendums like this. Also, they don't mention who is on the "list of developed nations" that will be supporting developing nations. With such huge GDP differences in nations, surely a similar breakdown of expected contributions would ensue, but we are left in the dark.

In summary, between 3 articles, there are not enough specifics when it comes to being clear on how and why pre-2020 payments differ from post-2020 payments, how it relates to the reflection on countries GDP(relevant due to outliers like the US, and outliers in the other direction, but who is on this list anyways?), how this "floor," applies to the agreement in general, and no specific breakdown of how this 100-Billion objective is going to be achieved. Part of the criticism is in fact aimed at the casual nature of the deal which may inherently cause these problems in reporting.

My arguments, as they relate to individual efforts overlapping collective ones(rather than being cumulative), the science not being what people have been led to believe(and the nature of science itself), and Trump having an important meta-game of power at stake still stand regardless.