Reflections on Trump

I just heard (props to C-Span radio) a bit of Trump's speech in Charleston, W.Va.  It was a series of disconnected assertions of the sort that typify his speeches: "we're going to win, win, win"; "we're going to negotiate great trade deals"; "we're going to have lots of people enter the country, but legally"; "we're going to bring back jobs"; "we're going to get rid of Common Core"; "we're going to repeal Obamacare"; "we're going to crush [or some similar verb] ISIS"; and, of course, "we're going to make America great again."  And he said to West Virginia miners: "get ready, you're going to be working your asses off [i.e., when Trump becomes President]." 

The slogan "we're going to make America great again" is empty without some conception of what makes a country great.  Does Trump have such a conception?  Would America be great if the coal industry were again engaged in large-scale strip mining and laying waste to the landscapes that Trump has probably never spent any time in?  Where does Trump stand on controls on emissions from coal-fired power plants?  How can one give a speech in West Virginia, a state whose economy is probably just as dependent on tourism as it is on coal (if not moreso) and not even nod in the direction of saying something about the state's physical beauty and natural attractions (if he did, it wasn't in the part of the speech I heard)?  Does Trump realize that climate change means that doing little or nothing to transition to non-fossil-fuel energy sources is signing a death warrant for future generations?

Instead of flying from New York to Charleston, giving a speech, and leaving, Trump should go to some small, depressed towns in southern West Virginia, for example in McDowell County, and he should talk to people who live there and actually know something about the region and the challenges facing those communities.  But that would require a degree of curiosity and openness to experience that Trump shows no evidence of possessing.  His entire career has been a matter of "winning" and attempting to advance the fortunes of Donald Trump.  Fans of Trump like to point out that as a businessman Trump has hired thousands of workers.  Who are they?  How are they treated and paid?  What is the turnover rate?  Are they going to vote for Trump?

A central question in this election is whether the way to "make America great again" is to hire as President a demagogic misogynist who embodies the worst aspects of a system that generates waste, inequality, and environmental destruction on a planetary scale.

Climate links

I'm not going to write about the climate agreement because I don't follow the issue(s) closely enough, but A. Gilbert has some relevant, or so it appears, links here.  

From economic growth to a 'steady state' economy

I don't write a lot here about environmental and resource issues, mostly because I feel I lack the required expertise to say something valuable. But I recently looked at this piece by an Australian philosopher named Rowan (E. Loomis linked to this which in turn linked to it), and it raises some questions that need to be discussed more widely. As Rowan points out, even the most resource-efficient, 'clean' versions of economic growth are not sustainable propositions in the long term: eventually the world will run out of physical space (for the "stuff" that people are using plus the non-bio-degradable "stuff" they have thrown out), and well before that happens raw materials will have been depleted. The way to avoid this is to transition over time to a non-growth, steady-state global economy, while ensuring, or so one would hope, that it is also marked by considerably less poverty and more material equality than the present system. Sounds like a tall order, but the alternatives if it doesn't occur will be very unpleasant. Such a transition might (probably will, I suspect) require the wealthy and the upper-middle-classes in the 'developed' world to give up some of the "stuff" that they currently view as either necessary or desirable props of their existence. 

The alternative to thinking about these issues and doing something about them will be an eventual (note "eventual" not "imminent") collapse of civilization. If it does happen, it will occur, I would guess, several hundred years after I am no longer around. But that isn't too much consolation. Humans, probably uniquely among animals, have the capacity to think about the long-term future, and that really is something more of us should do more often.

Noted

R. Lizza (of The New Yorker) on the Keystone pipeline.

The burdened planet

WaPo ran this piece early last month, before the Rio + 20 meeting.

Airline carbon emissions tax: latest EU-U.S. dispute

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) recently upheld the EU's levying of a carbon emissions tax on non-EU planes flying to EU destinations. The U.S., Canada, and China strongly object, with the U.S. arguing that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is the proper body to deal with this.

A couple of thoughts. First, when it comes to concerns over climate change versus concerns over the balance sheets of U.S. airlines, the latter wins out in the Obama admin, it seems. Second, whatever objections are being advanced to the ECJ's ruling, it is probably hard to fault the court's reasoning that sovereignty is not in question here: the planes are flying into EU airspace, after all. But large amounts of money are apparently involved, so this dispute will no doubt continue.

The Keystone XL pipeline

I haven't been following the details of the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline, but I'm aware that it's aroused some passionate opposition. A demonstration is planned for Nov. 6 in front of the White House. For those interested, the Tar Sands Action site is here.

The oil & energy speech

Without wanting to have turned it into a seminar, I think it would have been appropriate for the President to mention the historical roots of U.S. oil addiction -- namely, the cult of the private car, c. 1950 to the present, and the decisions it brought in train in terms of how the country's infrastructure and cities were developed. Otherwise, it was a decent speech, but it will take more than speeches to start tackling this problem as it should be tackled. Real political courage would have entailed proposing an increase in gas taxes, for example -- but in an election year and with a recession still not shaken, that was never in the cards.

Bangladesh and climate change

Here.

Satellite photos of retreating Arctic ice

Here.

[Hat tip: The Int'l Interest]