Tech industry thumps Trump's rump over decision to leave Paris climate agreement

We live in truly strange times

when I agree with Apple, Microsoft and enen Facebook.

Not as bad as it appears

It looks like Trump pulled out in a half-hearted way to placate his base, but the timeline for pulling out that extends until the day after the next election seems to indicate his daughter was more successful in talking him out of it than Rush and his other cronies would have liked. If he was really pulling out of Paris, it would have been effective immediately, not 3 1/2 years from now.

Since compliance is voluntary he could have stayed in it, but not taken any measures to actually go along with it, so leaving it is more symbolic than meaningful. He was going to loosen restrictions on use of coal etc. regardless of Paris, because it doesn't impose any binding terms to prevent that. So if he stayed in it, people might have been happy, but it wouldn't have changed anything.

If he wasn't under increasing pressure from the investigations about his Russian ties, I think he might have decided differently. Keeping his base happy is more important than ever - they are the only thing keeping a lot of congressmen fearful about speaking out against him. If the base turned against him, that fear would go away.

It is ironic that he thinks doing this is showing America's independence, but really to the rest of the world it looks like America is relinquishing its leadership role and decreasing America's prestige and importance.

Tiny bit self-serving

I'm no fan of Trump, I'm well aware that climate change is a real thing, and this particular move is a disaster for the planet in generl and the US in particular. But let's not ignore just how patently self-serving the tech giants are being here.

They weren't bothered about dropping net neutrality. They didn't care about the Muslim ban. They merrily ignored the unending conflicts of interest, and had no protest about the Russia Thing. They raised no concerns over a budget which hacks away at every area of state spending aside from the military, and supported an education secretary who appears to know nothing about education and an energy secretary who's only qualification for the job is a BA in animal husbandry. They have no problems with a health care act which strips away insurance from 23 million Americans, and they're not even protesting over the idiotic Great Wall. In all these things, there was nothing but silence from Elon Musk.

Yet suddenly, when the US drops out of a deal that would require the Federal Government to move heavily into renewable energy collection and storage systems, the guy who coincidentally happens to make renewable energy collection and storage systems cannot in good conscience continue to work with Trump. Huh. Weird how the straw that broke the camel's back also just happened to be the one which the camel has major investments in, rather than the various lurches into authoritarianism and incompetence.

Virtue Signalling - give it a rest

Perhaps Cook would like to explain how much pollution the factories that spew out his shiny products have generated? Perhaps Musk would like to explain where the power comes from for his electric cars, and how much pollution that causes? And Space X - that just spews out water vapour?

I'm getting very fed up about the virtue signalling and posturing of left wing billionaire CEOs with their endless travel (pollution), smothering the planet with crap we don't need (phones are now deemed disposable items - pollution). The Paris climate agreement was about as useful and cost about as much to run as Paris Hilton. Just another excuse for hypocritical rich old men to fly first class, spend our taxes and tell the rest of us how to live. Imagine what we could do if they all paid their taxes?

Trump did the right thing. Musk, Cook, et al. should STFU and be thankful we still buy their pointless and environment-destroying products. If I was Trump, I'd tax these arrogant old fools until they shut up.

Oh yes - and to the next person who does the obligatory XKCD link comment. You're not clever, you're not funny. Why the f**k should I listen to a grown man who makes a living drawing stick men? Infantilisation at its best. Grow up.

Suddenly more people care about the environment because they hate Trump. Result.

Now let's have the London mayor grow balls as big as the Paris mayor's (she's female) and sort out the pollution in London (both air and noise)

So, is IBM going to branch out into running coal mines? Rometty appears to like deep dark holes,.... she's crawled up Trump's already.

I would trust Trump over Zuckerberg all day long

This ^.

Trump is wrong to pull out of the Paris agreement, it is a misjudgement. But hit attitude is right. He sticks up for the "common man". The American media (WaPo, CNN, NYT) certainly won't. And meanwhile the billionaires weep, while flying round in private jets and piutting down a personal carbon footprint the size of Neptne (as does Trump, probably).

But yeah he should have stayed in.

Microsoft

Funny this guy's of Microsoft,

to lecture other ... better start with themselves as one of the biggest energy consumers with they datacenters for Azure ..

If you see how much more energy you need to let there software run in a user friendly way "qua speed " due the engineering paths they have chosen or inefficiently implemented ...

If you see what energy consumption difference there is between a small NAS as Synolgy with Linux OS vs a same equivalent in Windows ... How many services need to run in the background for nothing ..

Or just the way they artificially pump up the hardware spec to run there new windows version and so pushing the user to buy more NEW stuff instead of reusing there old PC ...

How big is the waste footprint they did created due NOT supporting any longer the old windows mobile ?

How much energy does the teledata they mandatory upload from windows 10, xbox etc to there home servers consume over the internet ...

Just saying it's a lot marketing from these big corporations and there ceo's who are travelling around the world in big privet super dubber luxury jets ... It's so bon-ton to be a Green Bishop and lecturing how we the people have to live

but uuuuu don't look how they life because this is sacrilegious...

All the same as in the middle ages on this regard

Topsoil

I am more worried about the above than climate change, partly because I do not know whether it has been studied enough.

In theory it ought to take a lot less time to scrub up the atmosphere than it does to accumulate topsoil, which counts as a finite resource because it takes decades or even centuries. And there is a lot less to go around in the first place.

Who knows - maybe global warming will free up lots and lots of lovely topsoil from the tundra and the taiga?

You are being unkind to Trump

Trump isn't a details man. If you can't present something in the space of a 10 second Fox News fake-fact-blurp, then it isn't going to get into his brain. He's a busy man! It isn't that his brain is small, but 95% of its capability is taken up with trying to add further gold plate to his immediate surroundings, family, and sense of self, so everything else just has to squeeze into what is left of the day.

It isn't that Trump doesn't believe in climate change. He just isn't capable of sitting and listening long enough to get to the end of the sentence which explains why it is real and why he should care. Half way though, he'll just start fiddling with his phone and issuing another covfefe. Take that swipe at Germany on his hilarious trip to Nato. Trump thought those horrible German cars cluttering up proud US cities are BAD!

Along comes a long-suffering advisor: "But Mr. President, BMWs in the US are made by Amer...." [CLICK! your connection with POTUS has ended at this time. Please try again later].

So really, it is just the case that he promised the rednecks to do this, and it would be bad if he didn't now. Those other reasons for reconsidering... Well he tried bigly to listen but, look he doesn't have time, right?

Worrying about climate change is similar to the crew rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after it struck the iceberg. The planet is populated by 7+ billion people. IMNSHO this is the real problem. There is a correlation between loss of habitat and specie extinction after we went over 2.6 billion people. Notice I say correlation and not cause and effect. The Paris agreement was a facade so the establishment could feel good about itself without actually doing anything.

I'm so sorry

I voted against him.

I canvassed against him.

District gerrymandering, lack of term limits & "party uber alles" got us to this point; where a greedy, entitled, narcissistic, racist, sexist, small-minded, shallow, populist moron can win and then get propped up by his party at the expense of, literally, the world.