Guest essay by Eric Worrall
President Obama has announced a climate “pact” with Canada; but this executive action seems likely to once again raise questions about the limits of executive authority.
U.S., Canada Sign Pact to Fight Climate Change
Countries say they will cut methane emissions and try to sign Paris climate deal.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and Canada agreed joint steps on Thursday to fight climate change, including cutting methane emissions from oil and gas operations and signing last year’s Paris climate deal “as soon as feasible.”
The agreement came as Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Barack Obama met at the White House. Methane, which can leak from pipelines and valves, is a powerful greenhouse gas, with up to 80 times the potential of carbon dioxide to trap the planet’s heat.
The agreement can do “even more to protect our countries and our communities, especially in the Arctic, from climate change,” Obama said during a welcoming ceremony for Trudeau.
…
The countries committed to cutting emissions of methane by 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025, to take steps to fight climate change in the Arctic, and to speed development of green technologies.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will begin developing regulations for methane emissions from existing oil and gas sources immediately and “will move as expeditiously as possible to complete this process,” the joint agreement said.
Read more: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-canada-sign-pact-to-fight-climate-change/
The new agreement, if implemented, is likely to put a substantial dent in America and Canada’s domestic energy production industry, which may cause a rise in energy prices. Gas fracking sometimes releases large amounts of methane, particularly when it goes wrong. Banning the release of methane may amount to a ban on fracking, which would likely reverse much of the competitive advantage which America and Canada have enjoyed in recent years.
Regardless of whether this new commitment breaches the constitutional bounds of presidential power, President Obama can reasonably claim to have a firm political mandate to raise energy prices. Obama openly stated in 2009, that he opposes low energy prices. The President wants energy prices to skyrocket – he believes price rises are necessary, to save the planet from global warming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4
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Sung to the tune of: It’s Hard to be Humble
Oh, Lord, it’s hard to be humble
When you’re perfect in every way
I can’t wait to give a press conference
‘Cause I get better lookin’ every day
To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a prez
Oh, Lord, it’s hard to be humble
You better do everything that I says
I used to have a Senate
But I guess, it just couldn’t compete
With all of these edicts and memos
Now kneel and kiss my feet
Seems like you have met Obama ??
Think the last verse could be better maybe:
I used to have a senate
But I guess, it just couldn’t pass
With all of these edicts and memos
Now kneel and kiss my a..e.
One issue is the willingness of congressional Democrats to give Obama that much power. He is clearly stepping on their prerogatives as Congress, but his own party apparently values solidarity more than procedure. Of course, the “surrender caucus” could block them, but lacks votes for a veto override, so it does nothing.
http://www.torontosun.com/2016/03/09/obama-and-trudeau-partners-in-greenwashing
clipe commented: “… http://www.torontosun.com/2016/03/09/obama-and-trudeau-partners-in-greenwashing …..”
I don’t know of any politician actively supporting AGW that is not a poseur.
Lorrie Goldstein has been banging on about this for years, but nobody is listening.
Get back to me when the Senate ratifies it.
Geistmaus commented: “…Get back to me when the Senate ratifies it.”
It’s a “pledge”. Nothing binding. Like between two fraternity brothers. Nothing to ratify, verify, or even think about. Sort of like saying the pledge of allegiance to AGW.
Well our PM has certainly done his part to stop methane from leaking from pipelines. No Keystone, no Energy East. No pipelines, no methane leaks. All in a days work for our illustrious drama queen, aka Nincompoop II.
Welcome to Trudopia.
The green puppet of Canada met with the green puppet of America and they conceived a green blob.
Did the drama teacher even pass Grade 11 science ? Climate changes ,scary global warming is a fraud , and although former Prime Minister Harper wasn’t a Mr. Selfie he did have a brain .
Tend to agree with John Robertson . Western Canada and Texas should merge and leave the left wing socialists to freeze in the dark Don’t forget the new greener than green Hillary promise to “shut down the fossil fuel industry ” . What happened to American backbone . Toadies to $$billion dollar lobby groups .
Amber – LOL – I have a couple of friends in southern Utah who say the continent wasn’t divided up properly and we should fix it. They think the continent should be divided into three parts. Everything between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains from Texas to the Arctic Ocean should be one country, and the East and West coasts should be two other countries. The north-south connections make more sense than east west connections.
There was a time when we called Calgary “Houston North”.
Some days, I think they are right. Maybe after the big earthquake to come puts a little bit of Ocean between California/BC and the rest of the continent we could redraw the boundaries.
Justin Trudeau is just carrying out his father’s dream of completing the National Energy Policy of the 1980’s. What did people expect?
Less than 10-months to go!
Hold On! Hold On! Wait. Take YOUR Time. Think It Through.
The models say that more greenhouse gases increases positive Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations. That will cool the Arctic, it takes an increase in negative AO/NAO for the Arctic to warm.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
.Bloomberg View) – Last year, eggs were declared safe. After demonising the cholesterol in them for a generation, nutritionists finally acknowledged that there was overwhelming scientific evidence that eggs were not artery-clogging killers after all.
But wait. What’s this? The US government’s latest nutrition guidelines came out this month and they’re not egg-friendly. They say people should consume as little cholesterol as possible. That’s even stricter than the 2010 standard allowing 300 milligrams a day, about the amount in one egg.
Scientists are supposed to change their minds when confronted with new evidence – whether it’s reclassifying Pluto as not quite a planet or admitting that Neanderthals contributed to the modern human gene pool
When it comes to diet, though, even scientists sometimes get stuck in a rut. Then they drive the rest of us into a baffling morass of nutrition advice, in which the cholesterol paradox is a world-class stumper. Why would the same nutrition scientists who said last year that “cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption” keep warning people not to eat it? Follow the MONEY.
nutrition scientists
===============
precisely the same cherry picked statistics went into nutritional science as climate science. the result is an epidemic of obesity and diabetes. and the blame is placed on the individual, not the scientists.
the “food pyramid” recommended by nutritional science is at the heart of the problem. sugars and starches are not healthy alternatives to fat and protein, yet that is what the food pyramid promotes.
why should grain fed people be any different than grain fed cattle? cattle over 6 months double in weight in feed lots. it isn’t muscle they are developing.
if fat that makes you fat, why don’t feed lots feed cattle fat? why do they feed them grain? why does the food pyramid promote feeding grain to people?
ferdberple well said It is easy to understand that such rapid progress has brought with it detrimental consequences to our lifestyle and our health. But should we be putting our trust in a story sponsored by Big Food and Big Pharm? This is Climate Change 101.
Especially when for people who have no particular issues 84% of your cholesterol is produced by your own body and there remains no evidence that cholesterol has ever caused a heart attack.
What Canada really needs as a wake up call is nuclear threats from NK and land grabs of territory by Russia and China.
Already happened – but rather than invading, they’re just buying it.
OK, check my numbers please.
The methane concentration in the atmosphere has an average of 1823/ppb.
How much of that is from “oil and gas operations”? Can we estimate on the high end of 20%?
So, that is 364/ppb and the Presitator (president & dictator) wants to reduce that by 40-45% which is 164/ppb leaving 1659/ppb in the atmosphere.
Let’s covert to ppm for comparison.
CO2 is approx 400/ppm and CH4 would end up at 1.659/ppm.
So the Presitator wants to concentrate efforts into reducing CH4 by .164/ppm in order to save the planet.
You may now stop laughing and resume your normal lives.
Facts, fact checking, and details are not what politician lawyers do. It is the science of win-the-day over reach that matters most to them.
I stopped laughing when I realized, contrary to any logic or common sense whatsoever, this current president is serious.
This agreement will not in any way interfere with southern migration of Canadians in the event that the pause turns into a downturn with the long cycle AMO decline and a relative long cycle solar minima. The current media spin will be long forgotten and short memory span is the basis for all the policy moves anyway.
We’re way ahead of you – Cdns have already established major beach-heads throughout the Caribbean. once we get all the locals into boats and on their way to the US to Fla, NY and LA, we’re good to go,.
Just don’t count on Cuba like a lot of Canadians have been doing. Note that U.S. taxpayers are currently footing the bill for Cubans stuck on Central America trying to get north.
And you Canadians are safe on the water. Everyone know that unlike boats and canoes, Canadians never tip.
Dear Canada, your CO2 output is 2% of the global. Statistically you cannot affect the global CO2 concentration. Sorry. So why is your guy wasting everyone’s time and money when it is not a problem for Canada.
…or was 2% before GDP went negative
DayHay: We ask the same questions but our left wing socialist and mindless majority thought the current half-wit in control would be the greatest thing since pop corn. They didn’t realize that the newly minted PM would also have the same brain as a piece of pop corn.
On behalf of real Canadians (no hyphen), please accept our apologies to the rest of the world for the actions of this fool.
Those two leaders (?) are probably two of the most inconsiderate people in North America. Perhaps Obama’s modus operandi is straight forward fraud but in the case of Trudeau, I’m not sure he has the intelligence to commit fraud; he’s just plain stupid. Just look at his background.
COP21, different treaties and so on…. I wonder how much is politics and image and how much is real care for climate change and for our impact over climate…..
01-21-17
One maniacal policy leader leaves office and one or more problems moves in. Cleaning the carpets will not help in this case.
The leaders of the US and Canada, two powerful but useful idiots, get together to sign a treaty to feather the nests of their acolytes and cronies while inconveniencing and impoverishing the people who were deluded enough to vote for them. They do not fail to exude moral superiority however, at all times.
“But when a president gets his times so wrong; when he so botches the opportunity to get them right; when he so pigheadedly substitutes his agenda for the country’s, it amounts to a kind of failing of the state anyway.” Holman Jenkins, WSJ