@NPR@innerwebs.social shares an article lacking significant sources and slanting sources to back its bias. CW for length.
The source on emissions going up is about emissions in China. What about emissions in the US?
It talks about new regulations that must be bad (because Trump is bad) but doesn't specify what they are, and getting rid of old rules that must have been good (because Obama is good).
Instead we should talk about relevant info such as
- what is happening with US emissions
- what ARE the new regulations?
- why did Obama pass through executive agencies that the next president could simply cancel, rather than through legislation?
- was the Obama regulation to promote clean air, or only to stop new plants from opening while letting existing plants not comply?
- is alternative energy cheap enough to be competitive without government oppressing coal?
- what do advocates mean by clean coal? How unclean is coal?
- How does coal power compare to the pollution caused by manufacturing clean power products and hardware and supplies?
But instead we just get :
"smart man think Obama good, Trump bad. Smart man need reminder so smart man keep thinking that. Here is headline that Obama good, Trump bad. You no need good data. Only need headline that Obama good. Trump bad. Here go."
It seems condescending to have this headline bias with only partially relevant data sources linked.
@NPR@innerwebs.social shares an article lacking significant sources and slanting sources to back its bias. CW for length.
@SecondJon
No media bias, they're just not repeating things that have been repeatedly reported for months. Trump cut coal plant emmission regulations, CAFE standards, and dozens of other EPA regulations. This has led to an increase in US emissions.
These are regulations implemented by the EPA because that's what the laws passed by Congress require. Congress gave the Executive the power to color in the lines of the laws it's passed because the regulators are best able to manage the changing needs of these laws. Congressional legislation takes months if not years to make it through both bodies while regulations like this need to be able to reacto to the environmental needs on a timeline of months.
The question should not be why is this something the Executive can do but why such a blatantly corrupt Executive is allowed to continue to rape and steal from our country and our future like this.
@NPR@innerwebs.social shares an article lacking significant sources and slanting sources to back its bias. CW for length.
@SecondJon I was inaccurate when I said emissions are going up; they're trending back up. During the last couple years of the Obama administration, emissions were being reduced ~2% per year. In 2017, emissions went down by less than 1% (removing the shift from coal to natural gas, which even the Trump admin will not stop, emissions went up where they were going down under Obama). The US may still meet Paris agreement goals, but that will be because of states like California stepping up despite the federal government trying to increase emissions.
And yes, it is entirely appropriate to place blame on a party that is taking actions to create an outcome when that outcome starts happening. The effect of burning more fossil fuels is more C02 emissions. Making it easier and cheaper to burn fossil fuels, or to sell products that require the burning of more fossil fuels cause more fossil fuels to be burned.
https://rhg.com/research/final-us-emissions-numbers-for-2017/
https://www.epa.gov/statelocalenergy/state-co2-emissions-fossil-fuel-combustion-1990-2016
@NPR@innerwebs.social shares an article lacking significant sources and slanting sources to back its bias. CW for length.
@trianglman I gotcha - so emissions under Trumps first year are lower than any year under Obama, during whose time emissions actually increased 3 years interspersed with 5 years of drops.
But whether emissions go up as they did 3 years under under Obama, or down like they are now, either way confirms an anti-Trump stance, because emissions could hypothetically have been even lower. Under Obama when they went up, we'll assume that they'd have gone up even higher under Trump, so the spikes under Obama are good while the drops under Trump are bad.
The only way for the anti-Trump perspective (which isn't a bias) to be proven wrong is an impossible number of 0 emissions, so the perspective is impenetrable.
For clarity/reference, these are the numbers I'm looking at - I'm not expert on these numbers or the source. https://www.statista.com/statistics/183943/us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-from-1999/
I'm not arguing pro Trump, I'm pushing back on what feels like bad/biased reasoning pushed by a particular media source. I push back on my pro Trump connections the same way. Sometimes I'm able to get clarity on something I'm misunderstanding in the other's views, often it just confirms my initial suspicion that there's room for better reasoning.
Are you familiar with Thinking Fast and Slow? I've been thinking about the availability heuristic and halo effect as I've observed and engaged in discussions around media and politics.
@NPR@innerwebs.social shares an article lacking significant sources and slanting sources to back its bias. CW for length.
@SecondJon I shouldn't be surprised by this lack of intellectual integrity, but I am still disappointed.
Yes, Trump failed to roll back all of the policies Obama put into place over his eight years in office in a way that led to an immediate and complete reversal of the moderate gains against emissions Obama was able to reach. And yes, year over year emissions, when comparing economic recovery years against years we did not recover as much from the recession, did increase. However, in the last few years of his term, when the economy was growing the most, his policies had been implemented such that emissions declined despite the growth.
Trump doesn't have the excuse of economic growth for the change in numbers. His economy is growing slower than it was under Obama's last couple years. It is instead polices that are to blame for the change in direction.
Proving me wrong is easy, yet impossible - prove that removing regulations restricting emissions leads to fewer emissions.
Intellectually dishonest arguments and flat out lies are not "pushing back on [bias]." It's propaganda. Facts matter. Factually based analysis matters. Your lies and obfuscation don't belong in the public discourse and are appropriately ignored by honest media organizations.
@NPR@innerwebs.social shares an article lacking significant sources and slanting sources to back its bias. CW for length.
@trianglman I agree 100% on facts mattering - that was my initial objection. NPR listed some facts (emissions in China) but not what seemed like the most relevant ones (emissions in the US).
I believe in clarity over agreement, and am not a zealot on either the pro-Trump or anti-Trump side of things. I'm just looking for clarity and truth.
I'm trying to understand your position on this, so please correct me if I'm misreading:
- Obama policies were proven good when US emissions went down (5 years), that's proof his policies worked.
- When US emissions went up (3 years) under Obama, that's not on him, that was caused by economic factors beyond his control.
- With US emissions continuing to go down in 2017, that's Trump being proven bad, because it's not as fast as a drop as under the previous 2 calendar years under Obama.
For clarity on my position: I don't believe that a president is solely responsible for for carbon emissions. (Or most things, for that matter.)
There must be a huge number of factors involved. I don't think Trump gets sole (if any) credit for the drop in emissions his first year. I don't think that Obama gets sole (if any) blame for the 3 years that emissions went up during his presidency.
I suspect that US industry and local policies are at least somewhat responsible for the continued drop. The facts are that Obam's final term saw emissions go up two years in a row, which put emissions up higher than Obama's first year; then it dropped down two years in a row. When it went down it dropped by 2.7%, then slowed to a 1.6% drop. Under Trump's first year continued the trend to a 0.92% drop. There's been ups and downs under Obama, I suspect there will be ups and downs under Trump.
@NPR@innerwebs.social shares an article lacking significant sources and slanting sources to back its bias. CW for length.
@trianglman
I think this exhibits the problem. With a constant stream of headlines that aren't backed up with solid data, you are certain that US emissions are rising, and that the rise is due to a single person's influence. I saw that they cited a source about global emissions that blames China to back up their anti Trump article and it seemed like a mismatch. I was not calling out stats on climate, just their lack of valid sources for what they published.
Searching the web now....looks like US emissions from energy consumption peaked in 2007 and have been trending down since. Not every year, but as a pattern per Statista.com and every other site I've seen in checking just now. And 2017 after Trump's election they were the lowest since 1990. As we're still in 2018, I suppose we only have speculation about what this year's numbers will be.
Stats show that GLOBAL emissions are up (science daily, yesterday) . If Trump is responsible for global emissions increasing while US emissions decrease, that's odd.
Bloomberg reported in September that the US is still on track to meet some Paris climate goals, despite the presidents rejection of the Paris accord. I've read that we're making better progress toward the goals than nations that are still on board with the whole agreement.
I didn't know the data, but was just pointing out that they didn't back up their claims, but this is more evidence that the constant drumbeat of unsubstantiated headlines leads us to believe certain things that may not be backed up by the data. Things can become Common Knowledge without even being factually correct.
I'm glad to see that US emissions are down. That says little about Trump, as I don't believe a president is the sole or even primary factor in carbon emissions. But it definitely says something about NPR and how we process the news.