61 Mayors Commit To Adopt, Honor and Uphold Paris Climate Accord After US Pulls Out (curbed.com)

After President Trump announced his intent to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord, 61 mayors across the country have pledged to adopt the historic agreement themselves. The group of mayors, who represent 36 million Americans and some of the largest U.S. cities, outlined a plan to align with the other 194 nations that adopted the accord. From a statement provided by the climate mayors: We will continue to lead. We are increasing investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. We will buy and create more demand for electric cars and trucks. We will increase our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a clean energy economy, and stand for environmental justice. And if the President wants to break the promises made to our allies enshrined in the historic Paris Agreement, we'll build and strengthen relationships around the world to protect the planet from devastating climate risks. The world cannot wait -- and neither will we.

Comments

Hints of Future History

[Jzanu]

Here is the real story and the eventual history that will be Trump's: Destruction of the US global power and influence, and fanning the flames of the sub-national groups that will replace nations as a whole. The fall of the US leadership will coincide with the fall of the US as a functioning nation, but rather than subsuming into a failed state like Somalia and Yemen, its best cities will rise into global roles. Consider this Greek history in reverse, with city-states becoming the real holders of power.

And also...

[Okian Warrior]

Now how are you guys going to go about that money transfers that the former persident agreed to? $100B a year, if I remember correctly. The world is waiting.

Some questions:

.) Does pulling out of the Paris agreement prevent us from making as good or better climate decisions?
.) Is our participation important enough that the other countries are willing to renegotiate?
.) Does the treaty lay out any penalty for non-compliance, or is it merely a feel-good PR stunt?
.) Is the Paris agreement actually about climate, or redistribution of wealth?
.) Did congress ratify our participation, or did the previous president cheat that democratic process?

That last one - making an end run around the democratic process, taking away the peoples' voice - seems especially troubling.

Re:Article 2?

[sound vision]

Only it's not quite so simple. This particular issue cuts widely across party, ideological, religious, and other divides. What we have seen in the marijuana legalization movement is a true bottom-up, single-issue, grassroots, non-affiliated reform movement. It's a result of people analyzing the facts available to them and seeing that the laws don't match up. And there was no party or ideology guiding all these disparate individuals, over half the population now, to the same conclusion. Having followed this particular issue very closely, from without and within (knowing personally activists involved with NORML and MPP), I feel qualified to make this statement. You can either take my word for it, or look at the polls, or really any other hard data you can find. None of it contradicts what I am saying.

Doubtlessly, there will be political groups trying to claim the mantle of marijuana law reform. I have even heard, in the wild, things like "Trump is relaxing marijuana laws" when he is totally disinterested in the issue, and his appointees (Jeff Sessions) are taking direct action in the opposite direction. It should be noted that what Sessions is undoing is the Obama-era, states-rights policy of not enforcing federal marijuana laws in states that have voted to bypass them.

I'm sure you can cite examples of libertarians calling for marijuana law reform, because I've heard it too. But to say that it can be claimed as a "libertarian success" - how is that? Do most reform advocates identify as libertarian? Have libertarians campaigned anywhere in the same league as non-affiliated groups like NORML and MPP? Have elected libertarians swung the marijuana vote in any state legislature? Hell, do they even have any representatives in the legislatures in question?