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Trump Is a Chinese Agent - The New York Times

he big story everyone is chasing is whether President Trump is a Russian stooge. Wrong. That’s all a smoke screen. Trump is actually a Chinese agent. He is clearly out to make China great again. Just look at the facts. Trump took office promising to fix our trade imbalance with China, and what’s the first thing he did? He threw away a U.S.-designed free-trade deal with 11 other Pacific nations — a pact whose members make up 40 percent of global G.D.P. The Trans-Pacific Partnership was based largely on U.S. economic interests, benefiting our fastest-growing technologies and agribusinesses, and had more labor, environmental and human rights standards than any trade agreement ever. And it excluded China. It was our baby, shaping the future of trade in Asia. Imagine if Trump were negotiating with China now as not only the U.S. president but also as head of a 12-nation trading bloc based on our values and interests. That’s called l-e-v-e-r-a-g-e, and Trump just threw it away … because he promised to in the campaign — without, I’d bet, ever reading TPP. What a chump! I can still hear the clinking of champagne glasses in Beijing. Continue reading the main story Thomas L. Friedman Foreign affairs, globalization and technology. Why Is Trump Fighting ISIS in Syria? APR 12 President Trump’s Real-World Syria Lesson APR 5 Calling On a Few Good Men MAR 22 Donald, Have I Got a Deal for You MAR 15 Peanut Butter on the Trump Team’s Chins MAR 7 See More » Now more Asian nations are falling in line with China’s regional trading association — the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership — which has no serious environmental, intellectual property, human trafficking or labor standards like TPP. A Peterson Institute study said TPP would “increase annual real incomes in the United States by $131 billion” by 2030, without changing total U.S. employment levels. Goodbye to that.

E.P.A. Chief Doubts Consensus View of Climate Change - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Thursday that carbon dioxide was not a primary contributor to global warming, a statement at odds with the established scientific consensus on climate change. Asked his views on the role of carbon dioxide, the heat-trapping gas produced by burning fossil fuels, in increasing global warming, Mr. Pruitt said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that “I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so, no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.” “But we don’t know that yet,” he added. “We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.” Mr. Pruitt’s statement contradicts decades of research and analysis by international scientific institutions and federal agencies, including the E.P.A. His remarks on Thursday, which were more categorical than similar testimony before the Senate, may also put him in conflict with laws and regulations that the E.P.A. is charged with enforcing. Continue reading the main story RELATED COVERAGE E.P.A. Head Stacks Agency With Climate Change Skeptics MARCH 7, 2017 RECENT COMMENTS Contractor March 10, 2017 When those selected to lead decide to lie, it is time to terminate them. go back to Russia with your friends. Patrick Sorensen March 10, 2017 What should we expect from a lifetime fossil fuel industry bootlicker? RHR March 10, 2017 "The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit since late 19th century". That is about 2 degrees F in 100... SEE ALL COMMENTS His statements appear to signal that the Trump administration intends not only to roll back President Barack Obama’s climate change policies, but also to wage a vigorous attack on their underlying legal and scientific basis. A report in 2013 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of about 2,000 international scientists that reviews and summarizes climate science, found it to be “extremely likely” that more than half the global warming that occurred from 1951 to 2010 was a consequence of human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Climate Change May Be Intensifying China’s Smog Crisis - The New York Times

But new research suggests another factor may be hindering China’s efforts to take control of its devastating smog crisis: climate change. Changing weather patterns linked to rising global temperatures have resulted in a dearth of wind across northern China, according to several recent studies, exacerbating a wave of severe pollution that has been blamed for millions of premature deaths. Wind usually helps blow away smog, but changes in weather patterns in recent decades have left many of China’s most populous cities poorly ventilated, scientists say. The findings, some of the first to link climate change to smog, may escalate pressure on Chinese leaders to move more swiftly to shutter steel factories and coal-fired power plants amid rising public anger over smog caused by soot and gases like sulfur dioxide. The research could also push China to assume an even more forceful role in international efforts to curb climate change by reducing carbon emissions, at a time when the United States, under President Trump, appears to be backing away from the issue.

It Can Power a Small Nation. But This Wind Farm in China Is Mostly Idle. - The New York Times

More than 92,000 wind turbines have been built across the country, capable of generating 145 gigawatts of electricity, nearly double the capacity of wind farms in the United States. One out of every three turbines in the world is now in China, and the government is adding them at a rate of more than one per hour.