Accords, Full Speed Ahead

While most of the world was grilling hot dogs and losing their collective minds about Colin Kaepernick.  Our President was in China doing something that really, really needed to be done: actually working with China to ratify the Paris Climate Agreement. Critics of such agreements in the past have used the old "it's not fair if only we do the right thing," argument to basically nullify the important work and standards of every thing from the Clean Air Act to the Kyoto protocols.  Indeed, getting crowded and massive nations like China and India to consider the external costs of rampant industrial pollution has been tough sledding.  And getting the not-so-crowded, but still super CO2 producing United States to sign on to those agreements while two of our chief economic rivals are still spewing smoke into the atmosphere has been a hard sell as well.
The argument goes that we will be at a disadvantage if manufacturing, power generation and transportation are held to high environmental standards here, while China gets to pollute so badly that you can't even breath without a mask in Bejing (true story) on certain days.  Add this to the fact that China and India can basically provide seemingly endless, very cheap labor by virtue of those two nations containing nearly 35% of the world's humans.  They are the only two single nations to eclipse 1 Billion, the US (3rd overall) has 320 Million, both China and India individually have the entire population of the United States plus 1 Billion people.
To get China, and hopefully soon India, on board is absolutely crucial to the successful implementation of a climate change strategy that will actually prevent the global catastrophe that is now impending.  The United States and China are the big boys on the pollution block, we are the two biggest producers of greenhouse gasses, and we are the two economies that depend most heavily on fossil fuels.  The United States was built on coal and oil, our natural resources have always been our fall back asset.  China has very different challenges than we do, their population is four times what ours is, they are ostensibly communist, but what that means is that the government bears direct responsibility for 1.3 Billion people.  Feeding, housing, employing and providing for nearly 1 in every seven people on the face of the earth is a big job, and they need lots of money.  Until fairly recently, going green meant having less money to throw around.
Of course, as the well used proverb points out: you can't eat money, (or breath money, or keep the earth from over heating with money).  And that's the point where President Obama and President Xi Jinping finally came together and said they are on board with the Paris Climate Agreement.  China's participation cuts the knees off of many of the Anti-Paris arguments I have heard, which usually involve the clause: "China's not going to follow those rules."  Well, they're saying, as a matter of fact, that they intend to do just that.
With the two most powerful nations (and most CO2 heavy) in the world on board, others will be more inclined to follow. This is an important moment in the fight to keep our planet healthy.  It doesn't mean the job is done, an agreement or an accord is not worth the paper it's written on until the measures it implies are implemented.  I looked to try and find an article about this that didn't at least mention the impending domestic resistance to this accord, and I couldn't find one that didn't take a shot at either Donald Trump or the Republican Congress (I really am trying to be balanced).  The one linked above is from Reuters, which is about as unbiased as you can get nowadays.  You will notice that there is still the possibility that climate change deniers and obstructionists are still going to play a part in this, and I would assume there are probably similar forces at work in China.
But I am hopeful that, for a moment, two nations looked each other in the eye and said, "enough of this."  For the sake of our children, and grandchildren we need to get a grip on this.  I don't care what your political affiliation is, the livability of our planet is in your best interests.  Two of the most powerful men in the world put aside whatever pissing matches they might have going in other quarters and said, "it's about time we did something about this."
That is good news in and of itself, feels different right? I could go for more of that.