Wow (not in a good way) . . . Earlier, I watched (online) Trump’s Rose Garden speech announcing the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.  Todd Stern, the former chief climate negotiator for the US and person in the lead for the US of creating the Climate Agreement, already posted an op-ed piece about the withdrawal announcement in the Washington Post, which probably expresses the sentiment of many, including myself.

As on other occasions, Trump’s speech was internally contradictory — according to the speech, the Paris Agreement requires draconian measures, but at the same time also requires nothing (of course – it’s non-binding in regard to its key emission reduction commitments).  He also said that the Agreement does little to cut emissions, but then at the end he railed against it because it is just a starting point (which is accurate) and that later emission reduction commitments will get more stringent.  All of this can only be described as incoherence and contradiction in action.  Yet, it is probably consistent for an individual who believes that climate change science is a hoax and that none of the international efforts really matter.  And it is also consistent with Trump’s campaign promises.