Re: “How the Paris climate deal pullout could hurt the U.S.” [Opinion, June 4]: The United States did not “abdicate … its world leadership” on climate change when President Trump signed an order to begin pulling out of the Paris agreement entered into by President Obama last year. Real leaders lead by actions, not talk.
An MIT study concluded in 2015 that if every nation performs its unenforceable promises under the Paris agreement, the effect on climate by 2100 would be negligible, at best a reduction of 0.2 degrees Celsius. President Obama has not denied this, but he argues that Paris shows “leadership” toward encouraging the Paris signatories to improve upon their promises. The history of the United Nations and League of Nations shows that this sort of talk, talk, talk never gets us anywhere. Before it entered the Paris agreement, the United States had already performed better than any other nation in reducing greenhouse gases because of a shift to natural gas.
This shift occurred not through heavy government regulation, but through free-market innovation, slant drilling and fracking, which also increased jobs.
Anyone interested in climate change must begin by persuading the chief polluters — China, Pakistan and India — to change. The Paris agreement was not “leading” them there. But American leadership, through its free-market example, opens possibilities.
Those who can’t sleep at night out of concern about the prospect of catastrophic climate change should be ecstatic about this kind of leadership, which is all about action, not talk.
— Robert Loewen, Laguna Beach
America’s CO2 reduction
In the last 10 years, since the advent of horizontal drilling and fracking, the U.S. has become the world’s leading producer of natural gas. In this short time, the generation of electricity using coal has dropped by about 20 percent. This major switch has resulted in the U.S. reducing its carbon footprint more than any other country in the world, and this without the Paris climate accord, which purposefully was not ratified by, or even presented to, our Senate. The United States will continue to lead the world in cleaner energy technology. However, I find the environmentalists hypocritical when they won’t concede to the use of zero-carbon emissions from nuclear power. Today’s nuclear technology is far advanced from when San Onofre was designed.
— Bill Ring, Mission Viejo