Fact-free LA Times editorial begs Trump to stay in Paris climate accord

After a six-part series of editorials by the LA Times that called President Trump a liar, a man-child, a boorish slob, and much worse, the West Coast paper now wants him to “embrace the Paris climate agreement.” It’s like the ignorant schoolyard bully beating up the new kid for weeks and then asking him to do your homework. Oh, and the beatings will continue until morale improves. Here’s part of their pitch (my comments in bold):

Now, we’re mildly heartened to learn that Trump also may be moving away from his ill-advised campaign pledge to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement of 2015, under which nearly 200 nations pledged to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. (The accord is non-binding and voluntary. It would not affect temperatures or avert warming.)

Climate change, of course, is viewed skeptically by the new president. He once described the idea that human activity is heating up the oceans and atmosphere in potentially catastrophic ways as “a total, and very expensive, hoax” that was “created by and for the Chinese” in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive. (Under the Paris accord, China and India do not have to reduce emissions until 2030, and only if they decide it’s in their economic interests. Both countries have ramped up coal use since signing the climate agreement. Trump’s tweet was eerily prescient as it put our manufacturers at a distinct disadvantage.)

He appointed a climate skeptic, Scott Pruitt, to run the Environmental Protection Agency, a department Trump hopes to reduce by 31%, according to the budget proposal he sent to Congress. (Pruitt said under oath that he is NOT a climate skeptic, but doesn’t think CO2 is a control knob that changes the weather. The EPA is rife with fraud, waste, and abuse. Our air and water have never been cleaner due to decades-old regulations. Obama’s goal was to put the coal companies out of business using junk science, even tighter regulations, and a complicit EPA.)

The administration also is pushing plans to roll back Obama-era limitations on methane emissions from oil and gas wells on public lands (an effort that, fortunately, may die in the Senate), and to consider weakening the aggressive fuel-efficiency standards for motor vehicles established under Obama. (Again, false. They are allowing car companies to keep vehicles safe and allowing competition to drive fuel-standard efficiencies. Agricultural practices, not oil and gas wells, are the largest source of man-made methane emissions.)

There’s more but you get the point. Aside from being devoid of facts, the LA Times doesn’t actually want Trump to stay in the Paris agreement. Trump could carry out everything on the paper’s liberal wish list and they’d still criticize him for exhaling too much CO2. Why? It’s good for business with a largely liberal readership.

No, what the paper—and media writ large—wants is an Obama clone in the White House. Someone who’s as cool and groovy as that hip college professor who taught them that capitalism was bad and socialism was good. Trump was everything reporters were told to eschew: a blunt and plainspoken candidate. He was the anti-Obama.

They, the media, refused to acknowledge they had fallen in love with Obama’s speechwriters and not Obama. Even after having multiple teleprompter malfunctions couldn’t detract from the tingles up their legs. Obama’s going-away speech wasn’t even about going away. It was a warning: “I’ll be back.”

If the LA Times wants to get our current commander in chief to “embrace” the Paris accord, which even the previous EPA regime said would only avert warming by 0.1 degrees by 2100, a good starting point would be to stop lying to its readers and publishing daily Trump temper tantrums on its editorial pages.