Beltway Insider: Obama Address World Leaders; Paris Climate Agreement; Beijing Red Alert; Jared Fogle

President Obama announced, just one month after the French Terror Attacks, Paris has a new image, one where 190 nations and leaders came together to negotiate terms for an historic climate agreement that will reduce the carbon emission worldwide.

 

According to Gallup, President Obama's job approval, over the past week, decreased two percentage points to 45% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as President increased two percentage points to 50%.

Paris Climate Agreement - Obama and the World Stand as One

“We offer our condolences to the people of France for the barbaric attacks on this beautiful city.  We stand united in solidarity not only to deliver justice to the terrorist network responsible for those attacks but to protect our people and uphold the enduring values that keep us strong and keep us free. And we salute the people of Paris for insisting this crucial conference go on,  an act of defiance that proves nothing will deter us from building the future we want for our children,” said the President.

It is impossible to stand as one in this city of amour, of lights, of love, and not be very aware of the attacks that occurred one month ago today. At the start of the Climate Summit only two weeks had passed, Paris even now is operating under a State of Emergency.

Parisians have been limitedly restricted. No large demonstrations save one: as the world united to bring about climate change the order for large gatherings was lifted bringing Parisians to the streets to champion climate change. One cause didn’t supersede another, and unity focused, was still unity.

The people of Paris, a united world was mourning, unaware that with one week two other nations would see ISIS, radicalized fringe terror attacks.

French President François Hollande linked climate change and ISIS together stating, “The fight against terrorism and the fight against climate change are two major global challenges we must face.”

The Paris Climate Summit continued. President Obama addressed the world’s leaders, the majority, including the President, who did not join host President Hollande in January when more than 40 of the world’s leaders came together in a historic march denouncing the rise of terrorism.

Today, however, he stood announcing the role the United States has in the global warming crisis. “I’ve come here personally as the leader of the world’s largest economy and the second-largest emitter, to say that the United States of America not only recognizes our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it.”

Key Points of the Paris Agreement

We stand together, as one united against the unknown of Climate Change hoping our efforts will benefit those in the next generations that we will be remembered for effecting change and insisting those who rule nations and those democratically elected leaders agree even if we don’t experience the change we will leave a world better for future generations.

The Paris Agreement establishes a long term, durable global framework to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. For the first time, all countries commit to putting forward successive and ambitious, nationally determined climate targets and reporting on their progress towards them using a rigorous, standardized process of review.

The agreement is undergirded by key points establishes a universal approach for all countries; locks in five years targets cycles; ratchets up ambition over time; rigorous assessment of global climate action; sending a market signal on innovation and technology.

Additionally, the Paris agreement calls for a transparent and accountable agreement including putting in place enhanced transparency system for all countries, requires countries to report on greenhouse gas inventories; requires countries to report on mitigation progress; establishes a technical review process with agreed upon standards.

The agreement further calls for a low carbon future which includes providing a strong, long term market signal that the world is locking in a low-carbon future, giving confidence that existing financial commitments will be met.

The Agreement is also dependent on sub-national governments, business leaders, investors and a generally enlightened global community to which the president and other leaders have gathered the commitments from more than 117 United States Mayors; 154 companies and 311 colleges and universities representing 4 million U.S student have signed long term commitment to effect and endorse the climate change agreement. 

Storm Frequency, Intensity, Heat and Global Warming

“We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change, and the last generation that can do something about it.” – President Obama said crediting an unknown U.S. Governor.

President Obama has been vocal throughout his Presidency of leaving a legacy that mandated climate change. An issue that effects all equally, neither Democrat nor Republican can be spared the devastating effects of nature’s fury, which has increased in scope and frequency with a direct correlation to global warming.

“Our understanding of the ways human beings disrupt the climate advances by the day.  Fourteen of the fifteen warmest years on record have occurred since the year 2000 -- and 2015 is on pace to be the warmest year of all.  No nation -- large or small, wealthy or poor -- is immune to what this means,” the President said.

Increased Heating of the Earth Surface

“This new global framework lays the foundation for countries to work together to put the world on a path to keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius and sets an ambitious vision to go even farther than that. This Agreement sends a strong signal to the private sector that the global economy is moving towards clean energy, and that through innovation and ingenuity, we can achieve our climate objectives while creating new jobs, raising standards of living and lifting millions out of poverty,” the President said.

In order to reduce the earth’s temperature, essentially like the radiator of a car, in order to keep the car from overheating coolant needs to be added, the agreement in Paris guarantees coolant will be added to the global environmental prescriptions in place by nations around the world to ensure the earth’s temperature does not increase by more than 2 degrees, and with the ambitious actions, hopefully even less.

FEMA Spending Verses Preventive Care

The 2016 FEMA Budget Request stands at nearly $15.5Billion dollars with a mission statement that calls for Protection and National Preparedness, Response and Recovery, Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration, Mission Support, United States Fire Administration annually allotted for Federal Disasters and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency has a net discretionary budget of $10.8Billion dollars.

FEMA came into the national spotlight after Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans leaving the city devastated, underwater, without access, and a team of federal management officials who had never experienced the deep devastations they were asked to manage. One week, even two, of round the clock meetings, updates and worst case scenario modules didn’t come anywhere near the actual impact.

FEMA also took the brunt of a brutal backlash as politicians everywhere stepped in to criticize the situation.

Hurricane Katrina was followed almost immediately by Hurricane Rita, which travled the same pattern, and thankfully less ground damage. SuperStorm Sandy stunned the Eastern Seaboard and the usual unsinkable New York/New Jersians found themselves under water as another devastating and multi-billion dollar storm wreaked havoc on our shores.

Most Hurricanes spawn tornados and torrential rain, which travel across multiple states causing billions of dollars in damage. Doomsday predictors reading tea leaves are calling the increased velocity of the storms apocalyptic. Analysts are explaining in fact the doomsday prognosticators are correct.

The world will face apocalyptic storms unless a united global community reaches an agreement to address the reasons for the increased strength, and frequency of weather related catastrophes.

The United States is not the only nation in the world examining the increase in natural disasters, dispatching top experts to determine if a course of action in combating nature’s intensified fury is possible and if so what changes eventually need to be introduced into or removed from the environmental equation that will bring about or effect change.

Preventive measures, like exercise to health, climate changes are the precautionary measures the world’s leading scientists are predicting will slow the mega and super storms from forming around the world which, in the long run, will eventually cause less damage and destruction, costing less at cleanup.

Chinese Officials Issue Red Alert Over Beijing Smog

Beijing, the capital city of China, home to more than 20million people, experienced its first ever Red Alert this week as the smog, thick and dense, shrouded the city, virtually driving authorities to cancelled schools, work and issue health warnings.

China’s recent carbon dioxide emissions, ranked at 308 which is considered Hazardous by United States standards, stems from the burning of fossil fuels and the making of industrial cement.

As nations gathered in Paris for the Climate Summit eliciting from China, one of the world’s worst violators of Carbon Emissions, a promise to substantially lower the burning of fossil fuel, and commit to the terms of the climate deal has been challenging.

The World Health Organization has deemed the air quality, or air-apocalypse as Chinese are calling the most current round of smog alerts, among the world’s worst. Twice in the last month China has experienced this heavy, thick, smoke, smog so palpable that exposing ones hand to the air results in blackened particles to gather on the skin’s surface.

Studies have linked nearly 1.6 million death annually on the Air pollution. Children and elderly are most susceptible to death and injury with children facing lifelong diseases and chronic conditions including Asthma.

China’s current pollution problems are the result of years of abuse and an unwillingness or shortsightedness by the communist government to enact change that would combat the long term effects of pollution.

Other issues that directly affect the pollution in China is the manufacturing of cement which directly contributes to the horrendous air quality. The mining of Rare Earth Elements which as the demand for nearly every viable Green movement technology or alternative energy device, and every device from handheld to large wall mounts the need for rare earth elements escalate.

Currently China is the largest and nearly sole supporter of the world’s rare earth elements. The toxins associated with mining rare earth elements is akin to Three Mile Island, creating water poisoning and

Although the largest deposit or Rare Earths are located in Mountain Pass, California, the mining of the elements is highly toxic and Molycorp, owners of the Mountain Pass mine, have recently filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection.

As the demand for Green and Alternative energy products continue to increase the rise in Rare Earths will also rise. Every element in the alternative energy movement has some level of Rare Earth needed to manufacture. From Hybrid vehicles to energy saving incandescent light bulbs, the largest element to the smallest.

The new Paris Climate Agreement will drive the Chinese government to address the climate issues meeting goals they have set. With global nation to nation peer pressure and periodic checks even the Chinese seem willing to be part of the historic Paris Climate Agreement.

Also Beltway Insider: Obama Gives PT Speech; Media Outrage; San Bernardino; 2016 Race; Scott Weiland OD

Jared Fogle Associate Sentenced in Child Porn Case

Jared Fogle, 38, former Subway spokesperson, now convicted pedophile, is once again in the news as his associate Russell Taylor, the man who provided the disgraced motivational speaker, Television personality and commercial staple with child pornography, has been sentenced.

Taylor, 44, who headed Fogle’s Healthy Lifestyle Nationwide School Grant Program, received 27 years in a negotiated plea deal that called for the pitchman’s former friend, to plead guilty and asked for no less than 15 years in a federal prison the U.S. Attorney agreed to less than 35 years in a federal prison.

Taylor admitted secretly producing pornographic videos of children and supplying them to Fogle. The two were stopped when a women whom Taylor approached with a proposition that included her children was so livid and disgusted she telephoned local authorities. That single phone call lead to exposing both men and rescuing the victims.

In the sentencing hearing it was revealed that Fogle’s child pornography crime began when he found out that Taylor was victimizing a 14 year old girl in March 2011. He did nothing.   

In a downfall that has been called as meteoric as his rise, Fogle rose to fame after a significant weight loss in which he only allowed himself two Subway 12inch Subs each day over the course of a year. He immediately became everyman and Subway tapped him to head up the healthy eating benefits as part of the consumer selling points.

He became the one of the most recognized faces of the fast food chains advertising platform, with an estimated net worth of $15million. After a brief investigation Fogle was found guilty of sex with minors and in possession of child porn supplied by his associate and former friend, Russell Taylor.

Fogle was sentenced to 15 years and 8 months. He was ordered to pay restitution a total of $1.4million to 14 victims.

The Paris Climate Agreement statement can be read in its entirety here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/12/us-leadership-and-historic-paris-agreement-combat-climate-change

For more information on President Barack Obama: www.whitehouse.gov

Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Wikipedia.com,

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