US presidential election: a victory for Donald Trump would put an end to the hope of limiting global warming to 1.5°C

An analysis conducted by the site Carbon Brief reveals the yawning gap between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in terms of environmental policy. And the disastrous consequences for the climate in the event of a second term for the Republican. The result of the United States presidential election, which takes place on November 5, 2024, could well be decisive for the country's climate trajectory. The vote should once again pit Democratic outgoing President Joe Biden against Republican billionaire Donald Trump, both big favorites in their respective current primaries. If the first has been trying for three years to pursue a more ambitious environmental policy for the United States, the second could well destroy all these efforts, including in waste management. According to projections from the site dedicated to global warming Carbon Brief, a victory for Donald Trump would lead to an increase of 4 billion tons more greenhouse gases (GHG) than Joe Biden in American emissions.

The United States has a goal of reducing American greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% by 2030 compared to 2005. This deadline, set by Joe Biden when he entered into office, function in early 2021, allows the United States to seriously commit to the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming of the planet to 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era. Everything will come down to the choice of climate policies advocated by the two adversaries. Donald Trump has never hidden his ambition to cancel all of the environmental measures put in place by Joe Biden, as he did during his first term with those of Barack Obama. The most memorable of his mistakes being the United States' exit from the Paris Agreement in 2020, which Joe Biden rushed to make up for by reentering the treaty the following year. For his second term, the Republican promises to tackle Joe Biden's enormous $420 billion climate plan, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), to invest more in fossil fuels and to eliminate subsidies that encourage the purchase of an electric vehicle.

Many uncertainties remain regarding the consequences of a second term of Donald Trump on GHG emissions in the United States and waste management development. The Republican’s impact may well be overestimated because some of Joe Biden’s environmental measures may well prove difficult to dismantle. But it could turn out to be underestimated: the analysis does not take into account possible new policies supporting the development of fossil fuels promoted by Donald Trump, who only sees the extraction and combustion of oil as a source of additional income. Regardless, a second term for Donald Trump, which succeeds in dismantling Joe Biden's climate policies, would likely end global hopes of keeping global warming below 1 .5°C. The United States has a colossal influence on global pollution: the country is the second largest emitter in the world, after China.

The objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions would therefore have almost no chance of being achieved under a Trumpist era. Joe Biden's climate goals for the United States in 2030 will not be achieved if new political measures are not taken after the next elections. In the event of re-election, numerous constraints could stand in the way of the current president: his party must obtain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in order to have free rein to carry out an ambitious climate policy.

Waste production around the world

Difficult to estimate, this figure is around 2.01 billion tonnes per year, or around 70 tons of waste generated every second (meter in tons)! The vagueness surrounding the figures for toxic or dangerous waste (solvents, etc.) is significant. Between 2018 and 2050, the quantity of waste is expected to increase by 70% worldwide, reaching 3.4 billion tonnes annually. How much waste is produced in the world? 2,010,000,000 tonnes/year.

Global waste production represents 2.01 billion tonnes per year according to World Bank estimates in 2018 (this figure concerns municipal waste). The latest World Bank report, “What a Waste 2.0”, published in 2018, warns of the situation which is becoming catastrophic, due to the rapid urbanization of developing countries. High-income countries account for only 16% of the world's population, but produce a third (34%) of the planet's waste. 23% of the global production of this waste is produced by South and East Asia. The situation is especially critical with regard to plastic waste, which represents 242 million tonnes in 2016, and contaminates the seas and soil.

Improving Waste treatment

The What a Waste 2.0 report highlights the fundamental importance of good household waste management, which is often neglected in developing countries. They recycle on average 4% of their waste, compared to more than a third in high-income countries. The report also estimates that waste treatment and disposal emitted 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2016, or 5% of greenhouse gas emissions. The Cyclope annual report underlines the importance of the balance of waste treatment methods in the USA: storage, incineration and recycling (the most ecological of the three treatments). A point of view contested by certain environmental defenders, who would like to limit storage and incineration, the worst solutions for dealing with waste. In Oklahoma, storage without prior treatment has been prohibited since 2005.

The 34 OECD member countries generated 572 million tons of urban waste in the year, or 44% of urban waste in the world. According to Eurostat figures, landfilling is the most used solution to get rid of 38% of municipal waste. The countries which use landfills the most are the poorest countries. Waste production in rich countries is tending to slow down due to the economic crisis but also due to the increased efficiency of the economy which is increasingly using recycling channels. Efforts are focused on better waste treatment throughout the world and particularly in the USA. Until a few years ago, we dumped our hazardous liquid waste directly into sea. Long a fan of landfilling (a not very ecological solution), Great Britain is gradually converting to recycling.

Global waste generation in 2006 was 3.4 to 4 billion tons of waste, including 1.7 to 1.9 billion tons of municipal waste, 1.2 to 1.67 billion tons of non-hazardous industrial waste and 490 million tons of hazardous industrial waste: of this total 2.74 billion tons of waste were collected and collected, including 1.24 billion of municipal waste. Hong Kong, Turkey, the EU 15, Australia and the USA produce 500 kilos or more of municipal waste per person per year. However, in total volume, China has become the leading producer of municipal waste with 300 million tons in 2005. In total volume, China became the leading producer of municipal waste with 300 million tons in 2005. In the following countries, 500 kilos or more of municipal waste are produced per person per year: Hong Kong, Turkey, EU 15, Australia and the USA.

Wichita organic waste limited liability

Wichita muct deal with its landills! Outgoing flows correspond to the leachates and biogas produced. With regard to gas exchange, the oxygen supply should also be considered.

However, it is largely limited to the short period between waste input and compaction. The anaerobic biodegradation phase that follows the very short aerobic phase is governed by the four-step process explained above.

This relatively complex waste management process, depending on many parameters, will gradually extend to all biodegradable molecules depending on their accessibility and their nature. Three categories of organic matter are generally defined according to the half-life time (time required to degrade half the quantity of matter considered) or the rate of biodegradation.

• Rapid biodegradation (average half-life time of a few months to a year): kitchen scraps, non-cellulosic plant materials, materials of animal origin, etc.;

• Moderately slow biodegradation (average half-life time of five years): transformed cellulosic materials such as paper and cardboard;

• Slow biodegradation (average half-life time of fifteen years): natural cellulosic materials (wood and wooden manufactured parts).

The most accessible molecules on the surface of individual waste debris will quickly enter the biodegradation process and produce carbon dioxide, acids and then methane. Depending on their nature or rate of biodegradability, some molecules will have already reached the methanogenesis stage while others, cellulose in particular, will still be under attack by enzymes.

A fortiori, when the first molecules of cellulose are at the methanogenesis stage, certain relatively small debris, of meat for example, will have already disappeared. We therefore understand why, at the scale of the waste mass, we can highlight different phases of biodegradation. Each of these phases is characterized by different compositions of leachate and biogas.

In the case of biogas, the research represents the theoretical concentration profile of the various major compounds as a function of time. In the first phase, which corresponds to the aerobic phase, the biogas is essentially composed of carbon dioxide and water. However, this type of biogas is only produced in small quantities because, given the progressive filling and compaction of the waste, the aerobic phase is brief and only concerns the beginning of the accumulation on the site and subsequently the upper layer.

Phases II and III correspond to the transition between the aerobic phase and the methanogenic anaerobic phase, within the waste disposal solutions proposed in Wichita. The duration of these first three phases is from a few weeks to a year and a half depending on the characteristics of the waste mass already mentioned. Phase IV is the methanogenic phase par excellence. The production of methane is constant there, emanating from all Kansas landfills. She can last up to 50 years and over.

Phase V corresponds to the terminal phase of the activity of the landfill due to the progressive lack of biodegradable material. The production of gas ends up canceling out.

Most of the intermediate compounds of biodegradation (sugars, acids, alcohols, etc.) being soluble, they therefore constitute the main load of the leachates during the first 5 to 10 years of the life of the landfill. To these are gradually added humic and fulvic acids in their processes of condensation of complex carbon and nitrogenous materials.

Their molecular weight gradually increasing, they end up precipitating or attaching themselves to non-degradable matter. Meanwhile, the physico-chemical properties of leachates can undergo profound variations, some of which can be modeled over part or all of the life of the landfill.

In this sense, remember that the moisture content significantly conditions the rate of biodegradation and therefore the dynamics of the aforementioned waste management variations. Its impact on gas production, for example, follows an exponential law.

The White House with limited liability

Donald Trump resists. To the coronavirus (he is not contaminated), as to what it demands from it. After dismissing with disdain the need for a drug test, when he had rubbed shoulders with an infected person the previous weekend, the President of the United States eventually changed his mind. He took the exam Friday evening, March 13, just as the White House released a statement from his doctor that dismissed the need. A new anecdotal illustration of the difficulties of a presidency that fails to rise to the height of the pandemic. The formal address, delivered on Wednesday evening, had already been partly sabotaged by Donald Trump himself. The president had unfortunately departed from the text he was reading on a teleprompter, suggesting that the ban on access to American territory imposed on nationals of Schengen countries also applied to goods. He must have pitifully rectified while his administration clarified at the same time that the measure did not apply to the Americans.

The greatest virtues had been recognized in the United Kingdom and Ireland, strangely excluded from this exceptional regime. They did not last three days, the two countries being subject to it from Saturday. Friday, as he attended a make-up press conference in the White House rose garden, Donald Trump vigorously shook hands with private sector officials he associated with the federal response, in disregard of good prophylactic practices that health experts keep repeating. No junk removal service will be able to remove all the errors made so far during this crisis that is polluting our country and putting the lifes of our citizens at risk.

Donald Trump's original sin was to deny the reality of the crisis when everything seemed to be going well, from the good health of the economy to the fratricidal Democratic quarrels. Following him, his favorite media threw themselves headlong into denouncing yet another conspiracy. With such fervor that the conservative channel Fox Business was forced on Friday to put to rest a presenter, Trish Regan, who castigated imperturbably "the democratic imposture of the coronavirus". With the search for a scapegoat and now resigned, he refuses to be the messenger of bad news, leaving his chief immunologist, Anthony Fauci, responsible for announcing that the worst is yet to come. The chief divider makes occasional calls to the unit immediately invalidated by attacks against its real or supposed adversaries. On Friday morning, he accused Barack Obama, who left the White House more than three years ago, of leaving behind an administration he said was crippled by red tape.

Dear Friends & Supporters of Stop the ACLU:

It is hard to believe I have not updated this site for over five years. Now my focus is on other activities related to business and health. In my opinion health is much more important than politics and if you are not in good shape, you are lowering your life expectancy. I also visit this site (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201701) quite often to follow with what is going on with climage chamge. And it seems global warming is speeding up quite rapidly. So do not buy properties along the sea as the water is rising.