What A Day - We'll Always Have The Paris Agreement

Episode Date: November 5, 2019

Washington votes today on whether to repeal the state’s ban on affirmative action. We discuss the effects of these bans and what keeps them on the books. Trump formally tells the United Nations he���s backing out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Square-jawed Governor Jay Inslee weighs in. And in headlines: Facebook hits caps lock, writer E. Jean Carroll sues Trump for defamation, and Microsoft Japan takes it easy and comes out on top.

It's Tuesday, November 5th, Election Day. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What a Day, the only news podcast that, if it were a Marvel movie, would still be enjoyed by Martin Scorsese. What a Day, Age of Ultron. Okay. Captain America, Civil Wad.

Better. Bingo. On today's show, Trump officially says goodbye to the Paris climate agreement. We interview Governor Jay Inslee to get his response. Washington state votes on affirmative action, and then some headlines. The Trump administration has formally told the United Nations that the U.S. is out of the Paris Climate Agreement. The announcement means the United States begins a year-long process to completely withdraw. Let's just all get on the same page here. What is the Paris Climate Agreement and what were the goals of the agreement? Yeah, So basically, this was an agreement between almost 200 countries.

It was part of a kind of large diplomatic accomplishment for the Obama administration in 2015. All of them were basically setting out to keep the planet from warming more than two degrees Celsius, and if possible, one and a half degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And basically, since 2017, Trump had said said we're going to get out of this. Even before then, he was campaigning on the fact that, you know, America first means we don't like the climate. We are the first in emissions, first in emissions, first to exit the agreement. And effectively, this is a large international agreement where everyone is trying to sort of curb their greenhouse emissions as best as they can. And Trump's decision to do this, this formal exit on Monday, comes at a time when the United States has been the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Scientists have said

that carbon emissions literally have to be cut in half by 2030 or there's going to be cataclysmic consequences. And 2018 marked record high levels of global carbon dioxide emissions. So he doesn't have a real basis for doing this. Except for ruining the earth right before he dies or something. Like, I don't understand the point. Yeah. I mean, the only stated reason that he is brought up is that cutting emissions hurts economic growth because he's looking at things in terms of coal and in terms of sort of traditional fueling methods. But that doesn't take into account that reorienting an economy around zero emissions would spur job

growth. And one of the funniest things that he said about all this was in 2017, when he was first talking about the United States leaving, he said something to the effect of, I want to represent Pittsburgh and not Paris. And the mayor of Pittsburgh was like, please, let's not. Don't mention my city at all. Yeah, totally. Keep my name out of your mouth. Oh, wow. Well, there are big ramifications for the US leaving the accord. Because this is a global agreement, it only really works if everyone holds up their end of the deal. So what does that mean for the rest of the countries that decided to sign on? We won't know for a little while. And on the one hand, it has been encouraging that other people are not following the United States lead.

I mean, even before this sort of procedural announcement on Monday, like we said, Trump had been talking about this for years and no one else was saying, okay, we're down as well. But on the other hand, what it has meant is that there are already kind of diplomatic efforts underway globally to try to figure out what do we do without this sort of massive superpower policing this or being involved in the process where they say, you know, hey, because we're here, you need to be doing this also. And that goes for countries like China and India that are considered developing nations. So they're not obligated to curb their emissions per the United Nations rules. They're doing so because they were in this agreement and because the United States was there. And so now it's sort of going to be potentially countries that make up the European Union trying to keep that pressure up. And I think the important thing, too, when we look at all of this is we're seeing kind of global climate catastrophes happen on a daily basis, like even more so than in 15 when people got

together and said, hey, let's try to prevent these. Yeah, it does seem like every year it gets a little worse. Well, without question. Yeah. And there's scientific evidence for it. So the other thing that happened when Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement in 2017 was a group of states formed this climate alliance. And they're basically like, we're going to make our own sort of alliance here to comply with the Paris Agreement. It's 24 states and two territories. And they represent something like 60% of the U.S. economy.

So at least there is that. And that effort has been going on since 2017. Yeah. I mean, what does this look like for regular people, though? It's not really just a diplomatic fuck you from the United States to everybody else on Earth. California's on fire. Cities are underwater.

Like, if I'm a regular human, I am. What am I supposed to expect? Fact check true. I mean, yeah, I guess for right now, it's important to recognize that this is a global climate crisis affecting communities far and wide. We've gotten, you know, enough scientific data that suggests like action is needed. The good thing is that there can be action and people are really pushing for it. The Paris Accords were just sort of this initial framework and they were a guide for how these countries

could actually go forward on this. And abiding by it was not necessarily going to prevent sea level rise on its own, but the absence of it would make it worse. So the nice thing is that there's been a recognition that if a Democrat is elected president next year, they're going to reenter Paris at the very least. Oh, good. And on top of that, they've been talking about things like the Green New Deal and other climate

plans that sort of look at that and go far beyond it. One of the former presidential candidates, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, basically ran a campaign entirely around this issue. So I talked to him about his work and what he has seen in affected communities. It is not abstract. It is real. It is when I was going down to have an event in California last weekend. It was canceled because a friend of mine's house burned down. It means another event I was going to have at a hotel talking about climate change,

that was canceled because it was next to an evacuation zone. When people are choking in India, it is everywhere and it is everybody and it's every day. Inslee has also been advising some of the other candidates on their policy since he left. And the important thing that he and other people have noted is that there is now this sort of mass movement of young people who are invested in this and willing to fight for it in a way that others hadn't before. Yeah.

Now we have the moral cause has been ignited by the young people of the world, including Greta Thunberg and Alexandra of the U.S. Union, one of whom I met in front of the U.N., sitting on a bench because she strikes every Friday, a 14-year-old young woman in New York City. This has changed dramatically because, A, people are seeing the disasters, B, they understand the moral cause that has been awakened by the power of youth. Yeah, the governor mentioned Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Villasenor. I also want to put a little bit of respect on the

names of Little Miss Flint, Isra Hirsi, and Shia Bastida. Patrick, these are other young women fighting for the environment, and they're pretty tight. Yeah, shout out to them. And like the governor said, and like we're saying, the difference here that I think is sort of a hopeful moment for the global climate change movement is that people are super, super invested in it. And the formal withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Accords takes effect the day after the next presidential election. So there is a very obvious thing that is on the ballot here. And it's a crucial moment where so many people are invested in this, like the people we mentioned,

like Sunrise Movement, like the people working on Green New Deal. So in that sense, it does feel like there is actual energy behind making something happen. We've been talking about what's on the ballot in state elections for the past few days, and today is no exception. It is Election Day across America. Go vote. And in Washington state, locals have the opportunity to officially repeal the state's ban on affirmative action that's been in effect since 1998. The ban says that public employers and universities cannot consider race and hiring or admissions decisions at all. Washington State legislature voted in April to repeal the ban, and now it's gone to a referendum. Yes. So quick bit of history. Affirmative action first came about under JFK. It was in response to Jim Crow era

laws that basically made it impossible for black people in this country to have upward mobility post-segregation. Yeah. And it's interesting, given the recent history of how progressive Washington has been, that this is something that people are even having to vote on. What is going on here? Yeah, it is weird. It's an interesting point, though, about progressive places and how, you know, they can also uphold systemic oppression. So typically when we talk about racism in this country, we talk about the Southeast and slavery and Jim Crow and all of that. But, you know, nowhere in this country is immune to racism. And in terms of like, you know, specifics, Florida is the only state in the Southeast region that has a ban on affirmative action.

So this is, you know, a widespread issue that's not specific to areas where we like to say it's more racist than others. But the real story here is that since the affirmative action ban in 1998, women and people of color in Washington state have suffered financially and in college admissions. According to the data, before the ban was enacted in the 90s, almost 10 percent of government contracts went to women and people of color. Since the ban, that number has dropped to 3%. So those numbers come from the Office of Minority and Women's Business Enterprises in Washington, and they contend that if the state had continued awarding 10% of those contracts to women and POC-owned businesses, then those companies would have gained upwards of $3.5 billion. Seems not only good for them, but for the state.

Yeah, it's a real problem. On the education point, the New York Times is reporting that in states that have an affirmative action ban, there was a negative impact on minority admissions, especially in California, a state I now live in, but also in Washington state. So 18% of Washington is Hispanic. Only 8% of the student body at the University of Washington is.

So what we're seeing is inequality in terms of opportunity in hiring and admissions in government. All of this can be traced back to the 1998 decision to ban affirmative action. The only minority group whose admissions and hiring hasn't been negatively impacted by the affirmative action ban is Asian Americans, who are, you know, technically overrepresented in Washington schools in relation to the population size. And we'll get into that in a second. So why did Washington want to ban affirmative action in the first place? What groups are sort of pushing against it, you know, even now. Yeah. So there are obviously boundaries to liberalism. But the main proponent of banning affirmative action in Washington, but also nationwide,

tend to be conservative white people and Asian American populations. Some survey data does show that younger Asian Americans tend to break with their parents on this point, and they favor affirmative action. So, you know, obviously no one's a monolith, but just giving details. It's always the olds. Asian Americans tend to break with their parents on this point, and they favor affirmative action. So, you know, obviously no one's a monolith, but just giving details. It's always the olds. The olds of every group. So Washington's governor, when the vote to repeal or to ban affirmative action happened, was Gary Locke. He's Asian, and he supports affirmative action. He did in the 90s. He still does. Locke went to Yale in the 1960s.

And he did that because representatives from that university visited Seattle looking for more diverse applicants and encouraged him to apply. He said plainly at an event recently, quote, I was a product of affirmative action. So he's been a real activist towards equality in his community. Another Asian person who is on the right side of history on Affirmative Action is Hasan Minhaj. Good transition. You know, we try. So Hasan hosts Patriot Act on Netflix. It's a great show. He did a great episode on Affirmative Action and recent lawsuits funded by Ed Bloom. Now, Ed Bloom isn't helping Asian kids because he's trying to put together a K-pop band. He's been trying to end affirmative action for years

by suing schools. Right, so Ed's a white guy who isn't a lawyer, but really, really hates affirmative action and really, really loves affirmative action lawsuits. He created Students for Fair Admissions, and its express purpose is to recruit Asian American students who didn't get into Harvard so that they can sort of parrot these conservative talking points that

black and brown students being admitted is somehow in competition with the idea of meritocracy, even though the institutions that they're fighting tend to have legacy admissions, which, you know, means that someone in their family went to the school. They also accept large donations if you want your kid to go there. So almost certainly a higher percentage of students that go to Harvard are legacy admissions than the black population. See, up until now, I thought it was just purely, you know, keep your grades up, do a cool debate club thing, and you're in. Yeah, unfortunately, not quite. Hassan had another idea as to why some of the students get in and some don't. I thought I wasn't going to get into Stanford because some black kid was going to take my spot.

But I didn't get into Stanford because I was dumb. But Washington, also importantly, is not the only state that has banned affirmative action, as you mentioned. It's this broad array of states. It started with California's ban, and Texas, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Arizona, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma have all banned it. So does tomorrow's vote on this referendum have any implications for those states too? So California did attempt to repeal their ban in 2014. But again, there was pushback from conservative white people in the state and the Asian American community. So it

eventually just got dropped. I'm not sure if that means something for California, but I do think that the result of the, you know, the referendum tomorrow is going to potentially have it, you know, have the issue back up for debate in those states that you mentioned. But one more thing. As a Black person, I just want to say that if there was a way to not have affirmative action and ensure that people were hired on merit, obviously we would love that. The problem is, historically, Black people have been excluded in every part of this country from, like we said, education to hiring to government positions. And so it is not as if we're looking for a handout. It has never been fair. And we're just trying to even that out.

If you're in Washington state, please go vote on this measure. Support Referendum 88 to amend the 1998 ruling to allow for minority status to be considered when hiring or admitting qualified students. And now for some ads. So one time I was at the airport and my checked bag went way over the weight. Oh, yeah. It's like 58 pounds or whatever. Dang. And yeah, I was smuggling. That's what I did. And what I got to put the excess stuff in was like a garbage bag. Oh, they handed you a trash bag for your stuff

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Headlines. A court has ruled that President Donald Trump has to turn over eight years of tax returns to a Manhattan grand jury. Attorneys for Trump have fought vigorously to shield his financial records, good sign, by arguing that the president is immune from criminal investigations. But the appeals court says this is irrelevant since the president's accounting firm is being subpoenaed for the documents, not the man himself. It might still be a while before anyone gets their hands on these big, beautiful returns, though, because Trump's lawyers say they're taking their case to the Supreme Court. Show me those big big beautiful returns uh more legal troubles for 45 writer eugene carroll sued trump on monday accusing the president of defaming her in response to her claim that he sexually assaulted her in the

90s when carol's account of the assault was published this summer trump said she was lying to increase book sales and imply that she falsely accused other men of rape. Carroll seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, plus a retraction from Trump. FYI, if you Google retraction from Trump, there are negative one million search results. A very rare phrase indeed. Facebook is making headlines again, and this time it's about fonts. The company announced on Monday that it has rebranded as Facebook, which if you couldn't tell from the way I just said it, it's all caps. Big Facebook will remain separate from little Facebook. It's the parent

company of that social network, along with others like Instagram and WhatsApp. Anyway, the caps lock logo is great if you like your tech brands, like you like your gym teachers always yelling. Mark Zuckerberg will not make me play dodgeball. An aide for billionaire next door Tom Steyer's presidential campaign used an account from his old job with the South Carolina DNC to steal volunteer data gathered by Senator Kamala Harris's campaign. That's according to reports from the Charleston Post and Courier on Monday. The aide has been fired, and Steyer's campaign has suggested that he downloaded the data inadvertently,

which is like how I inadvertently fill my water cup at Chipotle with free Mr. Pit. Senator Harris' campaign spokesman said of the incident, it's unfortunate anyone would try to steal that work from our team. Microsoft Japan recently tested a four-day work week this summer and reported last week that it boosted productivity by 40%. So, I'm going home. NFL safety Jermaine Whitehead was cut by the Cleveland Browns on Monday after he threatened to kill fans on Twitter

who criticized his performance in Sunday's game against the Denver Broncos. The team released a statement soon after the game calling the tweets, quote, totally unacceptable and highly inappropriate. My solemn promise to WOD listeners, I will never threaten to kill you. You guys are my best friends. And those are the headlines. That's all for today. We are new, so if you like the show, make sure you subscribe, give us a rating, leave a review, and tell your friends to listen. By the way, if you are into reading and not just walkthroughs

for Zelda Breath of the Wild like me, What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash newsletters. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. Remember, remember the 5th of November. What A Day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis.

Sonia Tunn is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.