Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:18 pm
Donald Trump thinks global warming is a “total hoax” and “bullshit,” which doesn’t explain why he is so concerned about the effect of rising sea levels causing erosion at his Doonbeg Golf Club in County Clare, Ireland.
Politco reports that “Since acquiring the property, Trump has been trying to build coastal protection works to prevent further erosion.” In fact, Trump re-submitted the application this month, arguing the need for a wall to protect his golf course from an accelerated rate of erosion caused by rising sea levels.
Why, when he was tweeting this in 2013?:
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We should be focused on clean and beautiful air-not expensive and business closing GLOBAL WARMING-a total hoax!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2013
Why are sea levels rising, you ask? Well, argues Trump’s environmental impact statement,
“If the predictions of an increase in sea level rise as a result of global warming prove correct, however, it is likely that there will be a corresponding increase in coastal erosion rates not just in Doughmore Bay but around much of the coastline of Ireland. In our view, it could reasonably be expected that the rate of sea level rise might become twice of that presently occurring. … As a result, we would expect the rate of dune recession to increase.â€
Where Trump’s personal investments are concerned, global warming and sea level rise are an established fact.
Why is this necessary, however? How do sea levels rise when, as Trump claimed in 2014, “our planet is freezing”?
This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2014
As Politico reports, the statement warns of the impact of “larger, more frequent storms” – yes, like Hurricane Matthew, which is being called the “most powerful storm in a decade.”
“As with other predictions of global warming and its effects, there is no universal consensus regarding changes in these events. Our advice is to assume that the recent average rate of dune recession will not alter greatly in the next few decades, perhaps as far into the future as 2050 as assumed in the [government study] but that subsequently an increase in this rate is more likely than not.â€
Republicans are busy denying Matthew as evidence of climate change. Rush Limbaugh sounded insane in his rejection of that evidence Wednesday, saying,
“So with hurricane tracking and hurricane forecasting, I’ve been able to stop where I think they might be playing games because it’s in the interest of the left to have destructive hurricanes because then they can blame it on climate change, which they can continue desperately continue trying to sell.”
This sounds like the public Donald Trump Limbaugh so strongly supports. So why is Donald Trump calling global warming “bullshit” but trying to protect his property from what can then be only its make-believe effects?
There might be an answer in Trump’s environmental impact statement:
“A Do nothing/Do minimum option will have the least impact on [natural] processes but the existing erosion rate will continue and worsen, due to sea level rise, in the next coming years, posing a real and immediate risk to most of the golf course frontage and assets.â€
Yes, apparently the effects of a “hoax” and “bullshit” can “continue and worsen.”
Trump is protecting his wealth. His investments. He is making no investment in any future but his own. Not yours. Not America’s. And he knows trying to sell global warming will cost him many of his remaining votes, votes he can ill afford to lose.
Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale program on Climate Change Communication, revealed this spring that polling results show while a majority of Trump supporters accept climate change, they do not see it as anthropogenic, or man-made. This is in contrast to the two-thirds of Americans who are worried about climate change.
Trump says he is going to re-negotiate the Paris climate agreement; he told Morning Joe in September,
“I consider climate change to be not one of our big problems. I consider it to be not a big problem at all. I think it’s weather. I think it’s weather changes.”
But he wants a sea wall to protect his property from something he says doesn’t exist, that isn’t “one of our big problems” or even any “problem at all.”
Donald Trump is going to do everything he can to get elected, not matter how much it costs the rest of us, while protecting his own properties with a nod to the facts he denies publicly.
It is no wonder so many of his supporters are so deplorable. Look at Trump himself.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
