There was a point a few months (weeks?) ago where I was happy to say Donald Trump is not stupid, he knows what his base wants to hear and is happy to give it to them. However, in the last weeks, I think he’s left even his own campaign staff awaiting the next gaffe and cringing at the bigger ones.
Donald Trump’s climate change comments just getting worse?
President Obama has made it clear, along with scores of climate change scientists around the world, that global warming and climate change are the biggest threat we face going forward in this world. Obama has gone so far as to say that they are a bigger threat than ISIS and global terrorism. Personally, I happen to think this true and I’m sure I’m not alone. ISIS can’t get us all and really given the world’s population they can really only get a figurative “handful” of us at best/worst. Unlike climate change and global terrorism, ISIS’ reach is really quite limited.
But Donald Trump, presumably knowing and catering to his base says things like “I think that’s one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever heard in politics – in the history of politics as I know it, which is pretty good.” That statement was made by Trump during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
In the autumn of last year, Trump once again repeated is skepticism saying, “I am not a believer in climate change.”
But perhaps the most ignorant statement about climate change Trump has made about climate change came last week ahead of the Wisconsin primary where he was ultimately crushed by Ted Cruz last night.
Speaking to supporters at a rally in LaCrosse, WI he said:(and you need the whole thing to get all of the absurdity):
“They said (the media?) Donald Trump wants to arm, with nuclear, Asia. Of course I don’t want to do that…
President Obama said the single greatest problem that the world has and our country has is global warming. Okay. No, think about it. I mean, he actually said that. I went back and I said, please check, because maybe he said it as a joke. Maybe he said it — he said global warming is our biggest problem.
We have problems, okay. We have big problems. We may have a global warming problem, but it will be of the nuclear variety if we don’t have smart people in office and soon. And soon. Global warming is not our biggest problem, folks. Believe me.
Do you ever notice they have global warming, they have extreme weather? They have named it so many different times, now I hear they call it extreme weather a little bit more. But they have changed the name so often, right, so often. They just weren’t working. The names. And forget that. We have a problem, and the problem is nuclear, and we have to be very careful.”
Yesterday’s federal report disagrees with Trump
Yesterday saw the release of a 300-page report entitled, “The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment.”
The study which compiled information from over 1,700 journal publications and called on a number of different federal agencies, was reviewed by the National Academies of Science and paints a frightening picture of the future health of Americans due to climate change.
“It’s not just about polar bears and melting ice caps. It’s about our families. It’s about our future,” said Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy at the White House when unveiling the report.
Among a number of other things, the report spoke of the death of elderly people, children and the poor from extreme heat, the rise in asthma cases (especially in children), and insect-borne diseases.