Trump Asks for More Global Warming, and Other Catastrophes
Trump can never really keep a secret. He eventually reveals everything. Trump tweeted for more global warming to heat up New York and D.C., where he wants more winter business for his Towers and golf courses. Not only did he admit that global warming is real, but that mankind can bring it about. This confirms that his policies are designed not only just to enrich his oilmen handlers of Harold Hamm of Oklahoma, and the Koch Brothers, but for his own benefit as well. Of course, my tongue is in my cheek as I compose the above fantasy.
Here is the @realdonaldtrump actual tweet: “In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!” Trump doesn’t mention a hoax. The most generous interpretation to Trump is that he is adopting what some other Republicans admit: that warming occurs, and man contributes to it, but it would cost too much money to save ourselves. Other countries ARE willing to pay to stop this catastrophe. We are the lone country to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
Another interpretation, is that Trump is just trying to make a joke at the expense of liberals. Before his election, he gave an interview to Scientific American, where he seriously made the argument to scientists, that since the warmest day occurred a hundred years ago (one day, in Death Valley, that is in question), there actually isn’t any warming. The interviewers didn’t challenge him!
The US GDP is $18.6 trillion. Our energy system can be transformed over a few decades. The world GDP is $108 trillion in Purchasing Power Parity. Many developing countries can build their first energy systems as clean energy. Coal power plants are choking all large Chinese cities as well as India’s cities.
Most people are interpreting that Trump again confused weather with climate. A better interpretation would be that Trump was trying to mislead his followers into making that confusion. A better question is who is misleading Trump that it would cost the US alone several trillion dollars, without any benefits. Benefits are getting rid of old air polluting coal plants, and replacing them with clean energy sources, including cheaper natural gas to smooth the energy flow. Estimates of the costs of ignoring climate change are of course in the trillions. This ignores the millions of people that will become climate refugees, as Syria might be an example, and the wars and starvation that may result. This has been examined by the Defense Department, but is being neglected by the Trump Administration.
Trump’s wishes and all-out designs to enhance warming are not appreciated in California, where we have had the worst fires due to a returned drought, which took about forty lives, and the long five year drought of past years. They are not appreciated in Washington nor Canada, where they also had serious fires from drought. They are not appreciated in Texas, where they have had droughts, and now the worst flooding from hurricanes. They are not appreciated in Puerto Rico, where island-wide hurricane decimation has been poorly met, along with Trump’s criticizing financial aid to a bankrupt government from policies set by the US.
Trump’s wishes are not appreciated by American taxpayers, who will be saddled with $1.5 trillion in debt to give a tax cut to the top 1%. That money could have both paid for environment-caused damage from the storms and fires, but also contributed the $1 trillion or so needed to reduce our CO2 pollution and prevent further damage from global warming.
Koch Brother appointees are now rumored to take over the White House, and Republican policy groups programmed by the Koch Brothers are those used by the inexperienced and policy-less Trump White House. Marc Short, Trump’s legislative affairs director, use to run the Koch Brother’s political empire.
In an oil profit related area, the Trump Administration is about to lower regulation on blowout preventers. This is where the Deepwater Horizon polluted the vast Gulf of Mexico, resulting in an $18.5 billion settlement from damage caused, cleanup attempts, and businesses ruined. It’s one thing to remove a regulation that causes a point pollution, or possibly a minor accident. It’s another to weaken a regulation in which a single blocking piece, in a single blowout preventer, can release a vast underground high pressure reservoir over months to pollute an entire Gulf. The resulting fire and explosion also took about a dozen lives. You have to weight what looks like a minor regulation weakening or withdrawal, with the ENORMOUS cost that has already been proven to occur, with one of the first deep water wells.
It is surprising that insurance companies would not reinstate such a rule to allow the oil company to be covered. It seems that in BP’s case, the investors had to take the loss. You would then think that the board of directors would require that such safety would be imposed. The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe occurred while BP was bragging that it had completely instituted new safety measures in its company.
