After breezily and wrongly predicting, against all the evidence, that we should not worry about the coronavirus because it would magically go away, Trump is now predicting, again against all the evidence, that we should not worry about climate change because the world will magically get cooler.
During his visit to the US West Coast, Mr Trump repeated his argument that poor forest management was to blame as he met Californian officials involved in the battle against the wildfires at a stop near Sacramento, in the centre of the state.
Dismissing one official’s plea to not “ignore the science” on climate change, Mr Trump said: “It’ll start getting cooler, you just watch… I don’t think science knows actually.”
…At an election campaign event in Nevada on Saturday, President Trump said he was praying for everyone throughout the West Coast affected by the wildfires.
But he insisted the blazes were “about forest management”, which includes tree thinning and brush clearing.
“They never had anything like this,” he said. “Please remember the words, very simple, forest management.”
Mr Trump has previously called climate change “mythical”, “non-existent”, or “an expensive hoax” – but has also described it as a “serious subject”.
He has decided to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement, which committed the US and 187 other countries to keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels.
Meanwhile, while Trump continues to indulge in magical thinking and calling global warming a hoax, heat records continue to be broken.
This summer was the hottest ever recorded in the northern hemisphere, according to US government scientists.
June, July and August were 1.17C (2.11F) above the 20th-century average, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
The new record surpassed the summers of 2016 and 2019. Last month was also the second-hottest August ever recorded for the globe. The numbers put 2020 on track to be one of the five warmest years, according to Noaa.
…The heat was at least 2C (3.6F) above the average in northern Russia and the south-western and north-eastern US. In northern Asia, temperatures reached more than 3C (5.4F) above average. Europe, Asia and the Caribbean saw their warmest January through August yet. South America saw its second warmest.
Joe Biden is exactly right in calling Trump a climate arsonist and blasting his Pollyanna approach to crises.
Biden aggressively attacked Trump’s “indifference” on climate change, calling him a “climate arsonist”.
“If we have four more years of Trump’s climate denial, how many suburbs will be burned in wildfires, how many suburban neighborhoods will have been flooded out, how many suburbs will have been blown away in superstorms?” Biden asked. “If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze … when more of America is under water?”
…“When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, he thinks hoax. When I think about climate change I think jobs. When Donald Trump thinks about renewable energy he sees windmills somehow as causing cancer. I see American manufacturing. When Donald Trump thinks about LED lightbulbs, he says they’re no good, they always make him look orange …”
I hope the label of ‘climate arsonist’ sticks. In fact, Trump is an arsonist on most issues, igniting fires of hate and controversy everywhere.
the world will magically get cooler.
Maybe he’s planning a nuclear winter.
@1 (Marcus Ranum)
After all, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
This seems appropriate (lyrics up top).
I cant believe people are missing the point here. When cheeto boy says things will start getting cooler he isnt talking about climate change he is talking about the forthcoming winter season. Donald does not understand the difference between climate change and the seasons. He is correct, things will cool down this winter and then heat up again next summer. He has no clue what climate change means.
@ 4 StonedRanger
He has no clue what climate change means.
True, I am waiting with great anticipation for the day when Mar-a-Lago is washed out to sea.
Ridana @#3,
Thanks for that link.
The words apply to Trump so accurately that it made me wonder if the song was actually written with him in mind or whether it was a coincidence. Do you know?
From earlier this year: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/21/politics/trump-magical-thinking-peale-coronavirus/index.html [Analysis by Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor]
Pullquote:
It’s by a Japanese band, so I think it’s likely not about him, but every word of the lyrics is uncannily dead on. Maybe it’s about Abe. 🙂 It was used for the opening credits of an anime called Fire Force (Enen no Shouboutai) (hence the unusual firefighter gear in the thumbnail), but I’m not sure if it was written specifically for it or not. I’m surprised that no one in the YT comments seems to make any connection to the Arsonist in Chief at all. Some chalk it up to a relationship gone bad, but the use of “we/us” makes that seem unlikely as well.