Former President Donald Trump could scarcely have been more dismissive of the threat of climate change than he was on Sunday as he characterized the growing disaster as a kind of real estate opportunity.
"Basically, you have a little more beachfront property, okay?" he said of climate change in an interview on "Fox & Friends," sparking laughter from the program's trio of hosts.
In fact rising seas flood beaches, eliminating many beachfronts. There may be more forest fronts.
Has this man ever been at the beach when the tide comes in? Does he not realize it takes away the land? 🤦🏼♀️
— Piccolo Pete (Lizzie) 🇺🇸🏳️🌈💙 (@pete_piccolo) June 2, 2024
Mara Lardo goes first. pic.twitter.com/AJkD0XjBKr
— LindaMiki (@lindaSH77906251) June 2, 2024
Trump was also way off on his assessment that seas will rise an eighth-of-an-inch in 400 years. Oceans are currently rising about an eighth-of-an-inch each year, according to NASA and other scientific institutions.
Shockingly, his facts are incorrect. If the current rate of climate change is not slowed, ocean levels can be expected to rise more than 3 feet in the next 75 years, not 1/8 inch in the next 400 years. That will result not in more beachfront property, but less. A LOT less.
— Jonathan Vankin (@jonvankin) June 2, 2024
As he has insisted repeatedly over the years, Trump again noted that no one knows what's going to happen with climate change. "In my opinion you have a thing called weather and it goes up and down," Trump once explained climate change (climate and weather are not the same thing).
Climate change has been tracked and successfully predicted for decades, and it's linked to the world's use of fossil fuels, according to a consensus of the scientific community.
Trump, who aims to incrrease fossil fuel companies' access to public lands if he returns to the White House, is fond of saying "drill, baby, drill" at his rallies
Last year was the hottest year on the planet since global records began to be tracked in 1850. The ten hottest years have been in the last decade. One of the hottest nations on Earth, India, may have suffered its hottest day ever last Wednesday when termperatures soared to a deadly 126 degrees Fahrenheit (52.3 degrees Celsius).
Increasing warmth, rising seas and resulting increasingly extreme weather patterns will cost lives and an estimated $38 trillion a year in damages by 2050 unless something changes, according to a recent report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Trump said on "Fox & Friends Weekend" that he considers the biggest threat to be nuclear weapons — and Joe Biden.
