February 15, 2020: The Most Powerful Nitwit in the World

 

2/15/20: Remember back in 2012 when Citizen Trump said new energy-efficient light bulbs caused cancer? Of course, you don’t because Trump was just a nitwit with a Twitter account in those days. 

Now he’s the most powerful nitwit in the world – with a Twitter account – and 64 million followers. 

So, here’s a taste from October 2, 2012: “Big cancer risk from new ‘environmental light bulbs’ – a big price to pay!” 

A few days later, he insisted that the people who came up with these bulbs knew about the cancer risk, but “don’t care.” 

These were only two simplistic tweets, but might have served as a template for thousands of tweets to come. In just two sentences, Donald J. Trump managed to: 

1.     Exaggerate the danger out of all proportion, appealing to emotion, not logic. The new light bulbs weren’t going to send you or your loved ones to intensive care. 

2.     Trash environmentalists – and by implication President Obama – insisting they didn’t “care” about the health of the American people. 

3.     Undercut those who believed it was time to address a growing climate change threat.

 

Sadly, the same gentleman is now in charge of the United States of America. And it’s like tasking a first grader to come up with a rational approach to handle the issue of climate change. 

Unfortunately, climate records continue to fall with increasing frequency. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared January 2020 the hottest January in 141 years of record-keeping. 

 

An iceberg the size of Seattle. 

In related news, the European Space Agency released video this week of an iceberg the size of Seattle breaking off the Antarctic ice sheet. Up close, one scientist said it looked like a giant wall of ice, 500 meters in thickness. For “fun,” scientists combined images of other icebergs forming as new bergs “calved” from the Pine Island Glacier. Several bergs in recent years were even more massive.

Even Sen. James "Snowball Jim" Inhofe should be getting worried.

 

* 

“The worst Interior secretary ever.” 

EVEN TRUMP’S CULT FOLLOWERS in Congress are growing worried, though they dare not admit it. It they admit it they would have to admit they have been deluding supporters for years. 

The president did say in his State of the Union Address, however, that the U.S. would join the One Trillion Trees global initiative. He did not mention that this initiative is part of a growing realization, around the world, that we’re all screwed if we don’t address climate change. 

So: Rep. Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican, has introduced the One Trillion Tree Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. As part of the initiative, to plant a trillion trees by 2050, and slow warming, the U.S. would commit to do it’s share by planting 3.3 billion trees annually. 

Impressive as that might sound, especially coming from a party dedicated to climate-change denial, it’s worth noting that 2.5 billion trees are already planted in the United States yearly. What might sound like four steps forward is one, and one step per year won’t get us where we need to be by 2050.

 

Plus, we have people in charge of – for example – the Department of the Interior, whose wet dream involves opening up millions more acres of public land to drilling, mining, and logging. The Wilderness Society, for example, labeled Ryan Zinke, Trump’s first choice to head the department, “the worst Interior secretary ever.” And that was after only a year on the job. He got worse, and then got axed, in the face of multiple investigations into shady dealings. 

Just a taste of Zinke’s misdeeds and missteps: He wanted to spend $139,000 on new doors for his office. He took $53,000 worth of unnecessary helicopter rides at taxpayer expense, including a flight to a stable so he could ride horses with Vice President Pence. And he was a big fan of expanding offshore drilling all along the U.S. coastline – although that changed when someone realized…. 

What about…Mar-a-Lago? An exception was quickly included in the plans being pushed by the Interior Department. 

One step forward, and ten steps backward, led by Trump and his enabling crew, will only hasten the catastrophe that our descendants will  face, unless we get our act together. (See: 2/17/20.)

Trump won't visit Mt. Rushmore, unless they carve his face on it.

Teddy Roosevelt knew a century ago we had to protect the environment.