TSTBP- Too Stupid To Be President
Which makes millions of Americans too stupid to vote, yeah??
Freedom of speech does not protect you from the consequences of saying stupid shit.
I’ve never expected Presidents or former Presidents to be Ph.D. candidates (though it would be nice). Still, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect them to have a basic grip on certain vital concepts. Like global climate change, f’rinstance.
No, it’s NOT “global warming” that’s the problem, though it IS what’s responsible for the problem. No, the dilemma is what the warming of the globe is doing to the world’s climate, hence the more accurate term, “global climate change,” caused by the progressive warming of the planet.
Too many uneducated Conservatives assume that “global warming” only manifests through increased temperatures worldwide. In fact, the problem is far more complex and varied. The overall warming of the planet results from the rise in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere- a “greenhouse effect.” This is the result of the increased introduction of byproducts from burning hydrocarbon-based fuels and from methane produced by…wait for it…cow farts.
I only wish I were kidding. Mango Mussolini was having none of it.
Former President Donald Trump yet again on Thursday completely dismissed global warming as a problem — because it’s been freezing in Buffalo, New York.
“What happened to global warming?” Trump asked dismissively on Truth Social in response to a story about the frozen homes in Buffalo and the city’s deadly blizzard conditions.
Trump, as always, confused climate trends with the weather and apparently views low temperatures in Buffalo (weather) as totally negating decades of an increasingly warming Earth (via climate) amid spiking carbon dioxide triggered by the use of fossil fuels. But scientists say that deadly storm surges and other extreme weather, like in Buffalo that has killed dozens of people, are more evidence of damage wreaked by climate change.
Earth’s five hottest years on record (since 1880) have occurred since 2015. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned world leaders at a climate summit in Egypt last month that humanity must choose between working together against global warming or “collective suicide.”
Trump consistently appears to be completely befuddled by the Earth’s increasing warmth. He has insisted the planet’s temperatures “go up, and they go down” with no clear reason.
Granted, Orange Jesus isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed under the best of circumstances. Arrogant and resistant to being educated (because, as he insists, he knows more than the experts on virtually any topic), he’s a danger to the country on anything requiring in-depth knowledge. More often than not, he’s making shit up as he goes- not a good look for a President or ex-President.
Not that Trump cares about how he’s perceived, of course- unless it’s written about or broadcast in the mainstream media.
So why is the climate changing? Well, you see, there’s this thing called “weather”….
Of course, Trump even found the “silver lining” in global climate change:
Trump also accused President Joe Biden in the interview of perpetrating a climate change “hoax” to avoid increasing oil production.
Trump laughed during his campaign for the 2020 election that a rise in sea levels as the polar ice caps melt will result in “more beachfront property.”
And for a real-estate developer such as himself, that could be a real bonanza. Sure, we’re all going to die from the wars over scarce water supplies, but, hey- MORE BEACHFRONT PROPERTY!!
One person’s tragedy is another’s opportunity…the story of American commerce, amiright??
When asked in 2018 about a report produced by the U.S. government stating that global climate would cost America billions of dollars annually and damage the health of Americans, his response was succinct: “I don’t believe it.” Never mind the work of scientists and the millions spent on the research. The results of the study didn’t fit his preconceived notions, so he reject it out of hand.
I don’t believe it.
Which pretty much summed up Trump’s approach to science during his Reign of Error. Rather than approach a question with an open mind, he’d only accept the conclusion of a study if it matched what he already believed. If it didn’t, he rejected it out of hand. Science, to him, was subservient to his beliefs. Anything that didn’t conform to those beliefs was a waste of time, money, and effort and, therefore, useless to him.
Keep in mind that this was two years after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election (despite receiving 3 million more votes) to Donald Trump. This was not a case of sour grapes. It was a case of “WTF? How can someone be so &*^%$#@ ignorant as to reject the work of more than 300 scientists without so much as a second thought?”
And yet that’s precisely what the arrogant Moron-in-Chief did, because he “didn’t believe it”…and because he and the GOP received boatloads of money from Big Oil.
Then again, when you’ve spent four years in office and two years afterward proving that you’re TSTBP, what else could I possibly add to that?
As I like to say, there is a reason why they call it *GLOBAL* warming, and not "my back yard" warming. These slack-jawed buffoons can't track what's happening from one point of space &/or time to the next. As Bob Altmeyer has observed in his book "The Authoritarians," the authoritarian mind-set is predicated around keeping different ideas carefully siloed the one from the other so that they are -- constitutionally, it would seem -- incapable of putting things together. (For the curious, Altemeyer's book may be downloaded here: https://theauthoritarians.org/options-for-downloading-authoritarian-nightmare/ )
The whole polar vortex thing is caused by warming ... albeit, in the arctic. Comparatively warm air in the arctic destabilizes the jet stream, which allows an outbreak to pour down into the North American continent. But warm air in the arctic (and I mean, 20 deg C above normal warm air) is still catastrophically cold air for us poor sad shlubs. That being said, I notice the denialists grow rather more quiet on the subject when the air down here is some 20 -- 30 deg F above normal, as it has been for the past 10 days.