We’ve had bigger storms than this

“We’ve had bigger storms than this. We did have two horrific storms, epic storms. But if you go back into the ’30s and ’40s, and you go back to the ’teens, you’ll see storms that were very similar and even bigger.” – Donald Trump when asked if the highly destructive Hurricane Harvey and record-breaking Hurricane Irma were changing his views of climate change.

In 2012 “our” soon to be President tweeted; “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Later, during the campaign, he told the talking heads at Fox & Friends; “Well, I think the climate change is just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money. I know much about climate change. I’d be — received environmental awards. And I often joke that this is done for the benefit of China. Obviously, I joke. But this is done for the benefit of China, because China does not do anything to help climate change. They burn everything you could burn; they couldn’t care less. They have very — you know, their standards are nothing. But they — in the meantime, they can undercut us on price. So it’s very hard on our business.”

Know-it-all – a person who acts as though he or she knows everything and who dismisses the opinions, comments, or suggestions of others. 

“I know much about climate change.” Have you ever wondered how we got so lucky to have the smartest man in world as President? I mean this guy knows everything, about everything. Even Trump admits that he doesn’t read books, unless it includes pictures, or that he has studied any particular subject, he just knows shit. He is intuitive, a man blessed with a genius of common sense. Somehow he absorbs all the scientific facts of world through osmosis and is able to make rational sense of the universe and how it works. I have a another name for that type of individual, a know-it-all.

Let’s be very clear, would restricting American manufactures to operate in a responsible way that caused less harm to the environment be more expensive than letting them dump and pump whatever they wanted to into the waterways and the sky? Yes, it should be. Why? Because quite simply this is the only earth we have. It’s not a dump and it doesn’t have super regenerative powers. It can be harmed and species of animals and plants, including humans, can and do disappear forever.

I grew-up on the cusp of the days when manufactures could do whatever they wanted to. We knew when the wind was blowing from the north-east because of the haze and smell of a paper plant 150 miles away from us. We could tell which dyes the textile mills were using that day because of the color of the river and when the pipe foundry got a big order based on the amount of ash that settled on top of our cars. Land was cleared, trees piled-up, dosed with kerosene and smoldered for weeks leaving our eyes red, and our lungs and clothes filled with smoke.

Yes, it is cheaper to operate this way. I certainly didn’t need the Know-it-all-in-Chief’s enlightened wisdom to point this out. But even a seven-year old is smart enough to realize this is not the way we should be treating our planet. Trump talks about giving American manufacturing a competitive edge which is why, among other reasons, he has rolled back ALL of President Obama’s environmental protection regulations and why he has climate change deniers in ALL of the key environmental roles within his administration, people like Rick Perry.

“We’ve had bigger storms than this.” In typical Trump fashion this off the cuff statement has absolutely no verifiable facts to back it up. But as we have seen time and time again, biggest inauguration crowd ever, Obama wiretapped him, facts have never prevented “our” President from spewing non-sense or insane bullshit. He simply leaves it up to Fox & Friends or Sean Hannity to back him up with some manufactured “truth” that the Deplorable Nation will accept as the gospel, and sadly, they do.

Has global warming contributed to all of these deadly and destructive hurricanes we are experiencing this year? With the warming of the ocean, the melting of the polar ice caps and rising waters it is hard to bet against it. Maybe it is just a fluke. Maybe this is just the year when the sun, moon and stars were perfectly aligned. Then again, maybe this is just a small taste of things to come.

“Whether they belong to more evolved species like humans or to simpler ones such as animals, all beings primarily seek peace, comfort, and security. Life is as dear to the mute animal as it is to any human being; even the simplest insect strives for protection from dangers that threaten its life. Just as each one of us wants to live and does not wish to die, so it is with all other creatures in the universe, though their power to effect this is a different matter.” – His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama