Former US President Donald Trump once again dismissed the scientific consensus on climate change and mocked the rising sea levels at a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Saturday. Viewing the concept of global warming as overstated, he argued that nuclear warming, not climate change, poses the most significant threat.
“I will terminate the green new scam, one of the great scams in history. Remember our country was going to be dead in 12 years, well we came up.They say global warming, they used to call it global warming but now they call it climate change. You know why? Because climate change covers it if it’s too cold. We are suffering from climate change. If it’s cold, it’s good. If it’s hot as hell it’s good. It used to be Global Warming and that wasn’t working because we’re actually cooling. So we have that, but you know the biggest warming problem we have is nuclear warming,” Trump stated.
He then mocked concerns about rising sea levels, saying “So they talk all the time about the ocean will rise in 500 years, one-eighth of an inch, who the hell cares?” before shifting his focus to what he said was the real problem, “But we have maniacs who have nuclear weapons and we can’t let that happen.”
Trump’s comments mark a sharp contrast from the climate policies and stance of the current Biden administration and vice president Kamala Harris.
Throughout his political career, Trump has repeatedly expressed skepticism about climate change, famously referring to it as a “hoax” on multiple occasions. During his presidency from 2017-2021, the Trump administration rolled back numerous environmental regulations and favored increased oil and gas drilling.
One of Trump’s most controversial moves was announcing in 2017 that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, an international pact aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming. Trump argued that the Paris Agreement was unfair to the United States and would cost American jobs, favoring countries like China.
Shortly after taking office in 2021, President Biden signed an executive order to re-enter the United States into the agreement.
If elected to a second term, Trump has indicated he would once again withdraw the US. from the Paris Agreement. The Biden administration, in contrast, has made addressing climate change a key priority through policies encouraging renewable energy and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
While views on the specific policies differ, the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that human-caused climate change poses risks of rising sea levels, extreme weather events, droughts and other impacts in the coming decades without significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.