Donald Trump’s State of the Union address was mostly notable for the casual racism, call for a government purge, and for making Americans grateful they haven’t had to undergo an amputation with no anesthetic while eating dirt. But what it didn’t include was a single word about the most important issue facing this or any other nation.
President Donald Trump didn’t mention climate change or global warming in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
This is, on one hand, the most predictable thing in the world. Throughout his political career, Trump has rarely seemed interested in understanding the science of Earth’s climate. Last week, he misspoke about the climate again, claiming “it was getting too cold all over the place.” He has canceled policies that prepare national parks for climate change and adapt U.S. naval bases to rising sea levels. Repealing President Barack Obama’s extensive climate legacy has unified the Trump administration like little else.
Ignoring climate change in the SOTU follows Trump’s interview earlier in the week in which he not only showed his ignorance about the term “climate change,” but stated that the ice caps were hitting “records,” which is true—but not in the way Trump intended.
So why would he mention climate change in his speech? Because—on the other hand—the United States just survived a year of disasters that were shaped and intensified by climate change. Three hurricanes whipped the United States, several of them bearing the fingerprints of climate change. A third of Puerto Rico is still without power. Record-breaking wildfires raged across the West. It was the most expensive year for natural disasters in U.S. history. nasa and noaa declared 2017 one of the hottest years ever measured; more than a dozen federal science agencies published a lengthy report affirming the reality of global warming.
You might think that a death toll in Puerto Rico greater than that of any storm since Katrina might have merited a mention—but that would have taken time from the major point of the evening: Trump clapping for Trump.
This has been a year in which no part of the United States has avoided the damage related to climate change. Storm. Flood. Fire. Mudslide. The destruction has been massive, the loss of life tragic. But the stock market went up, and the corporate tax rate went down. So as far as Trump and Republicans are concerned it was a very good year.
For the people in Puerto Rico still without power, there was at least one consolation—they didn’t have to listen to Trump’s speech.