Charles, Prince of Wales, tried to talk sense to Donald Trump on climate change during Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom. It didn’t take. Trump came out of their talk and unloaded a pile of nonsense and lies about the climate and environment in an interview with former Celebrity Apprentice winner Piers Morgan.
“I believe that there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways,” Trump said. “Don’t forget it used to be called global warming. That wasn’t working. Then it was called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with extreme weather, you can’t miss.” See, when Donald Trump changes his language, it’s because he’s trying to find the lie that is going to work the best for his purposes. So when scientists use different language to describe subtly different things, or different aspects of the same overall phenomenon, he assumes they’re tailoring a lie.
In fact, of course, weather and climate are two different things, and the globe is warming, and as it warms the climate shifts in other ways and extreme weather becomes more common.
”I did mention a couple of things, well United States right now has amongst the cleanest climate there are based on all statistics,” Trump claimed, which is a lie. The U.S. is the world’s second-largest emitter of carbon, U.S. carbon emissions are going up, and overall, the U.S. ranks 27th on the Environmental Performance Index.
We knew that the world’s scientists weren’t enough to convince Trump of reality. Now we know that neither is a man Trump wants to suck up to because he’s from a rich and famous family. Truly, nothing will change the man’s mind.