May 23, 2016

Donald Trump Finally Released a Plan to Fight Global Warming

(On his golf course, anyway.)

Donald Trump's Irish golf club is very worried about global warming.Niall Carson/PA Wire via AP


This is Donald Trump’s public position on climate change:

More recently, Trump has claimed that this tweet was some sort of joke, but regardless, he’s repeatedly called global warming a “hoax.” So it was astounding to read in Politico Monday morning that the real estate mogul is trying to persuade government officials in Ireland to allow him to “build a sea wall designed to protect one of his golf courses from ‘global warming and its effects.'” According to Politico:

The New York billionaire is applying for permission to erect a coastal protection works to prevent erosion at his seaside golf resort, Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland, in County Clare.

A permit application for the wall, filed by Trump International Golf Links Ireland and reviewed by POLITICO, explicitly cites global warming and its consequences—increased erosion due to rising sea levels and extreme weather this century—as a chief justification for building the structure.

[…]

Days before he concluded his purchase [of the golf club in 2014], a single storm eroded as much as eight meters of frontage in some parts of the golf course. Since acquiring the property, Trump has been trying to build coastal protection works to prevent further erosion.

Earlier this month, Trump’s golf club submitted an application to local officials in County Clare, Ireland, in an attempt to gain approval for the sea wall. An environmental impact statement accompanying the filing argued that if little or nothing is done to combat the coastal erosion, “the existing erosion rate will continue and worsen, due to sea level rise, in the next coming years, posing a real and immediate risk to most of the golf course frontage and assets.”

Trump’s spokesperson didn’t respond to Politico’s request for comment, and she didn’t immediately respond to me, either. But it’s pretty hard to see how anyone could reconcile Trump’s sudden interest in climate resilience with, say, this:

And it’s not just sea level rise that apparently has Trump concerned. Politico reports that the golf club distributed a document to residents of the area warning that coastal protections will also be needed to defend against “more frequent storm events [that] will increase the rate of erosion throughout the 21st century.” Which seems like a bit of a departure from this:

Of course, this isn’t the only Trump-branded facility that is threatened by climate change. Check out these amazing gifs that BuzzFeed created to show what sea level rise could do to Trump resorts in the United States.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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