President Donald Trump has completely misunderstood what global warming means in a bonkers post on social media.
The U.S. is facing a potentially historically cold period, with the eastern two-thirds of the country expected to experience sub-zero temperatures and heavy snowfall, which could cause major disruption. For the president, that is proof enough that “global warming” is a hoax.
“Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States,” he said on Truth Social. “Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain—WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING???”
It is not entirely clear who he meant by “Environmental Insurrectionists.”
The world’s most powerful man has repeatedly shown he is apprehensive about the existence of climate change, championing fossil fuel policies and peddling conspiracy theories, despite an overwhelming body of scientific evidence that it poses a real and imminent threat.
It has long been public knowledge that the now-relegated term global warming does not mean that cold temperatures will not occur, but rather that the average temperature inside the Earth’s atmosphere will be higher, disrupting delicate environmental balances.
The term is now instead regarded as merely a part of the wider phenomenon of climate change.
Cold landmasses and warm waters in the Arctic are stretching the polar vortex, dragging cold air further south. When that cold air meets warm, moist southern air, it could cause heavy snow, PBS reports.
On its website, the American Red Cross said, “Winters are getting warmer and shorter because of the climate crisis. But, because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, heavier snowfalls are more likely to occur,” the Guardian reports.
The BBC reports that “cities including Memphis, Nashville, Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York,” could be blanketed with snow.
The National Weather Service said the weather could “pose a life-threatening risk of hypothermia and frostbite to exposed skin.”
The storm is expected to reach as far west as New Mexico, with around 230 million people staring down the barrel of 20-degree temperatures as state governors declare emergencies across the country.
Trump’s disregard for the environment is well-documented. On his first day back in the Oval Office last year, he gave an executive order called “Putting people over fish,” where he disregarded the endangered delta smelt as “an essentially worthless fish,” and demanded water from their habitat be taken to fight fires hundreds of miles away.
He has also waged a long-running war on wind turbines, claiming “windmills” are making whales crazy and killing bald eagles, a point he illustrated on social media by posting a picture of a dead falcon in Israel.
In September, he gave a speech to the United Nations, where he said climate change is the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”
During the same speech, he said, “I have a little standing order in the White House,” he said. “Never use the word ‘coal’. Only use the words ‘clean, beautiful coal’. Sounds much better, doesn’t it?”
