Oh, the irony. Observe the following GIF, which illustrates how one of Donald “Donnie Boy” Trump’s properties will be affected by rising sea levels in South Florida. The map is part of a great series BuzzFeed created with data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Peter Aldhous for BuzzFeed News / Basemap by CartoDB / OpenStreetMap / Via coast.noaa.gov
The kicker, of course, is that Donald Trump doesn’t believe in climate change. Speaking with Bill O’Reilly last year, Trump referred to the Paris climate talks as “ridiculous,” and called climate change “a big scam for a lot of people to make a lot of money.”
Trump, it seems, knows nothing of science. But he does know something about money, which makes the maps even more delicious. The Trump Hollywood map shows that the property is at risk with just three feet of sea-level rise. And three feet is a very plausible scenario: Southeast Florida sea levels are predicted to rise by 28 to 58 inches by the end of the century, as BuzzFeed’s Peter Aldhous reports:
Although [Trump’s] buildings may remain just above sea level, access will likely be a problem by the end of the century, as much of the surrounding area disappears beneath the waves.
“Even though a certain property might be sort of dry, there’s going to be absolutely no way of getting to it,” Billy Brooks, a geospatial analyst at NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management in Charleston, South Carolina, told BuzzFeed News. …
NOAA’s maps of ground height are very accurate, but the timing of inundation is more uncertain. The Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact is anticipating 3 feet or more of sea level rise by the end of the century, but it could come sooner than that. Alternatively, if the world’s nations manage to significantly cut their greenhouse gas emissions, the rise could be slower.
Regardless of the timing, one thing is clear: If these very real threats to Donald Trump’s own fortune can’t make the man change his mind, clearly, it can’t be changed at all.
