First we lose Manhattan….

According to NYC Mayor Bill DiBlasio, “We don’t debate global warming in New York City. Not anymore. The only question is where to build the barriers to protect us from rising seas and the inevitable next storm, and how fast can we build them.”

It seems the President didn’t get the memo.

On January 18, Donald Trump took to twitter to give evidence of his understanding of the crisis unleashed by climate change:

“A massive 200 Billion Dollar Sea Wall, built around New York to protect it from rare storms, as a costly, foolish and environmentally unfriendly idea that, when needed, probably won’t work anyway. It will also look terrible. Sorry, you’ll just have to get your mops and buckets ready!”

Strange that Trump, who usually touts building walls as the answer to his problems, should balk at this.

Conservative predictions say that one third of the island of Manhattan will be at risk from flooding due to storm surges by 2050. And rising seas will see large sections of Manhattan, Staten Island and New Jersey under water by the end of the century.

Catastrophic storms aren’t as rare as Trump seems to think. “Storm of the century” disasters are now more like “storm of the decade”, and leave billion dollar cleanup bills. 2017’s Hurricane Harvey cost an estimated $160 Billion in cleanup and lost revenue.

Bad jokes about mops and buckets aside, Trump is probably right that sea walls won’t work. Where will the money come to protect Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Atlantic City, Charleston and many more cities. 

Trump’s tweet reveals that government leaders are criminally unprepared to deal with the disasters soon to come.