Saturday, June 10, 2017

Tangier Island And Trumpism



CNN carried a report the other day about the residents of Tangier Island, VA and how their Chesapeake Bay island is slowly being submerged in the waters of the bay. The island is losing about 15 feet of shoreline every year, and has lost all but 1.3 square miles of land over the past few decades due to rising ocean water caused by melting glaciers and Arctic ice pack.

In the report, residents want something done about the loss of their island to climate change, but they don't fault sociopathic buffoon Donald "Rump" Trump for his environmental policies, including pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord:
"Eighty-seven percent of the island voted for President Trump. It doesn't bother them that he pulled out of the Paris climate agreement. The residents on Tangier look at the decision as more money it will free up to help them build the infrastructure they need to save their island....When I asked people their thoughts on climate change, everyone had the same answer. They said it doesn't matter what's causing it. They are sick of hearing debates about human-caused or natural cycles. They want people to open their eyes and see what's happening to Tangier."
One resident says that the government should build a wall around the island to keep the water out, a comically appropriate suggestion for those that supported wall-obsessed Rump in the election. It's fair to say that such a wall would never make it into Rump's draconian, Social Darwinist budget. Says the mayor of Tangier Island:
"We've depended on the Chesapeake Bay for a couple hundred years or more, and now it's the Chesapeake Bay that's the greatest threat to our existence," says James 'Ooker' Eskridge, the mayor of Tangier."
No, "Ooker," the greatest threat to your existence is the man you elected President and his depraved party. As Charles P. Pierce has said, "You all had the same choices we all had. You saddled the rest of us with misrule and disaster. Own it. I empathize, but I will not sympathize."

(photo: A home on Tangier Island, via Baldeaglebluff, Creative Commons Flickr)