Some fear the wannabe whale psychiatrist heading for the White House will undo progress on climate action and marine protection
Donald Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2024. Some experts worry his second term as US president will be bad news for the global ocean (Image: Gage Skidmore / Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
The man sworn in as the 47th President of the United States has some strong views on the ocean.
He has claimed that rising sea levels will create “more oceanfront property”, that offshore wind farms are an ugly blight, and that Californian water shortages are because of efforts to protect “essentially worthless fish”.
Donald Trump’s opinions will again shape the world when he returns to the White House on 20 January. Some scientists and campaigners are deeply worried about what this means for the ocean.
“We’re definitely going to be having to play a lot of defence over the next four years, trying to protect the laws that we already have,” says John Hocevar, oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA.
I’d be very surprised if the Trump administration had an ocean strategy
- John Hocevar, oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA
Trump has a history of downplaying the potential damage of climate change, and sometimes questioning its reality. This has huge implications for faltering global progress on lowering greenhouse gas emissions and cushioning the damage they are already doing. Global warming is a major disruptor of the ocean. Record high temperatures are already causing mass bleaching of coral reefs, loss of sea ice, the environmental and economic perils of ocean acidification and other impacts. The US is Earth’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter, so its government’s disinclination to mitigate climate change is dire news for the ocean – on a global scale.
