The Trump Threat on Climate Mitigation/Adaptation

First off I cite The Washington Post article citing polls showing a deep division between Dems and GOPers regarding the causality behind today's increasingly bizarre weather events:

But when asked if they think climate change is a major factor in those extremely hot days, 35 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say it is, compared with 85 percent of those who lean Democratic. Overall, 63 percent of Americans who experienced extremely hot days say climate change is a major factor.

So Republicans clearly seeing a different reality than Dems on climate change.

Then let me cite a Daily Kos article looking at other recent polling indicating major portions of the GOP base trust Trump more than conservative media, religious leaders, friends, and family (!), the argument there being that Trump has a cult-leader-like hold over his followers, meaning they will believe anything he says no matter what the rest of their favored ideological environment is telling them.

Put the two together and you can't escape the feeling that, if the Donald suddenly started believing in climate change (for whatever self-serving reason), then so too would the GOP base.

So you're left with this strange cult of personality standing in the way of reasonable preparation for what is already happening all around us -- to include fueling the northward migration of climate refugees the world over: one guy's take being enough to capture a significant-enough portion of the US electorate to paralyze our strategic response -- for now.

Pretty amazing when you think about it.

This is why I wrote America's New Map for generations beyond the ruinous Boomers and the similarly damaged Gen Xers. I see both as too ideologically handicapped by such head-in-the-sand mindsets. Bring on the Millennials, Zs, and Alphas. We need climate change-natives to step up, as they are struggling to do all over the place and sometimes winning, like in Montana.

As someone promoting a climate-centric grand strategy, you have to go with those generations most clearly incentivized to deal with it.