Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has extolled the benefits of a warming planet:
“Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade. This could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as twenty days.”
Last week Pompeo shared his climate knowledge with the Washington Times — not to be confused with the Washington Post — newspaper:
“If waters rise — I was just in the Netherlands, all below sea level, right? Living a wonderful, thriving economic situation.”
Unfortunately what works for Netherlands won’t work for the state of Florida:
“Most of the state—consists of limestone that was laid down over the millions of years Florida sat at the bottom of a shallow sea. The limestone is filled with holes, and the holes are, for the most part, filled with water.”
(Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker):
“You can’t build levees on the coast and stop the water. The water would just come underground.”
No big deal; the climate “always changes,” and so “societies reorganize, we move to different places, we develop technology and innovation.”
Like they’re doing in Guatemala:
“Guatemala is consistently listed among the world’s 10 most vulnerable nations to the effects of climate change. Increasingly erratic climate patterns have produced year after year of failed harvests and dwindling work opportunities across the country, forcing more and more people to consider migration in a last-ditch effort to escape skyrocketing levels of food insecurity and poverty.”
(Gena Steffens in the National Geographic)
As we know, Pompeo and his boss are doing everything they can to assist Guatemalan refugees unable to sustain themselves in their home country.