The below is a satirical April Fool’s Day story, though several outlets perceived it as real (see here and here).
A nationwide carbon tax could raise enough revenues to fund the construction of a wall between the US and Mexico, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump announced Friday morning in a surprise policy U-turn on the climate change issue.
Previously claiming that he was “not a big believer” in man-made global warming, Trump has now embraced a coordinated national approach to reducing US greenhouse gas emissions in a move that he said will also help stop illegal immigration.
“Really, it’s a no-brainer. We make the left-wing tree-huggers happy by introducing a price on carbon, and we make my right-wing supporters happy by closing the funding gap for my wall,” he said in a statement.
“I’m surprised no one’s proposed a market-based solution to fighting climate change until now. In any case, no one does market-based solutions better than me.”
Likening climate change’s potential effects on the US economy to the factors that led to the decline of east coast resort and gambling mecca Atlantic City, where the billionaire developer built much of his fortune, Trump said the time for inaction had passed.
“First and foremost we need to understand how the Chinese invented global warming, and then we need to figure out how they smuggled it into this country.”
“Obama has really dropped the ball on climate change,” he added, echoing a widely-held criticism among lawmakers and green groups worldwide that the current administration has done little on the issue.
Only time will tell, however, as to whether Trump’s plan will come to fruition, as he faces fierce competition from Texas Senator Ted Cruz for the Republican nomination – a rival who himself has proposed his own controversial strategy for the US to adapt to climate change.
Looking towards his birth nation, Cruz said that if elected he would invade Canada and relocate the entire US north to gain better access to cleaner water and better beer.
Some more details on Trump’s and Cruz’s proposals can be found by spelling out the two words formed using the first letter of every paragraph in this story.
news@carbon-pulse.com
