Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump watches a video on the display screen at a rally.
(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

‘Isn’t that a good thing?’: Trump’s take on rising sea levels indistinguishable from the most ignorant person you know

On the 2024 presidential campaign trail, Donald Trump continues not just to downplay climate change, but to actually claim it’s somehow a good thing for those who own oceanfront property.

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This unhinged remark may sound like something your drunk uncle might say during Thanksgiving dinner, but sadly, it’s real rhetoric from a former president of the United States!

“Is that good or bad?”

The remark came when Trump sat down with Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a campaign rally in Flint, Michigan on September 17, 2024. While tossing up his customary word salad about international affairs, Trump paused briefly to “joke” that people shouldn’t worry about “global warming;” they should fear nuclear proliferation instead.

(And of course they should—he made sure of it! As a reminder, it was Trump who sabotaged critical arms control agreements during his presidency and left the U.S. in peril of nuclear war, leading UN Secretary General António Guterres to warn, “humanity is on a knife’s edge.” But that’s a different rant for a different day.)

Back to the Q&A session in Michigan, When Trump said, “When I hear these people talking about global warming, that’s the global warming you have to worry about, not that the ocean’s going to rise in 400 years an eighth of an inch.”

“You’ll have more seafront property, right, if that happens,” he continued. “I said, is that good or bad? I said, isn’t that a good thing? If I have a little property on the ocean, I have a little bit more property—I have a little bit more ocean.”

Trump has been making erroneous comments like these about sea levels for months, in spite of the fact that this claim is inaccurate and has been soundly debunked by literally every scientist who studies environmental changes. His remarks seem to stem from the June 28 presidential debate, when President Joe Biden called climate change “the only existential threat to humanity.”

“He said it again last night, that global warming is an existential threat,” Trump said at a Virginia rally next day. “And I say that the thing that’s an existential threat is not global warming, where the ocean will rise–maybe, it may go down, also–but it may rise one eighth of an inch in the next 497 years, they say. One eighth.”

“Which gives you a little bit more waterfront property if you’re lucky enough though,” he joked. CNN quickly fact-checked Trump’s tone-deaf and elitist claims and found that “sea level rise is already more than an eighth of an inch annually—and it is accelerating.”

So, sea levels are not rising an eighth of an inch over 400+ years … they’re rising more than an eighth of an inch every single year. And it’s getting worse all the time. According to a NASA report, the global average sea level rose twice as fast last year as it did in 1993.

Rising sea levels spell danger, even for the rich.

Trump seems to be assuming that rich seaside land owners will somehow benefit from rising ocean levels, but the reality is far less glamorous. Many seafront properties will eventually crumble into the sea, and even areas further inland will become uninhabitable with frequent flooding, damaged infrastructure, and even more hurricane destruction than we have now. Even residents in Michigan, where Trump was speaking, will have to cope with rising lake levels that could threaten their way of life.

Hilariously, Trump’s own Mar-a-Lago property is perched on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, making it a prime target for climate change issues in the future. University of California professor Gary Griggs told CNN that studies of coastlines near Trump’s Florida resort show an increase of an eighth of an inch about every 9 months, not even every year.

The scientist, who studies earth and planetary sciences, also called Trump’s remarks about rising sea levels, “totally out of touch with reality” and noted that Trump “has no idea what he is talking about.”

Donald Trump telling blatant lies and passing them off as fact? “That’s shocking,” said no one, ever. Just another day on the campaign trail.


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Beverly Jenkins
Beverly Jenkins is a contributing entertainment writer for The Mary Sue. She also creates calendars and books about web memes, notably "You Had One Job!," "Animals Being Derps," and the upcoming "Mildly Vandalized." When not writing, she's listening to audiobooks or streaming content under a pile of very loved (spoiled!) pets.