It’s not a surprise to anyone when Donald Trump makes uninformed and completely untruthful statements and then doubles down on them when fact-checked anymore. His ridiculous claims that California can prevent wildfires by “cleaning the floors” of the forest has now become “and three weeks later, they said I was right,” according to Trump in speech he gave in front of the
Trump’s speech included long streams of vitriol toward “that young…guy” Gavin Newsome, the young governor of California. In addition to criticizing the now scaled-down version of the high-speed monorail system, Trump doubled down on his earlier forest fires criticism, saying that Newsome needed to rake the leaves and stuff to prevent them. Then he told the realtors that he had been proven right since he said that initially. He hasn’t.
POLITICO reports:
‘Trump…claimed improper “forest management” was the reason the blazes broke out in California in the fall — not, he added, because of climate change like Newsom has said.
‘“He blames it on global warming,” Trump said of the governor, who he described as “nice” and “young.” “I say, ‘Look, try cleaning the floor of the forest a little bit. So you don’t have four feet of leaves and broken trees that have sat there for 25 years.”‘
Trump standing in the ashes of the most deadly wildfire in California history, blaming the state for not "taking care of the floors" or some random nonsense, while adults stand around him trying hard not to blurt out 'WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU BABBLING ABOUT?' pic.twitter.com/ttTIC9uNax
— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) November 17, 2018
According to The New York Times, President Sauli Niinisto of Finland confirms that he never told Trump that raking the forest floors was the secret to preventing disastrous wildfires. While he did say that he mentioned removing dead trees, he also said that Finland was largely unable to do that everywhere in their country and that a regular 60-degree climate contributes to the lack of massive wildfires, as well. However, their real secret is quite different from the one Trump described.
‘The secret to the Finns’ forest management system lies instead in its early warning system, aerial surveillance system and network of forest roads, said Professor Henrik Lindberg, a forest fires researcher at the Häme University of Applied Sciences, a college in southern Finland.
‘At times of high incendiary risk, the Finnish authorities are highly effective at delivering warnings across most forms of media, Mr. Lindberg said.’
Trump again says California needs to clean the forest floors
Newsom 'blames it on global warming. I said, 'no, try cleaning the floor of the forest a little bit, so you don't have 4 feet of leaves and broken trees that sit there for 25 years'
Loud cheers for that
— Timothy Cama (@Timothy_Cama) May 17, 2019
It was also noted that the trees in Finland are quite different from those in California. In addition to snowy winters and wet autumns, Finland’s trees are far less likely to catch fire because of the type of trees that are native to the area.
‘Finnish forests are mainly filled with tall boreal trees — pine, spruce and birch — whereas much of Californian vegetation consists of lower-lying chaparral shrub land and small trees, which are more prone to catching fire.’
Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2019
Featured image screenshot via YouTube
