A Brief History Of Donald Trump’s Weirdly Combative Statements About Wind Power
When President Donald Trump claimed this week that wind turbines cause cancer, it was an odd statement not backed by evidence of any kind, but it was far from the first time Trump has lashed out at the alternative power source, as Vanity Fair reports. In 2012, apparently out of the blue, Trump tweeted, long before becoming president, that wind turbines are “an environmental & aesthetic disaster” as he asked his followers how many bald eagles they killed that day.
In 2014, Trump said, “wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103,” referring to a passenger flight that was bombed in a terrorist attack in 1988, killing all 259 passengers, plus more on the ground in Scotland where the plane came down. More recently, in 2018, Trump again brought up his concern for birdlife, saying at a rally that underneath windmills is like a killing field for birds.
And more recently still, just last week, Trump suggested to a crowd at another rally that had Hillary Clinton become president Americans would all have switched to wind power and find themselves unable to watch television if the wind died down.
Which brings us to, as The Inquisitr noted, Trump’s most recent claims about the danger and downsides of wind power, which were made at the National Republican Congressional Committee fundraiser in Washington, D.C.
“They say the noise causes cancer,” the president said.
“If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations—your house just went down 75 percent in value.”
While the sources of the president’s various concerns about wind power are unclear, it is possible to speculate on some of the driving factors behind his longstanding disdain for the concept.
His remarks in 2012 coincided with ongoing and relentless criticism by Trump of then-President Barack Obama, where Obama’s support of a policy was often more than sufficient to draw Trump out publicly against it.
The 2014 statements were the culmination of an ongoing battle between Trump and Scotland’s First Minister in which Scotland was planning an offshore wind farm near Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course which he, rightly or wrongly, believed would be an eyesore that hurt the value of his property there.
And finally, as president, wind power does indeed run contrary to Trump’s priority of maintaining and growing the otherwise declining coal industry in the United States.
Sen. Chuck Grassley called Trump's recent comments suggesting that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer “idiotic"https://t.co/zi7HC5ZYXn
— Axios (@axios) April 3, 2019
As New York Magazine‘s Jonathan Chait wrote, “[Coal is] an extremely dirty fuel Trump loves and has attempted to bolster, with almost no success. Aside from costing more to produce than other sources of power, and in addition to enormous air-pollution side effects, coal also emits greenhouse gases in large amounts.”
Ultimately, the source of Trump’s ire for wind power could be any or all of the above.
