Donald Trump once said climate change was a “hoax” invented by the Chinese but the phenomenon could be responsible for flooding his own Florida properties.
Environmental experts lined up to testify at a senate hearing on climate change this week, just four miles from Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, arguing that water could rise so high by the end of the century that the President’s own resorts would be damaged.
According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the President’s so-called Winter White House would be partially submerged if sea levels rose by three feet in the next 83 years.
Climate poster (Image: T. Larkum)
“Today we sit at ground zero of the impacts of climate change in the US,” said Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
His state has already suffered multiple cases of serious flooding.
“And while there are still some who continue to deny climate change is real, South Florida offers proof that it is real and it’s an issue we’re going to be grappling with for decades to come.”
Data from NOAA would not just affect the President, but millions of residents who live along the east coast as sea levels could rise by as much as five feet.
A recent study published in journal Nature found that sea levels could rise by six feet by 2100 due to ice melting in the Antartic, and the President’s golf course at Doral, Florida, and several of his Sunny Isles Beach properties – along with two million homes – would be underwater.
Read more: Independent