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Nuking Hurricanes Is a Shockingly Stupid Idea, Even by Donald Trump Standards

This is how we're all gonna die, isn't it?
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Vivian Kane
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Published: Aug 26, 2019 01:05 pm

This article is over 5 years old and may contain outdated information

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According to Axios, our Very Stable Genius of a President reportedly suggested multiple times to senior Homeland Security and national security officials that we try to stop hurricanes by attacking them with nuclear weapons. It’s like he heard about those people that tried to shoot a hurricane and thought, “I can do one better!”

According to one source who was in the hurricane briefing, Donald Trump said (paraphrasing), “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them? They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”

The source said that people in the room were thinking, “What the f—? What do we do with this?” but the briefer only said something along the lines of “Sir, we’ll look into that.” Because really, what do you do with that?

It should go without saying, but this is not a good idea.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been saying this for years. They say that the energy released by a hurricane “is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes” so a nuke is no match for that kind of storm. On top of that, the radioactive fallout “would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems.”

Trump denies that he ever suggested nuking hurricanes, and you can tell he’s credible because he did so in the third person, a very normal and confidence-instilling thing to do.

Personally, I believe Axios’ story. Mostly because it’s entirely believable. It’s no more idiotic than the things Trump has said about climate and science in public and on camera.

For example:

See also:

But Trump isn’t the only one coming up with terrible ideas for how to solve Earth’s problems. A group of designers has proposed a submarine that pops out mini-glacier “ice babies” in order to restore some of the ice sheets that have melted due to climate change. An … interesting idea, to be sure, but not the most practical.

One scientist told NBC News this is “like trying to save the sand castle you built at the beach using a dixie cup as the tide comes in.” Plus, there’s the question of how much energy it would take to build and operate a fleet of these subs and how much damage that would cause if fossil fuels are used.

The proposal was tweeted out by a Democratic caucus, praising its ingenuity. It’s not “nuking hurricanes” levels of bad, but it’s a reminder that Trump doesn’t have a monopoly on environmental WTFery.

(image: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

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Image of Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.
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