Trump's bizarre whale rant is a bit much, even for him
Donald Trump has gone on a bizarre rant about offshore wind turbines, claiming they are driving whales “a little batty” and killing them “in numbers never seen before”. The former US President made the claim, which is rooted in a climate sceptic conspiracy theory, at a rally in South Carolina this week. There, he was taking aim at President Joe Biden’s regulations to impose speed limits on speed boats, vowing to overturn the rules on “day one” should he be voted in. Trump told the South Carolina crowd that the “Biden speed limit” would “demolish the charter fishing business, crush boat manufacturers and desecrate your cherished Low Country traditions.” That was when he got sidetracked by whales and wind turbines, or “windmills”, as he prefers to call them. “The windmills are driving them crazy. They’re driving the whales a little batty. And they are washing up on shore in levels never seen before.” It comes days after Trump praised Rishi Sunak for rolling back several key UK climate change promises. He congratulated the Prime Minister for “recognising this SCAM before it was too late”. As for this week's speech, it isn't the first time Trump has gone to war with wind turbines. In 2019, he suggested that wind turbines cause cancer, which is a lie. Months later, he attacked renewable energy again, suggesting that wind power doesn’t work when it’s not windy. This is also untrue. Wind-powered electricity supply isn’t affected by wind not blowing all the time because energy is stored for when it's needed. The US Department of Energy website even says that it's not a problem. At Trump's South Carolina rally, he was likely trying to appeal to a vocal community of misinformed protestors. In February, thousands of people gathered at New Jersey’s Point Pleasant beach to demand authorities pause offshore wind projects in response to recent whale deaths. Since 2023, 10 whales have washed ashore on the New York and New Jersey coastlines. Conspiracy theorists claim the noise created by wind turbines has been messing with the whales’ navigation systems. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has called the deaths “unusual mortality events”, and said there is no link between the wind turbines and whale deaths. “It’s just a cynical disinformation campaign,” Greenpeace oceans director John Hocevar told to USA Today. That’s hardly going to stop former President Trump though, is it? Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
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