Trump to Islanders: Don’t Worry about Sea Level. Meanwhile, at his Seaside Golf Course…

Ah love yew, Mr. Trump. blub blub blub…..

Richmond Times-Dispatch:

TANGIER — The mayor of the tiny Chesapeake Bay island community of Tangier says President Donald Trump called him after seeing a news report about the threat the Virginia village faces from sea-level rise.

Trump — who was overwhelmingly backed by Tangier residents in November — called Mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge after CNN reported on the island last week, according to The Daily Times of Salisbury, Md.

“It was unreal,” said Eskridge, who spoke with the president Monday afternoon.

According to the mayor, Trump introduced himself and told Eskridge: “You’ve got one heck of an island there.”

Most of low-lying Tangier, with a population of about 450, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Because of the isolation, many residents have retained the linguistic traces of the island’s primarily English settlers who first arrived in the 17th century.

The island is also sinking from erosion and rising sea levels, and scientists predict that residents may have to abandon it within 25 to 50 years.

But Eskridge said Trump reassured him.

“He said not to worry about sea-level rise,” Eskridge said. “He said, ‘Your island has been there for hundreds of years, and I believe your island will be there for hundreds more.’”

About 87 percent of Tangier residents who cast ballots in November voted for Trump, and Eskridge said during the CNN interview that he loved Trump like a family member.

“He said, ‘I’ve just got to talk to that guy,’” Eskridge said.

Guardian:

On election night in Tubridy’s bar, one of few buildings in the village of Doonbeg, Ireland, that was still open at midnight, pints of Guinness were being poured with “Trump” written on top in creamy froth. A few local men huddled around the bar discussing their man’s chances.

“If he wins, we’ll get that wall built, sure enough!” one of them cheered.

The wall, however, wasn’t the one you would first think of.

Long before he set his sights on Mexico, Donald Trump had his eyes on a different wall. He wanted to build one on the Irish coast of County Clare – a 13ft high structure erected to protect his luxury golf resort, the Trump International Golf Links and Hotel, from increasingly volatile storms and rising sea levels.

While the president-elect announced a climate-change skeptic as the leader of the Environmental Protection Agency transition team, this move to protect his investment suggests Trump recognizes the effects of a changing climate.

This summer, the Irish Times reported that planning authorities at An Bord Pleanála rejected an application to designate the wall a “strategic infrastructure development”, further delaying the construction of the planned 200,000-ton structure that would span 2.8km (1.74 miles) of the dunes. But Trump’s Irish firm, TIGL Ireland Enterprises, is relodging an application with the local county council and warned that without the wall, the “viability of the entire resort and its potential closure” would be in question.

His son, Eric Trump, visited the course this summer, a property he says his family loves and invested upwards of $50m to $60m in. He recalled first seeing the course in 2014 when “20 or 30 metres of dunes” had already been eroded. A few more heavy storms, and he worried their redesigned, luxury course might be lost completely.

‘It’s there to be seen, sure and certain’

Kelly was one of the first to join the club but had to give up his membership, unable to afford the high fees, which cost thousands of dollars a year. Today, he is more concerned about the jobs the resort provides and the land he grew up on.

“I tell you, it’s not about the golf course, it’s about all this lower area,” he said, pointing towards the land stretching behind the course, where families he knows have farms and land.

“The wall is an issue at the minute, but if [the dunes] go, the water’s coming straight over it, that’s the big issue,” he warned. “Long term, they’re going to get washed away, and if the water gets in, there’s no way to get it out.”

He has seen the storms increasing over the years and the way the coastline has been eaten away. He is no skeptic when it comes to climate change and rising sea levels.

“They be rising a bit, with the global warming, the Antarctic and all that, the melting away of the ice,” he said. “It’s there to be seen, sure and certain.”