An Attempt to Fact Check Trump’s Rant Against Windmill Fumes – By Aaron Mak (Slate) / Dec 23 2019
In yet another puzzling rant against wind energy on Saturday, President Donald Trump claimed to be the world’s foremost expert on windmills and detailed laws against shooting bald eagles. The president made the remarks during an hour-long speech at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Florida that also touched on impeachment, immigration, and the 2020 election.
President Trump: "I never understood wind, you know I know windmills very much. I've studied it better than anybody." pic.twitter.com/0U432SgNA2
— The Hill (@thehill) December 22, 2019
The windmill condemnations came roughly halfway through the speech after an inscrutable tirade about Elizabeth Warren and the Green New Deal. Here is a portion of what he said about wind energy, according to the White House’s own transcript of the speech:
I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody I know. It’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly—very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured tremendous—if you’re into this—tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint—fumes are spewing into the air. Right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything—right?
So they make these things and then they put them up. And if you own a house within vision of some of these monsters, your house is worth 50 percent of the price. They’re noisy. They kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go. Take a look. A bird graveyard. Go under a windmill someday. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen ever in your life. You know, in California, they were killing the bald eagle. If you shoot a bald eagle, they want to put you in jail for 10 years. A windmill will kill many bald eagles. It’s true.
Continue to article: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/trump-windmills-fumes-fact-check.html
