Trump Might Accidentally Save the Planet

By Bill Maher

I’m guessing our trade war with China will turn out to hurt all the businesspeople Trump doesn’t like and help the businesspeople who eat lunch at Mar-a-Lago. Just by coincidence. That’s how it worked with Perón. But it wouldn’t be a completely bad thing if we stopped buying so much disposable crap from China and schlepping it across the Pacific.

Here are some depressing stats from The Guardian back in 2009:

• Shipping is responsible for 18-30 percent of the world's nitrogen oxide pollution and 9 percent of global sulfur dioxide.

• It’s responsible for 3.5 to 4 percent of climate change emissions.

• There are 90,000 ocean-going cargo ships.

• Each ship generally operates 24 hours a day for about 280 days a year.

• One container ship can emit about the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50 million cars.

• Just 15 of the world's biggest ships emit as much pollution as the world's 760 million cars.

And the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) notes that that any recent gains in efficiency have been offset by the growing demand for shipping.

I don’t want to be a broken record about this – especially because vinyl is back – but there’s no such thing as free shipping. When you order bottled water from Amazon, it doesn’t arrive by reindeer. A truck brings it. So when Trump destroys Amazon, he’s saving the planet. And here’s a really crazy thought: If Trump crushes the economy completely, and no one can afford to shop for fun, he could be our greatest green president.