For the impatient reader: The single good thing about Donald Trump is that he serves as the perfect CMA (close-minded asshole) detector. Technically, it would be more accurate to speak of "catalyst", because he doesn't really detect anything, even in himself. But he does give others the license to come out by saying and doing things that are considered outrageous in the "defined sphere of polite public discourse".
We cannot be surprised that climate deniers around the world are celebrating a propaganda coup of epic proportions as the U.S. officially withdraws from the Paris climate treaty.
In the war of words, nothing matters any more when even the New York Times publishes an article blaming basically the Democrats for the GOP leaders' calling climate science "fake science".
German speaking papers of a certain persuasion have, of course, come out saying Trump was right. We have seen and heard all the arguments before. How climate change is happening and we can't really stop it, how it brings advantages to some, possibly opening up the Northwest Passage and giving access to more resources.
Reporting on the withdrawal has focused on the political power play, with a side of melting ice caps.
To read anything about how the West outsources much of its CO2 emissions to China or India, you need to go on Twitter or Our World in Data.
Whether on women, people of color, gun violence (remember the I could shoot someone), Donald Trump's example has encouraged people to drop their guard and speak their minds.
On climate change, the latest example of his far reaching encouragement is a statement by a group of German Christian Democrats (the party of Ms. Merkel) making news today.
The new opportunities from climate change, the groups says, may well be "greater than any negative ecological effects".
There you go.
For sure, the group continues to criticize laws that their own party has enacted and supported. Some of these laws were so outrageous that even leaders of an industry that benefited from subsidies have complained about excessive generosity.
But this is a negligible detail.
The crucial idea is that they are going all the way to claiming advantages may outstrip negative effects.
What they are saying is: If there are winners and losers, which is what the runaway capitalist world view really is all about, then we want to be among the winners.
Exhilaration about real or imagined positive consequences of climate change was not an acceptable position "mainstream" German politicians and leaders would express in public.
Donald Trumps combative stance changed that.
So, the German public needs to thank him once again for being the catalyst that encouraged some folks to out themselves as close minded assholes.
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