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Why Chomsky made ‘provocative observation’ on Trump-Hitler

David Cay Johnston, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

American philosopher Noam Chomsky’s “provocative observation” that US President Donald Trump represents worse threat to humanity than Adolf Hitler was designed to get the people’s attention on the issue of climate change, an American investigative journalist and author has said.

“Professor Noam Chomsky, one of the great intellects of the last half-century has made a very provocative observation, comparing how we deal with climate change to the murderous Nazi regime in the 1930s and 1940s,” said David Cay Johnston, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

“To me, it's a little over the top, but I get his point. If we do not address how humans are affecting our atmosphere and climate there will be vastly more people who will die than from the Nazis,” he told Press TV on Tuesday.

“Indeed whole countries and large parts of countries like Bangladesh will disappear beneath rising seas. That's not going to happen without a lot of death and potentially warfare,” he said.

“So I think the professor was trying to make a point and he certainly got our attention in the way he chose to do so,” he concluded.

In an interview with The Independent published on Sunday, the celebrated linguist and media critic said he believes Trump’s victory in the November 3 election could send the planet hurtling further towards environmental catastrophe.

He said the Republican Party is the world’s only large conservative political grouping to deny the existence of climate change, adding that he has identified several patterns over the course of the Trump presidency.

“One is to tear up any deals in which he played no part in creating, such as the 2015 Paris Accord to try and limit the planet’s warming, which Barack Obama helped to broker, and from which Trump has withdrawn the United States,” the newspaper reported.

“He didn't create it, destroy it, OK,” Chomsky was quoted saying.

Chomsky also made a comparison between Trump and Adolf Hitler, adding that the threat represented by the heating planet is unprecedented.

“The facts are pretty straight; there is almost universal consensus among serious scientists that we are racing towards the cataclysm, if current tendencies persist,” the 91-year-old said.

“By the end of this century, you might have reached the level three, maybe four degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And every analysis concludes that's a total cataclysm. Organized human societies – nothing survives,” he said.

“We are moving towards cataclysm. There is one country in the world, the United States, that wants to put its foot on the accelerator,” he continued.

The public intellectual and activist, whose many celebrated works include Manufacturing Consent, said the issue of the global coronavirus pandemic can be resolved, but not with “malignant cancer in charge of the policies – someone who moves to destroy anything that doesn't improve his electoral chances”.


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