What Is Project Trumpmore?

Last July, President Donald Trump “jokingly” mentioned that he’d like to have his likeness carved alongside other presidential greats on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. The revelation was met with some hilarity and universal dismissal, though one environmental group from Finland appears to be trying to make his wish come true in another way.

The Melting Ice Association have come up with a plan to chisel Trump’s face not into granite, but ice. Named Project Trumpmore, the idea is intended to demonstrate to climate change deniers (including Trump himself) that the phenomenon is real by having his face literally melt away from a giant iceberg in the Arctic Ocean.

Trump’s anti-science stance

Since taking to the White House last year, Trump has rolled back several of the environmental incentives instigated by his predecessor Barack Obama and withdrawn the USA from the Paris climate agreement, despite global agreement that the time for change is now with regards to the environment.  

Despite this, he has suggested that he should be recognised as one of the greatest US presidents of all time by having his likeness carved alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore. “Here’s what I’d do, I’d ask whether or not you think I will someday be on Mount Rushmore – but here’s the problem,” Trump told an Ohio crowd at a rally in July 2017. “If I did it joking, totally joking having fun, the fake news media will say ‘he believes he should be on Mount Rushmore.’”

However, the Republican representative for the state of South Dakota Kristi Noem recalls that Trump confessed his personal wish to appear on the monument in January of the same year – and that he wasn’t joking when he did so.

Making a stand

The Melting Ice Association, a climate awareness group based in Finland, have latched onto this incident to try and raise awareness about the growing predicament our planet finds itself in. By chiselling Trump’s face into the side of an iceberg and then having a livestream of the site played on the internet 24/7 until he melts, they make an excellent point about the president’s illogical view of manmade climate change.

“Our starting point was to create something concrete, something people can see and something that makes climate change visual,” said Nicolas Prieto, chairman of the association. “This project is a huge challenge and we can’t do this without help. We are now asking everybody to join this movement. It can be made by talking, liking, sharing, funding etc. All possible help is more than welcome.”

Aiming for a fundraising goal of €400,000, the association plan to employ professional ice sculptors from Finland and Mongolia to complete it. Through witnessing the sculpture’s inevitable demise over 1,000 years or 1,000 days, the group hopes to raise awareness on climate change and remove all doubt about its existence once and for all. With enhanced nitrous oxide emissions found in a recent Arctic field warming experiment, the smart money is on the latter timeframe.