Mount Rushmore’s presidents, Easter Island’s statues, the Lincoln Memorial, these are all statues that have stood the test of time and will last far into the future – unlike Trump’s face carved into a glacier, which is kind of the point of a new project.
A Finnish climate group is raising funds for what they’ve called Project Trumpmore, playing on both the current US leader’s anti-science stance and vanity to make an important point about climate change – whether you believe in it or not, it’s still happening.
Perhaps in response to the simplistic approach by Republican James Inhofe to prove climate change isn’t happening by taking a snowball onto the Senate floor, Project Trumpmore is attempting an equally visual concrete form of proof that it is.
“Our starting point was to create something concrete, something people can see and something that makes climate change visual,” the Melting Ice Association, whose project this is, said in a statement.
Their question is: Will it melt or last a thousand years?
The idea is to sculpt Trump’s face into a glacier in the Arctic and to install a camera to livestream its fate. It was actually inspired by a joke the president made himself last year.
“Every president on Mount Rushmore believed in protecting American industry,” Trump "joked" at a rally. “Now here’s what I do. I’d ask whether or not you someday think I will be on Mount Rushmore.”
However, this week South Dakota Republican representative Kristi Noem revealed that when she first met the president in the Oval Office after he was sworn in, he said to her "Do you know it's my dream to have my face on Mount Rushmore?"
"I started laughing," she said. "He wasn't laughing, so he was totally serious."
Since Trump is unlikely to ever actually appear on the mountainside among this illustrious group, Project Trumpmore is offering up its own take, which you can be a part of.
“We want to make his dreams come true… kinda,” they said.
Obviously, their goal is more lofty than taking an easy jab at the president. In 2018, when anti-science rhetoric is stronger than ever and evidence-based science is being eschewed for political, influential, or monetary incentives instead, it's important to grab the public's attention and make them feel part of something – the right side of history, for example.
"Often people only believe something when they see it with their own eyes," said Nicolas Prieto, the chairman of the Melting Ice Association. A giant ice sculpture of Trump's face livestreaming to the world as it melts will be pretty hard to miss, we think.
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