No, Trump’s Immigrant Grandfather Wasn’t A ‘Climate Change Refugee’
http://dailycaller.com/2017/11/21/no-trumps-immigrant-grandfather-wasnt-a-climate-change-refugee/
The media wants to shame Trump on global warming
…Setting aside the debate over whether bad weather in individual years constitutes “climate change,” Glaser’s study itself provides little evidence that climate change forced Trump’s grandfather out of Germany.
Trump’s grandfather hailed from what’s now the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate in the southwestern area of the country. Glaser’s study looks at the neighboring state of Baden-Württemberg.
Even so, Palatinate was a very poor area of Germany at the time, and that alone would have been plenty of incentive to leave. Frederick Trump eventually did leave in 1885 for New York City where, upon arriving, he moved in with his older sister who’d already been living there.
It’s not known exactly why Frederick left Germany. One German historian recently toldCNN Frederick was forced to leave for avoiding military service. According to Glaser, Frederick left Germany in the last great migration wave in the 19th century.
Outlets like Motherboard want readers to think climate change was a likely reason, but Glaser’s study suggests the climate had little to do with late 19th century immigration.
Glaser and his colleagues found the “last peak year of 1881/82 was more dominated by socio-political factors, especially the importance of family networks,” adding “weather conditions were not outstanding … and led to a slightly above average harvest.” Graphics in Glaer’s study showed the 1881 “peak” extended into 1886.
There were still some tragic flooding and bad weather in that time, but Glaser wrote “the year 1885 brought a rich harvest of potatoes and, at the regional level, strongly differing crop yields.”
“Looking for a major reason for this emigration wave, current research stemming from a more societal point of view concludes that the ‘attraction of the New World’ as a whole and the ‘reunification’ of successfully emigrated family members were the main drivers,” Glaser wrote.