MIT Explores The Hidden Environmental Toll of Donald Trump’s Border Wall

Donald Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico has raised a host of ethical, moral, and economic concerns. Recently, MIT Technology Review posted an evaluation that summarized the devastating environmental effects such an undertaking would have, a hitherto unexplored topic.

According to their calculations, the project would result in the release of “7.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide”– in other words, the equivalent emission of “823,654 homes over the course of a year”. The only potential positive outcome would be that the cost of gas (if Trump follows through on his import tax financing model for the wall) brought in from Mexico would rise. As Jaime Condliffe writes:

Given the damage it could cause, though, building the wall would be unquestionably wasteful. Speaking to Scientific American, Bryan Lee Jr., the place and civic design director for the Arts Council of New Orleans, just about sums up the situation: “The embodied energy in thousands and thousands of miles of wall is insane and useless in so many ways. The embodied energy of creation is one thing … but also the embodied energy from the social perspective.”

Read the full article at MIT Technology Review.