Scotland may be the home of golf and bagpipes, but a protracted battle to stop Donald Trump’s $2 billion dollar golf resort has proved that the nation’s love of golf and old wind-bags is not unconditional. Trump argued yesterday for the resort in northeastern Scotland, on a stretch of shifting sand dunes on the coast 12 miles north of Aberdeen.
Trump has had quite a few snags in the last year. This latest bout of fiscal fisty-cuffs has been raging for some time, and as always Trump is reluctant to admit defeat. It may not just be bull-headed pride, though, as he claims that the project was inspired by his mother’s own Scottish heritage.
But tartan touting has not helped The McDonald in his fight, and resistance from environmentalists and residents—including a landowner who refuses to sell his family farm—has Trump’s kilt in a twist. The stretch is home to several species rare to the island, including cute, little otters and cutely-named kittiwakes (second only to titmice, in my book) and a golf course might spell doom for their populations. Badgers are also known to have their dens there—distant relatives of his, I imagine.
His rebuttals to concerns regarding the resort’s environmental impact are sub-par. From a USA Today article:
"People won't play a course if it is environmentally harmful," Trump said. "They don't like it, they don't feel good about it and they won't play it."
The United Nations Foundation may say otherwise given their address of the rising popularity of the sport worldwide and the concerns of environmentalists , but Trump has his own experts...and...
“Under cross-examination by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Trump drew snickers from the audience when he said he knew more about the environment than his consultants did. He acknowledged he had not read environmental reports that he commissioned.
"‘I would consider myself an environmentalist in the true sense of the word,’ Trump said.”
The panel, it would seem, rightly sees this as the steaming pile of haggis that it is. Though Trump remains optimistic, the best he can hope for is a scaled-down version...but he would never settle for anything but the best. Methinks the kittiwakes are safe for now.
Labels: Donald Trump , Kittiwakes , Real Estate Investment , Scotland
