Everyone knows the Sharknado formula back to front by now. There is a tornado full of sharks that, for whatever reason, seems hellbent on destroying our stocks of awkwardly self-parodying, Z-list nearly-celebrities. The only people who can stop them are two or three people who were relatively famous a quarter of a century ago. Throw in a lukewarm mugful of basement-bin, so-bad-it’s-bad irony and, bingo, that’s your Sharknado. And your Sharknado 2: The Second One. And your Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! And your Sharknado: The 4th Awakens.

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And, in all probability, your Sharknado 5. Yes, Sharknado 5 is happening in August and, yes, even though Fabio is playing the pope, you’re going to watch it with a rictus grin plastered across your face, like someone who’s realised too late that a day out at an abattoir wasn’t quite the lolzeroonie funtime they anticipated. In short, Sharknado 5 will be fully dismal.

But there’s a good chance that Sharknado 5 will also save the world. Now, hear me out. This is entirely unsubstantiated, but it seems sensible to assume that Donald Trump loves the Sharknado films. After all, don’t forget that his preferred method of consuming movies is to pick something bad (Bloodsport is reportedly a favourite) and make his son fast-forward through all the dialogue and exposition until he’s left with a brief, nonstop orgy of senseless, context-free action.

Given that the Sharknado films are (a) a brief, nonstop orgy of senseless, context-free action and (b) bad, it seems only fair to assume that he’s seen all of them several times. Indeed, it’s the most sensible thing in the world to assume that, had the election gone differently, Trump would have been the first celebrity to cameo in Sharknado 5, possibly in a scene where he says: “You’re fired,” to a shark, before the shark bites his bum off. Plus, just to make sure it gets his attention, they’ve even given it the tagline: “Make America bait again.” Short of giving all the sharks wives who visibly can’t stand them, it’s hard to see how they could make the film more appealing to Trump.

So, Trump is going to watch Sharknado 5. Here’s where things get interesting. The subtitle of Sharknado 5 is Global Swarming. Is that because the plot is about Ian Ziering and Tara Reid’s son getting flung around the world inside a swarm of flying sharks? Yes. But is it also because Sharknado 5 will contain a number of veiled messages about the importance of the Paris climate agreement? Well, maybe.

If so, it’s a genius move on the part of the film-makers. Trump doesn’t like formal methods of learning. The entire world asked him to take part in a climate change accord, all the experts and leaders presenting him with mound after mound of scientific proof, and he ignored them. But perhaps Reid can get through if she stops listlessly fending off airborne sharks for long enough to turn to camera and say: “These flying tornado sharks would all be dead if we worked to combat climate-change-fuelled extreme weather by increasing our focus on renewable energy”

Perhaps that’s what it’s going to take. Perhaps we need to start filling everything that Trump loves with political advice. Maybe they should make a Lavalantula sequel about the benefits of subsidised healthcare. Maybe Dolph Lundgren could be put to work making dirt-cheap action films where all the baddies are called Putin. Perhaps WWE should introduce a really dumb wrestler called Border Wall who loses all his fights. Admittedly, this approach seems like a long shot. But, hey, if it works, it works.