Friday, September 12, 2008

Regardless of the reason for climate change

From ABC News:

"Do you still believe that global warming is not man made?" Gibson asked Palin.

"I believe that man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change. Here in Alaska, the only arctic state in our Union, of course, we see the effects of climate change more so than any other area with ice pack melting. Regardless though of the reason for climate change, whether it's entirely, wholly caused by man's activities or is part of the cyclical nature of our planet -- the warming and the cooling trends -- regardless of that, John McCain and I agree that we gotta do something about it and we have to make sure that we're doing all we can to cut down on pollution."

Consider the last sentence. We need to take action against climate change regardless of whether it is caused by humans. That is a very bizarre statement. If the entire scientific community is wrong and climate change was not actually caused by humans, instead, say, by the sun as some skeptics argue, what would you do to stop it? Are we talking about geoengineering? Moving the Earth's orbit? This cannot be what Gov Palin or her advisors were intending to say.

"Certainly can be contributing" is hardly unequivocal support for science. At least the fact that this question was asked, and the tortured wording in the response, confirms that the media expects our leaders to grasp the importance of climate change.

3 comments:

Jeremy said...

Hahahaha... you're missing an important point here.

1) Republican orthodoxy states that you can't admit that climate change is caused by humans.

2) There's gonna be big bucks spread around for addressing climate change, and Palin wants a chunk of it for Alaska.

Simon Donner said...

According to Palin's statement: regardless of the reason for climate change we need to take action and cut down on pollution. Why do that if she thinks the pollution isn't causing climate change? Whatever Palin's motivation, the statement makes no sense.

Jeremy said...

Haven't you noticed by now - most Republican talking points are only crafted to work as stand-alones.

If you actually put them into any sort of context, they are mutually exclusive, contradictory, and often completely at odds with the rest of reality and/or what the same person said last year, last week, or 15 minutes earlier.

This doesn't seem to bother them in the slightest. And because the media hasn't been calling them on it, it's worked.