Dumb or Dishonest
You begin to wonder if right-wingers actually believe their own claims against global warming. I know that many of these people are simply knee-jerk reactionist idiots, but even idiots can figure out simple stuff from time to time.
They know as well as anyone else by now that “global warming” does not mean that it never, ever gets cold enough to snow anywhere.
They know that warmer average temperatures means more water evaporates.
They know that more water evaporated means more precipitation, and that where it gets cold enough, more snow.
So they know that global warming can cause greater snowfalls. Snowfalls like the very one they claim disproves global warming.
The question is, are they really so astonishingly stupid, or are they fully aware of their BS and are astonishingly dishonest? If one were to give them the benefit of the doubt, which way would it go?
There’s no ice in the artic ocean but there’s snow in Washington D.C. so therefore there is no global warming.
Part of the problem is that it should be referred to as Global Climate Change, instead of Global Warming. The other part of the problem is people are craven and/or idiots that need things spoon fed to them in order for them to be able to understand it.
Perhaps the image of Santa Clause living on a houseboat would help spell things out for them.
Another element is that there’s a strong persecution complex among conservative Americans.
30%+ of this country is certain that if the marxists-leninists take over conservative politics and religion will be driven underground. This underlying fear imbues a lot of the discourse today.
The scientific establishment is not a part of the conservative power bloc and thus partially if not entirely under the thrall of the liberal conspiracy to destroy conservatism and America.
@Troy
Troy: This an age old favorite conservative chestnut: “The Persecuted Majority.”
I’m sure you can recall Hitler’s old “Stabbed in the back” theme. Germany couldn’t have lost a war, that is, World War I, but if not for having been ‘stabbed in the back’ by traitorous minorities: Jews, Liberals, trade unionist, leftist and Bolsheviks.
This is a favorite of the right because it justifies almost everything they think, feel or envision.
The American right is no different. They believe there is a majority of ‘real’ Americans who think the same way they do. The rest are foreign minorities or people who have been duped.
Of course the American right is the vulgate of the polity and function as useful idiots for the uber-wealthy-right, who think nothing of raping and looting them and leaving them by the road side.
(I think what’s happening currently is an inevitable rift: the uber-wealthy have succeeded to the point that they have captured so much of the nation’s wealth that they now control both parties’ politicians, and so they are less dependent upon the vulgate-right. The vulgate, right are therefore more angry than ever. Likewise, they are being used and manipulated more than ever by the uber-wealthy-right. As mad barking dogs, they functioned nicely as the equivalent of Nazi brownshirts to blow up meetings of healthy discourse last summer while elected politicians attempted to hold rational town hall meetings and discussions with their constituents.)
In the case of the Nazis, the problem was, when that persecuted majority finally came to power, they felt entitled to persecute back in order to even the score (even if it was a non-existent, fictional, mythical score they were trying to even), which they did to horrific effect, as we all recall.
It’s hard to believe that people could be so stupid as to allow themselves to be duped this way, but they are. Most of my family constitute the vulgar-right, including my parents. It’s hard to deal with.