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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy Do People Still Believe Limbaugh About Climate -- Or Anything? - By Gene Lyons
Full article posted with the permission of the author -- DonIf the American people, collectively speaking, had enough sense to come in out of the rain, the climate debatelong settled almost everywhere else on earthwould be over. No, its not possible to assert with mathematical certainty that hurricanes Harvey and Irma were caused by global warming.
Its also not possible to stipulate exactly which carton of Camels brought about my fathers lung cancer. Only that his 40 year two-packs-a-day tobacco habit shortened his life by a decade or more. Although the tobacco companies once resisted the evidence as vigorously (and dishonestly) as Koch Industries and the rest now fight climate science, nobody argues about it anymore.
Eventually, statistical evidence conflates with lived experience to the point where denialists feel less like iconoclasts and more like fools. Its tempting to wonder if two of the most powerful hurricanes in US history striking Texas and Floridawithin two weeks of each other might cause Republican climate change deniers like EPA administrator Scott Pruitt to go the way of the Marlboro Man.
Pruitts the Trump appointee who declared it insulting to Floridians to associate the strongest Atlantic hurricane in recorded history with ever-increasing ocean temperatures. This despite the fact that its a basic matter of atmospheric physics: the warmer the ocean, the more powerful the storm. The connection between record high temperatures and catastrophic flooding events isnt inferential, its direct.
Up goes the temperature, down comes the deluge.
Even more than Irma, Hurricane Harvey50 inches of rain, 70 dead, countless lives and livelihoods ruined, billions in property damage all over south Texasimpressed scientists as entirely consistent with a warming, rising Gulf of Mexico. Contrary to Bob Dylan, sometimes you do need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.
But the real prize winner, of course, wasnt EPAs Pruitt or renowned climatologist Donald J. Trump, but talk radio clown Rush Limbaugh. Even as Hurricane Irma tore through the Caribbean, its 185 mph winds leaving chaos and destruction in its wake, Limbaugh assured listeners that the storm was basically Fake News, a figment of the liberal imagination.
Believe it or not, he blamed the malign influence of Big Water. Limbaugh claimed to know exactly where and when Irma would make landfall, a secret he had shared with his buddies, but not, of course, with his gullible listeners.
The Limbaugh position is that conspiratorial liberals in the news media deliberately stoke panic for the sake of profits. He argued that there is symbiotic relationship between retailers and local media, and its related to money. It revolves around money. You have major, major industries and businesses which prosper during times of crisis and panic, such as a hurricane, which could destroy or greatly damage peoples homes, and it could interrupt the flow of water and electricity. So what happens?
Well, the TV stations begin reporting this and the panic begins to increase. And then people end up going to various stores to stock up on water and whatever they might need for home repairs and batteries and all this that theyre advised to get, and a vicious circle is created, Limbaugh said.
So the media benefits with the panic with increased eyeballs, and the retailers benefit from the panic with increased sales, and the TV companies benefit because theyre getting advertising dollars from the businesses that are seeing all this attention from customers.
In short, Limbaugh sounded pretty much like Bernie Sanders on cracka straight Marxist analysis of the evils of corporate broadcasting. Except heres the problem: Hurricane Irma kept coming, swallowing up St. Martin and the Virgin Islands, and looking less imaginary every day.
So Limbaugh shut down his Palm Beach studio and evacuated for parts unknown like millions of other Floridians. Needless to say, hell come up with a fancy alibi. Im sure itll be a humdinger. But how anybody could ever take the portly blowhard seriously again beggars my poor imagination.
Somewhat further out on the lunatic fringe, Infowars founder Alex Jones took an even more imaginative position: speculating darkly that both storms had been geo-engineered by wicked agents of the deep state to stoke fear of climate change and enhance the liberal agenda.
Of course, not long ago Jones conjured thousands of Muslim terrorists fixing to overrun south Texas from bunkers hidden under vacant Walmart stores, even as Hillary Clintons Comet Ping Pong Pizza child sex abuse ring flourished in Washington. Evidently, theres no conspiracy too absurd for Joness deluded followers.
Thats the great paradox among todays right wing true-believers, where Chicken Little stories are always in fashion. The sky is always about to fall.
Except, that is, when it does, as in Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
We may expect such persons to go into increased frenzies of denial. Some human beings are rarely more passionate than when denying reality.
We can hope the majority will prove capable of learning from it.
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http://www.nationalmemo.com/why-would-anyone-believe-limbaugh-climate/
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Why Do People Still Believe Limbaugh About Climate -- Or Anything? - By Gene Lyons (Original Post)
DonViejo
Sep 2017
OP
Because he reinforces their prejudices and fears (that he may have heightened)
SharonClark
Sep 2017
#3
tblue37
(64,979 posts)1. K&R and thanks! nt
Girard442
(6,059 posts)2. There was an article a while back about RW memes.
It was about things like the (then) recurring rumor that the Proctor and Gamble logo contained Satanic symbols. Turns out that when you interviewed people who'd propagated the meme, most of them didn't actually believe it. It was just their way of showing they were in the club.
Same thing with Limbaugh. They know he's an assclown, but he pisses off liberals, so they show their support.
(I'd credit the article, but it was a long time ago and I don't remember who wrote it.)
SharonClark
(10,005 posts)3. Because he reinforces their prejudices and fears (that he may have heightened)