Minnesota Politics Hinderaker
Never underestimate Wingnut Blogger Hinderaker’s ability to play the stupid card. Hinderacker, BTW, is famous for ranking American Presidents in terms of greatness as follows:
- George Washington
- Abraham Lincoln
- George W Bush and then Roosevelt or vice versa.
This time our wingnutty friend is back at the old WEATHER versus CLIMATE canard. The old WEATHER versus CLIMATE canard goes like this: How can the one say the earth is accumulating an energy imbalance with average temperatures rising, i.e., subject to anthropogenic global warming, when it is snowing in Minnesota today?
This is the old WEATHER versus CLIMATE canard. It is a logical fallacy that holds that if the WEATHER is cold here locally, then how can one prove that CLIMATE change is really happening globally. The problem with this argument is that it examines local conditions in Minnesota to formulate an exception to a general rule and then uses this exception to disprove the general rule that temperatures are increasing when averaged Globally. Sneaky. Sneaky. Sneaky.
Here is how Hinderaker does it:
Howard Dean says that we Republicans don't believe in science. Science, he explains, tells us that our breathing, etc., is warming the Earth to unprecedented and alarming levels. A year or two ago, the alarmists were telling us that warm weather and a lack of snow were evidence of global warming. (Rush reminds us here.) That made a certain kind of primitive sense. Today, however, they are telling us--rather feverishly--that cold weather and record-breaking snowfalls are also proof of global warming. Sure. They're the ones who believe in science, right? "Science" is whatever you need it to be to justify more government power.
Here in Minnesota, we've been out of the headlines for a while. Others have been bearing the brunt of a winter that is also pretty formidable here. I heard on the radio this morning that in Minneapolis, we have more snow on the ground than we've seen for a number of years. I don't think anyone claims that we're getting a lot of snow because it's so warm. The Minneapolis Star Tribune highlights a Wisconsin farmer who built a snow house in his back yard, measuring 58 feet long, 26 feet wide and 11 feet tall. This is a photo of the interior; it brings back memories of my youth. Back in South Dakota, we liked to dig snow caves, although admittedly they were never quite this large. [em-mine]
How can you honestly say the global warming is real after reading about this huge snow fort! Awesome deduction.
There is too much BS in the quote above to unpack in one post, so let’s put the Hinderacker’s argument another way. Let’s say for example, Hinderacker were to go outside during night time, look up to the heavens and be unable to see the Sun from where he was standing. Would it then be logical to conclude that the sun is no longer warming the globe because Hinderacket was unable to observe the sun’s rays at that moment? The answer is clearly no it would not be logical. But yet this is just the type of argument being employed by various nutters like Hinderacker on a daily basis.
What our sneaky wingnutty friend fails to mention in his Climate Canard is that while one area in the North America got nailed with record snow (think Washington, D.C.) at the same time another area of the globe was brutalized with a heat wave (think Australia) topping 140 degrees and while one area of North America has awesome amounts of snow cave friendly snow (think Minnesota) another area of North America (think The Vancouver Olympics) is suffering a serious snow shortage and had to import it (presumably form Minnesota which is in apparent surplus).
Now I am not going to argue that because the fact that snow is being trucked into the Olympics proves global warming exists. I’d be falling for the same sort of faulty reasoning that our wingnutty friend employs if I were to do so. What I will argue is that Climate Scientists predict that weather patterns will change due to the effects of rising average global temperature. And as such, it will continue to be unsurprising to see variations of local weather conditions.
This really is not that hard to understand. I am left with the conclusion that either Hinderaker is willfully ignorant or is deliberately deceitful.
4 Comments:
At 3:26 AM, February 14, 2006, said...Have you read "Waiting for the Barbarians," by J.M. Coetzee? It is a really extraordinarily good book, with some relation to the topic.The title of the book is based on this poem: http://cavafis.compupress.gr/kave_32.htmSome people are just natural followers, like The Rocket, or whatever he's calling himself now, and some people just, psychologically, can't function in a world where enemies aren't constantly bearing down on them. All of which makes it very easy for leaders with despotic tendencies to manipulate them.
At 9:39 AM, February 14, 2006, SousyHawk said...I attended a Thomas Frank lecture in Des Moines awhile ago, and I think he described it best: the conservative pundits know how to tap into a vein of populist anger that has existed in this country since the beginning.Frank compared the Coulters/Malkins, etc. to the writers of leftist popular fiction that he collects ("by the pound on eBay") and claims that he can put down one of these seething 1920s writers and pick up Coulter without missing a beat. (Except the "capitalist swine" and "copper barons" become "the liberal elite" and the "Hollywood set", etc.)Here's what I consider to be rather sad/funny at the same time: for a movement that once spent a lot of time mocking the "culture of victimization", it's patently obvious that the modern movement conservatives embody victimization. On one hand, you can listen to someone like Rush Limbaugh lambast some "poor emotional liberal group" for pushing their own victimhood, then turn around less than five minutes later and whine about "Hollywood pushing their values on us!" or some other nonsense.For another example: note the use of 'ribbons'. The Limbaugh listeners of the world once enjoyed mocking the "Hollywood Elite" for wearing ribbons at awards ceremonies to promote a cause of some type.... now you can happily buy the same symbol of a ribbon at any grocery store to "Support the Troops", "Remember the Pope", etc. - yet no one mentions a thing about the motiviations of these people.It's an odd country we live in at times.
At 11:04 AM, February 14, 2006, said...Anger can be poorly disguised fear. Some are cowering so deeply, that they would give away our rights, freedom, prosperity, property, government and children, just for a fleeting, false promise from the administration that it will protect us. Just how much of a coward would someone have to be, to give away someone else's children to save their own skin?
At 1:23 PM, February 15, 2006, Kevin from Minneapolis said...I don't really read any of these blogs, but I'm going to comment that all the authors are angry.Oh yes, yes, THAT makes you a credible source.Have you not really read any books you'd like to review?
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