Say Anything Blog

[...] Robert F. Kennedy Jr has piped in his endorsement of the view, discussed yesterday here, that Bush and the neocons are responsible for Hurricane Katrina because they caused global warming.  He wrote inter alia: "As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2."  See also this. [...]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just said that the devastation in Mississippi is Haley Barbour’s payback from God for authoring a memo that spoke out in opposition of the Kyoto Protocols. The dead citizens, the destroyed homes, the smashed infrastructure, the lives forever changed–it’s Haley Barbour’s fault. God was punishing him.

Please, it was obviously sarcastic.  I referenced the very same Robertson quote in an earlier string.

[...] Not surprising. This sort of thing is happening all over the political left. Even mainstream leftists like Bobby Kenned Jr., who you’d expect to cling to at least a vestige of sanity when in the public eye. [...]

[...] Don’t lefty demagogues like Bobby Kennedy Jr. though. This is all about global warming, and thus Bush’s fault because he didn’t eliminate global warming in his first term. [...]

Even if it was sarcastic, which it wasn’t, because Kennedy takes himself so seriously, that’s supposed to excuse it?

In his updated version of the post, Kennedy notes that NO was not spared after all, and intones, “Barbour still has much to answer for.”

That’s not sarcasm. It’s delusion.

Even if it was sarcastic, which it wasn’t, because Kennedy takes himself so seriously, that’s supposed to excuse it?

If you take Kennedy’s statement literally then I must assume that you also take Robertson’s statement literally?

Come on, MI.

Kennedy and Robertson’s statements are BOTH wrong. They are both egomaniacs who believe that their word is gospel. I didn’t take Robertson’s statement literally when he said it, but you can sure as hell bet that he did.

Robertson’s statements were dismissed out of hand and harshly ridiculed when they were made. That Kennedy, in his zeal, would choose to use those particular discredited words of Pat Robertson, a person with whom Kennedy probably disagrees with on everything anyway, demonstrates what a silly and opportunistic hack Kennedy really is.

I’m sure Bobby thought he had the right in a big “gotcha” moment by using that particular quote. Thing is, rational people (right and left) blew that nonsense off a long time ago.

Kennedy, however, is an irrational loon who was clearly blind to that fact when he wrote his piece. It didn’t matter that Robertson’s nutty quote carried no weight with most people. All that mattered was that it advanced his insane Haley Barbour conspiracy theory.

That he made such cold, ridiculous statements in the face of such tragedy and devastation simply adds the word “sinister” to the list of adjectives you can use to describe him.

RFK Jr. is not Dave Barry. What he wrote was not satire in any sense of the word.

Alex,
I think you are deliberately muddying the waters a little.

The quote you provided

“a study published in the journal Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the increasing prevalence of destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming.”

simply suggests that destructive hurricanes are becoming increasingly prevalent (i.e. more frequent) due to global warming.

However, for some reason, you choose to spin this study as suggesting that

“Global warming causes hurricanes.”

Which is, of course, complete nonsense - nonsense that an MIT scientist would not, and did not, spout.

Was this an innocent error on your part, or a malicious one?

Mark, it does not take much to see that it was Kennedy who was using that study to back up his insanity about the right wing being ultimately responsible for the global warming that he claims is responsible for hurricane activity.

To your point, however, perhaps I could have said something like “Global warming caused this hurricane, if you are to believe the results of the study.” Not that I think that it makes much difference in the end. Kennedy’s point of view is clear. He thinks the study validates his belief that global warming is causing more hurricanes to occur.

In my mind, and I’ll grant you that I may be oversimplifying (you can bet that Kennedy did), if global warming is “increasing the frequency” of hurricanes, that still ultimately translates to global warming being responsible for hurricanes in some form or another.

Now, I’m not interested in debating global warming here, and frankly, there are abundant fiskings of that segment of Kennedy’s screed to be found elsewhere in the blogosphere.

The point was to show that Kennedy is eager to blame the devastation in the Gulf States, Mississippi in particular, on the people of Mississippi for choosing Barbour to be their governor.

All because Barbour opposed emissions caps intended to help curb “global warming”, which Kennedy uses to validate whatever his environmental cause-of-the-week may be.

Alex,
I think you are still setting out to make the ‘global warming’ claims more outlandish than they actually are.

For instance -

“To your point, however, perhaps I could have said something like “Global warming caused this hurricane, if you are to believe the results of the study.””

Again, no. The study simply shows that since the mid-1970s, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico have increased in severity and duration by 50%, and in near direct correlation to rising sea temperature levels.

Now, if we accept that this correlation is causal (it seems reasonable to do so given the nature of hurricane development) it also seems reasonable to suggest that, had sea level temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico been significantly cooler 7 days ago, Katrina would have been less severe.

I accept that the hurricane would still have happened - but crucially it would not have been as destructive.

That is as far as the claims of this study can be taken. By no means did it suggest that ‘global warming caused this hurricane.’

A more profitable area of enquiry for a sceptic such as yourself would be to demand proof of a link between global climate change and higher sea level temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico specifically - certainly more wise than your attempts to blow out of all proportion the findings of this entirely reasonable MIT study in an attempt to destroy its credibility.

Mark said, “a study published in the journal Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the increasing prevalence of destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming.”

simply suggests that destructive hurricanes are becoming increasingly prevalent (i.e. more frequent) due to global warming.

No. It says in no uncertain terms that “human-induced global warming” (which is far from being a settled question) is “linked” to more destructive hurricanes (which is far from being a settled question).

However, for some reason, you choose to spin this study as suggesting that

“Global warming causes hurricanes.”

No Mark. The claim was that it is “human-induced” global warming is “linked” to destructive hurricanes. That isn’t spin. It is what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was claiming. Want the quote from his article?

Well, the science is clear. This month, a study published in the journal Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the increasing prevalence of destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming.

Kennedy was pretty clear in his statements and Alex Nunez is in no way spinning anything.

Which is, of course, complete nonsense - nonsense that an MIT scientist would not, and did not, spout.

Tell that to this guy.

Was this an innocent error on your part, or a malicious one?

I would suggest that it is you who is in error here Mark.

Alex,
I think you are still setting out to make the ‘global warming’ claims more outlandish than they actually are.

How? Alex is merely reiterating what Kennedy has said

Again, no. The study simply shows that since the mid-1970s, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico have increased in severity and duration by 50%, and in near direct correlation to rising sea temperature levels.

Again, tell that to this guy.

That is as far as the claims of this study can be taken. By no means did it suggest that ‘global warming caused this hurricane.’

Mark, perhaps the study didn’t say that, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sure seemed to. That was basically the whole point Alex was making.

A more profitable area of enquiry for a sceptic such as yourself would be to demand proof of a link between global climate change and higher sea level temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico specifically - certainly more wise than your attempts to blow out of all proportion the findings of this entirely reasonable MIT study in an attempt to destroy its credibility.

Again: this is about what is coming out of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s mouth. Alex was poking holes in Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s credibility, NOT THE STUDY’S. The entire point has been lost on you this entire thread.

Was this an innocent error on your part, or a malicious one?

There really is no need to make your comments so long-winded, Likwid, when your central point is this -

‘Alex was poking holes in Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s credibility, NOT THE STUDY’S.’

Repeating the same point over and over again is a little unnecessary.

As it happens, I do find some of Kennedy’s comments in that article more than a little absurd - especially the reaping of the whirlwind idea.

However, nowhere does he claim that global warming causes hurricanes (which existed before global warming, as Alex facetiously pointed out). So my objection, whether I misunderstood Alex or not, still stands.

There really is no need to make your comments so long-winded, Likwid, when your central point is this -

‘Alex was poking holes in Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s credibility, NOT THE STUDY’S.’

Hah. Sorry man. I felt that I needed to drill you on that one.

However, nowhere does he claim that global warming causes hurricanes

I don’t know dude. When Kennedy said,

Well, the science is clear. This month, a study published in the journal Nature by a renowned MIT climatologist linked the increasing prevalence of destructive hurricanes to human-induced global warming.

Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged.

it seems that he’s pretty explicitly stating just that.

Call it a difference of either opinion or translation.

I don’t care if it was sarcasm or not.  Unless you are witnessing this first hand, you cannot understand what is going on down here.  It was callous and cruel to make a statement like that at a time like this.  I am sure he would understand that comments about his family’s’ assassinations were meant in jest or as being sarcastic.  This is no different, except that it involves thousands of people.