Over on Watts Up with That?, chief of the site Anthony Watts went after science writer Chris Mooney in the "By this logic, Chris Mooney should be blaming Obama for not seizing the opportunity to talk about global cooling last winter" post. Many of his followers joined in the condemnation chorus. Which all nicely ties in with Mooney's theses, well-supported by research, in the book. And I enjoy the taste of irony in that.
I felt it necessary to reply, if only to illustrate exactly what cognitive contortions the climate denial crowd has to go through to overlook the obvious. My reply is shown below.
One of Mooney’s points regarding how those with the Republican brain think about subjects is the cognitive necessity to ignore or discount that which contradicts their points. A destructive derecho fueled by extraordinary high temperature differential? It happens every four years or so around here. NEVER MIND that it was one of the most powerful derechos ever recorded in the Mid-Atlantic, causing more destruction than anything other than a hurricane, according to the Governor of Virginia. The massive heat wave? Heat waves happen all the time, it’s natural variability. NEVER MIND that all-time high temperature records are being set (as for last year in Oklahoma and Texas), not just daily temperature records. NEVER MIND the increasing ratio difference between record highs and record lows. Temperature stations are sited incorrectly, or increasing trends are caused by ‘urban heat islands’? Of course that makes sense. NEVER MIND that phenologic data of numerous kinds show earlier springs and later autumns, the behavior of numerous animal species is changing, or species are declining, in directions consistent with climate warming. The massive fires out West, last summer and this? No big deal, summer is fire season. NEVER MIND that pine bark beetles are ravaging higher altitude forests, creating optimum fuel conditions under dry weather, and also causing soil erosion and water loss in the Southwest as pinyon pine and juniper die off. The decline in sea ice extent in the Arctic? Let’s hang on to the hope that the extent won’t go below the minimum of 2007. NEVER MIND that the sea ice volume is at all time lows, as is multi-year ice.
That’s what many of the discussions at this site amount to — cognitive reassurance for those who need to know that NEVER MIND is a way of dealing with a reality that they can’t deal with.
As for this post: NEVER MIND. It’s meaningless, because all the trends that go against the necessary belief structures are meaningless to those who are cognitively unable to consider them.
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