Karateexplosions has an excellent diary on the rec list pointing the incomprehensibility of Palin's CNN interview answers. There's another diary on the rec list by Stiffa of Chris Matthews taking Nancy Pftonehauer to the wood shed for her lame attempt at defending Palin's answer from a different interview. Fortunately Palin is the gift that keeps on giving. In an interview with Steve Crupi of News 3, the Las Vegas NBC affiliate, Palin is asked the very logical question, given her belief that global warming is mostly due to natural cycles but also has a man made component, which activities are causing the man made portion? Palin of course, answers with utter nonsense.
h/t Think Progess
Let's break down her answer:
Right well what I have said about this is really the debate at some point, had better shift to, no matter the cause, whether it all be attributed to man’s activities or just the natural cycle of climate changes in our earth’s history. We have seen this before. No matter the cause we had better do something about it and we’re all better off if we make sure that our air our water our lands are made cleaner via the developments that are underway right now.
HUH? He didn't ask whether IT ALL was attributed to man's activities or to natural cycles, he asked assuming it's both, which activities are contributing to it. This isn't just an academic question, as Biden said in their debate, how can we fight global warming if we don't know what's causing it. You can not say "no matter what the cause we had better do something about it". If we really have no clue, and if it doesn't even matter, are we just going to do random things and then wait to see if that makes a difference? Maybe we should use more fossil fuels, or drill, baby, drill as Palin would put it. Maybe the problem is there's not enough carbon in the atmosphere, who can know these things, who even cares?
Is one thing to be completely unknowledgable, as Palin has proven to be, it's quite another to be completely illogical. Her lack of knowledge has led to her to be stumped on questions like "what is the Bush doctrine", but her stupidity has led her to give answers such as "You can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska," and "I read all of them". The reason so many conservatives have jumped off Palin's bandwagon isn't that she doesn't know things, everyone knew she'd have a steep learning curve, it's that they beginning to doubt her capacity to learn. Time and time again, when unscripted she leaves you scratching your head.
One last thought, listening to Palin's answer on global warming I'm curious to know how old does Palin believe the earth is? If, as rumoured, Palin only believes the earth to be approximately 6,000 years old, when would these cycles of natural warming and cooling have taken place? Has the earth changed significantly in temperature of the past 6,000 years? Because I'm pretty sure the belief in a 6,000 year old planet rules out the ice age.