While Hurricane Dorian lumbered towards America, Axios unleashed a rumor: President Trump had wondered about “nuking” hurricanes in their early stages.
Sounds goofy, I know. Many used the rumor to question Trump’s intelligence, prudence, and sanity, but fretting about a mere rumor at length might give us reason to question our intelligence, prudence and sanity.
Before the hurricane hit the Bahamas, Reason magazine made the logical point about how useful “price gouging” would be for dealing with a disaster like Dorian. Then came the hit, which, ABC reports, was quite devastating: “Hurricane Dorian kills at least 5 in the Bahamas; US coastline braces for impact.”
While others prepare for the worst, we on the sidelines merely wonder, could Dorian be a sign of global warming?
It is hard not to think that thought.
But Tony Heller of RealClimateScience.com cautions us against leaping to this cause for that effect. “Coolest January-August On Record In The US,” Heller headlines his piece providing graphs showing how amazingly un-warm it has been in our half-a-hemisphere so far this year.
There is no honest way to associate this storm with “global warming” or even climate change.
As real climate scientists know. Still, linking bad weather to the much-pushed Big Story Of Our Time is almost . . . irresistible.
Part of this is apophenia: our brains find patterns even where they do not exist.
Yet I sometimes wonder whether this weather-climate mistake isn’t being programed into us by insiders with an agenda.
But that might be mere apophenia, too.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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