It is not just "possible" he's talking about islands affected by global warming; he says it outright - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 16/03/2011 10:13:29 PM
he says we have been given a sign from Mother Natures. Now it is possible he is talking about islands affect by global warming but it isn't clear that is what is talking about. I think the statement is ambiguous enough to warrant a request for clarification.
In those very words: "The earthquake and tsunami will clearly have a severe impact on the economic and social activities of the region. Some islands affected by climate change have been hit". Again, the only way we can pretend he MIGHT mean something else is to ignore those words and reduce his comments to "Mother Nature has given us a sign that is what we should do", a statement that means nothing, because it doesn't state what the sign is nor what action it should prompt. Limbaughs words don't suffer from that uncertainty: He says very clearly and unambiguously, "This has to be a tough call for the environmentalists around the world. They're scrambling now to blame this on global warming". What needs clarification there? Saying that environmentalists are scrambling to blame the earthquake, tsunami and potential nuclear disaster on global warming needs RETRACTION, and desperately, but no one should need additional commentary to understand it. You want to talk about double standards? You're pretending the President of the EESC didn't say something he unequivocally said, just so you can pretend Rush said something he unequivocally DIDN'T.
As for Rush do we even know if this is the case he is referring to or is just and example Isaac gave? So no it isn't crystal clear what Rush was saying because we don't even know which environmentalist or statement he was referring to, mostly because the statement was taken out of context.
It's the only thing that's even been SUGGESTED as the case to which Limbaugh was referring; that Isaac couldn't find a better example speaks volumes, as does the fact that Limbaugh apparently made the statement without providing any example proving his accusation, forcing his defenders to seek one. If he had provided such an example we'd be criticizing the idiot who made the comment instead of THIS idiot for making the accusation. Your defense boils down to "someone, somewhere, who's an enviromentalist, MAY have said global warming caused the tsunami, so we should take Rushs word on that, without evidence, and accept on faith his statement that 'they're scrambling now to blame this on global warming'". Sorry, Rush Limbaugh doesn't have that kind of credibility with me; very few people do, and you wouldn't take it on faith if I said, "Republicans are scrambling to blame cancer on liberalism".