Can Man Destroy the Planet?

RUSH: To the phones, it’s Open Line Friday. This is Jason in Hammonton, New Jersey. Jason, I’m glad you called. You’re up first.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Nice to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: So I’m calling, Rush, to object to your argument as of about a week or so ago concerning global warming. Usually I think you do quite well with half your brain tied behind your back, but I have to take exception with this particular argument. You were arguing at the time, if I had this right, that we are vain to think that we can affect climate because we couldn’t possibly create it, that if you took the brightest person of all time and had them attempt it, they would not be able to do it, and, therefore, it’s pure vanity to think that we can create it.

RUSH: Precisely, because we haven’t the slightest understanding about it compared to what actually goes on. It’s so complex we’re not even at the kindergarten level of understanding how this all works.

CALLER: That’s right. Now, I will agree with you. I have no agenda here. I’m not a scientist. I have no idea if global warming exists or doesn’t exist —

RUSH: The globe’s always warming and cooling. It does exist.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: Climate change happens all the time.

CALLER: But here’s my exception to the argument. I believe that it’s vastly more difficult to create something than it is to destroy it. I myself cannot create life, but I can certainly take one. I can’t create maybe a very complex model, but I can step on it and destroy it. You know, we have the power on this planet, at this moment, to completely end this climate in about 15 minutes, and none of us here — you’re right, none of us —

RUSH: No. No.

CALLER: None of us can create —

RUSH: No, no, no. You’re talking about a nuclear blast?

CALLER: I’m not saying in the world, but it would drastically redefine the nature of the earth’s climate within moments.

RUSH: All right, all right —

CALLER: If that were to happen.

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait just a second. We’ve done this. You ever heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

CALLER: That’s true.

RUSH: Have you heard of all the above-ground nuclear testing? Remember the mushroom clouds?

CALLER: Yes, I understand we — I understand we — that nuclear weapons —

RUSH: I want you to tell me how any of those changed the climate measurably.

CALLER: Well, Rush, I’m talking about if we had an all-out fallout across the globe. I mean, all-out total thermonuclear war. This climate would be affected. I don’t think that that is unreasonable. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable statement.

RUSH: Yeah, but wait a second, now you’re losing the argument here on your own without any help from me.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: Because nobody in the climate change movement is accusing us of destroying the climate or changing it inalterably with nuclear weapons. They’re saying we’re doing it by exhaling, they’re saying we’re doing it with four-by-four SUVs made by one of my sponsors, General Motors. They’re saying we are doing it by not unplugging our stupid damn cell phone chargers at night.

CALLER: I understand, Rush, I understand —

RUSH: Insult my intelligence.

CALLER: I don’t want to argue with any of that. Like I said, I don’t know what causes what. I have no idea. My phone call was solely dedicated to the premise of your argument that by my not being able to understand something, I can’t then destroy it. There are many, many things that I have no understanding of —

RUSH: Yep, you know something, you’re defeating yourself again. You can take a life, right?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: You can’t create life, but you can take a life.

CALLER: On my own, I can not create a life.

RUSH: Yes, but you can’t destroy life.

CALLER: I can destroy a life.

RUSH: You can destroy a life, but you can’t destroy life. If we’re going to talk about creating life, we gotta be consistent logically and talk about destroying life, and you can’t do that, nor can I. You can take a life. I mean, how many ants have you stepped on in your life, and there’s still ants?

CALLER: I’ve stepped on a few.

RUSH: How many cockroaches have you sprayed Raid on, and they’re still swimming around there under your kitchen sink? You can take life, yes, but you can’t create it. The world has things that are destroyed every day. Trees are cut down; new ones grow. We have not destroyed all trees by cutting down a tree. We haven’t destroyed all trees by cutting down gazillions of them. The point could possibly be better illustrated this way in terms of our power. We just had two dramatically devastating tornadoes rip through areas of Colorado. There’s not a damn thing we could have done to reduce their power. There’s not a damn thing we could have done to steer them in different places. There’s not a damn thing we could have done to prevent them from forming. There isn’t one thing we could have done about the size of the hailstones in some of these storms. And yet, because of the vanity of so much of humanity, we think, despite having no ability to stop any of these disasters, to prevent them, to alter them, to change them, we think that by virtue of living our relatively simple lives, we are causing them? It’s absurd!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I have evidence here that nuclear blasts do not destroy things. This is from LiveScience.com, from April 2nd of this year: ‘Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated Bikini Atoll,’ by the way, I mention these places, where is Bikini Atoll? It’s an island, folks, in the South Pacific where Fox News breeds its blond anchors. It’s where they come from. (giggling) But here’s the story: ‘Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated–‘ (laughing) I talked to Roger Ailes about this. I said, ‘Where do you get ’em?’ He said, ‘We got a factory. Bikini Atoll.’ Anyway, ‘Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated Bikini Atoll, vast expanses of corals in the area seem to be flourishing once again, much to the surprise of scientists. American government scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb on the tiny island on March 1, 1954, and about 20 other nuclear tests were carried out on the atoll between 1946 and 1958. Many of the natives were moved to Kili Island and today are compensated by the US government,’ as employees of Fox News. So the coral is coming back.