All Hate, No Cattle: Red State Devastated by Climate Extremes
October 16, 2013
South Dakota Senator John Thune is one of Congress’ leading climate deniers. The South Dakota legislature has become renowned as a bastion of anti science enthusiasts, who famously proposed a resolution not long ago calling for “balance” in science education, and declaring
“..carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life on earth
.. That global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact;
..That there are a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena and that the significance and interrelativity of these factors is largely speculative;
Last week the state was hit with the kind of destructive extreme weather event – an “early and unusual” blizzard, that climate science has predicted will increase in coming decades.
The government shutdown, supported by many in this conservative enclave, means that no federal help is available when needed.
The blizzard hit just days after 80-degree weather, before ranchers had moved their herds from less-protected summer grazing lands. Most ranchers were set to bring calves to market — the satisfying payday after another year of grueling labor. Thousands of head had been recently relocated here from Texas and New Mexico to escape punishing droughts in those states.
“Some ranchers lost all their cattle. They’ve yet to find one alive,” Christen said. “They’re facing absolute destruction.”
Yet Washington’s shutdown has deprived people here of a traditional safety net: Congress hasn’t passed a new farm bill to subsidize agricultural producers, and the lockout means legislators won’t be voting on the topic any time soon.
These days, Reder passes a federal Farm Services Administration office whose doors are closed. Like most American ranchers, the 47-year-old is a resilient small businessman used to tending to his own problems, with help from neighbors whose families settled this land generations ago.
Still, he’s frustrated and feels that federal lawmakers have turned their backs on the nation’s heartland in a time of need.
“We’re just a bunch of ranchers from South Dakota — it’s hard for our voices to be heard,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table at dawn Friday, drinking coffee, fielding calls from fellow cattlemen. “You see crises across the country, the hurricanes and tornadoes, and officials are right on top of it. But something of this magnitude, that has just about leveled this part of the country, and there’s nothing.”
Many residents in this conservative region had supported the government shutdown as a way to make Washington more fiscally responsible. “But one appropriate role for these guys is to lend a hand after disasters like this,” Christen said, “and they’re not here.”
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
October 16, 2013 at 4:01 pm
And as predictable as the denier-herd is they go around on forums talking about “global cooling” and “where is this supposedly global warming” after this extreme snowfall. *facepalm*
October 16, 2013 at 4:11 pm
I’ve read a few articles about this tragedy now, and few people in the comments have made the connection to climate change yet.
No mention of it on CNN or other MSN as far as I’m aware.
When will the penny finally drop?
October 16, 2013 at 4:11 pm
MSM!
October 16, 2013 at 4:25 pm
This is the common refrain among conservatives – don’t help anyone else, because they’re all moochers, but where’s the help when we need it. Perhaps in their Bible study they should spend some time on this one – “Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
Perhaps he should have some empathy for the federal employees who aren’t helping him, but instead are sitting at home with no paychecks wondering how to pay the mortgage. As the damage from climate change gets worse, we’ll all need a fully functioning government.
October 16, 2013 at 5:55 pm
Well said, Wes. I too was struck by the irony (and hypocrisy) in the rancher’s comments. Reap as you sow says it perfectly.
October 16, 2013 at 9:49 pm
One of my favorite hypocritical moments:
October 16, 2013 at 11:37 pm
Classic, but is it possible that being in the presence of Glenn Beck caused Craig T to become temporarily deranged and he really didn’t mean it?
October 17, 2013 at 12:20 am
That’s a good question. Nelson made the remark back in 2009 I believe,and I haven’t seen any retraction or clarification from him. I always liked him as an actor,but it’s really hard to see an actor differently once you hear them saying or doing something that you find objectionable. Tom Cruise comes to mind. I just don’t like the man anymore.
October 16, 2013 at 6:05 pm
[…] South Dakota Senator John Thune is one of Congress' leading climate deniers. The South Dakota legislature has become renowned as a bastion of anti science enthusiasts, who famously proposed a resolution not long ago calling for “balance” in science education, and declaring“..carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life on earth.. That global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact; ..That there are a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological,thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena and that the significance and interrelativity of these factors is largely speculative; Last week the state was hit with the kind of destructive extreme weather event – an “early and unusual” blizzard, that climate science has predicted will increase in coming decades. […]
October 16, 2013 at 9:39 pm
Remember this trope that circulated the web not too long ago…
http://www.snopes.com/katrina/soapbox/snowfall.asp
I’m posting it here using the snopes link just to clear up any misconceptions right off the bat. But when it initially went around it seemed to have that ring of truth, that pull-yourselves-up-by-the-bootstraps feel to it that we all want to believe is true. Alas, ’twere not so.
Thanks for the good words of scripture, and the call for compassion. When times get tough, and they’re only going to get worse, we need to help each other whether that help be federal, state, municipal or just plain neighborly.
October 16, 2013 at 9:56 pm
Yeah,I got that one more than once,and I suspect it will continue for many more years.
Facebook posts are full of similar ‘poor me I’m the only honest hardworkin’ person left alive’ nonsense.
“Don’t it always seem to go,you don’t know what you got till it’s gone”
Joni (in a different context)
October 18, 2013 at 6:45 am
Don’t take this the wrong way, given that I’m not in the US, but what I increasingly hear from what goes on in the US congress is starting to sound very much like what I hear my students from developing African nations with tin-pot dictatorships and massive internal corruption.
October 18, 2013 at 11:09 am
Nothing to be “taken wrong” about that observation. Your students are more astute and “tuned in” to what’s going on here than many folks in the U.S. We are too busy watching reality TV, shopping, and texting on our cell phones to pay attention to the “massive internal corruption” (caused by special interest money buying and coopting the political process) and the “tin-pot dictatorship” of a mindless and ill informed but vocal minority. The bought votes of that minority sent the Tea Party contingent to Congress so they could try to destroy the government.
Perhaps the fact that your students have lived through it makes them more aware—maybe the “it will have to get worse before it gets better” idea holds here. Will we wake up in time?
October 19, 2013 at 12:56 am
It’s harder to notice inside the USA because the media have long since become propaganda organs.
October 19, 2013 at 1:57 am
Yes, and it was very cleverly and neatly done, wasn’t it. The major TV networks were rather conservative and actually “mainstream” when I was young. The shrill voices of the propagandists repeatedly told the big lie that they were “liberal” and “biased” and laid so much FUD out there that many on the right (who are susceptible to paranoia and conspiracy theory anyway) sucked it all up and looked elsewhere for “reliable” information (translation—information that agreed with their BELIEFS but perhaps not with the real FACTS)
So now we have Fox News touting itself as “fair and balanced”, and being followed closely by many on the right, when the truth is that it is nothing but the foremost “propaganda organ” of all. Same goes for right wing talk radio, with Limbaugh and Beck as standouts among those who peddle propaganda rather than news or “balanced insight”. (Is there any such thing as “left wing radio”?)
Those Fox News and Limbaugh listeners (and studies have shown them to be the LEAST well informed of the viewers of any channel) then go out and vote for the climate change deniers (because climate change is just something that Al Gore and the liberal media made up) and vote for those who would destroy the government (because it’s a marxist communist socialist tyranny supported by the liberal media).
Yes, cynical, dirty pool, and even evil it was, but you have to hand it to the strategists that brought it off (and the the plutocrats that funded them).
Is it any wonder that the country is in such a sad state?
October 19, 2013 at 11:47 am
The flip side is that the Limbaugh and Fox viewers are the BEST informed about certain facts and details (like crime and salient details of the criminal class) that the other media downplay or suppress entirely… so they BELIEVE that they know more than the rest. Which they do, about some things which are of immediate and personal relevance to people who don’t have the money to keep that criminal class at a safe distance. And you can’t get people to take you seriously when they’ve just had to install bars on all their windows, their children’s “school” is a seething mass of warring gangs, and your media is telling them that this is their fault. They feel like they’re under seige.
They think that your media broadcasts lies to inflame “the other” to target and oppress them. And they’re right. The Duke lacrosse hoax, the Trayvon Martin fiasco, and the suppression of torture-murders like the Knoxville Horror and the Wichita atrocity say it all.