Palin, Confused

I truly don't know what Sarah Palin means.

CBS News on Tuesday, 9/30 broadcast excerpts of an interview Katie Couric conducted on September 29 with John McCain and Sarah Palin. Palin was asked by Couric whether global warming is "manmade" and Governor Earmark responded:

You know … there are man's activities that can be contributed to … the issues that we're dealing with now with these impacts. I'm not going to solely blame all of man's activities on changes in climate. Because the world's weather patterns … are cyclical. And over history we have seen changes there. But kind of doesn't matter at this point, as we debate what caused it. The point is it's real, we need to do something about it. And like … Tony Blair had said … when he was in leadership position, he said, "Let's all consider the fact that it is real." So instead of pointing fingers … at different sides of the argument as to who is to blame, and if nature just to blame, let's do something about it. Let's clean up our world. Let's reduce emissions. And let's go with reality.

In remarking "man's activities that can be contributed to.... the issues that we're deaing with now" is Palin saying that a) "man's activities" contribute to "these impacts" (a reasonable observation, but contrary to a previous statement and not what she said here); or b) "man's activities" can be attributed to global warming (reversing cause and effect)?

Does the V.P. nominee really believe it "kind of doesn't matter.... what caused it?" How does a nation address a problem for which it has no idea of the cause? Curiously, Palin argues "if nature (is) just to blame, let's do something about it." Do something about nature? And to clean up our world? This would be an overwhelming task for a nation which, in her view, does not know the cause of the problem and which should not "point fingers."

Sarah Palin's response is a confused answer symptomatic of someone who evidently has never bothered to think about this issue, and of someone unqualified to be a member of the United States Congress or to take up residence at the Naval Observatory.