Then again I was stuck in a decent amount of traffic today and the sheer amount of people who attempt to "beat the system" of driving in an orderly manner is also insanely high.
I'd love to think that we're better than this as a society, but the reality of the situation is that we're one or two small steps from pure anarchy and it really wouldn't take all that much to get there from where we are.
Also relevant: "Always shoot the messenger first." :)
If news unsettles a person, and there's a cognitive dissonance upon processing their world model ("everything OK with climate") and sensory input ("another big freaking hurricane") then if the person isn't a model of rational thought and already has a fad for conspiracies...
...one might find it easier to add another conspiracy theory to one's collection, as opposed to harder steps like refreshing one's model of how the world functions. :o