![ADL[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/adl1.gif)
I’ve waited several days for a response since I sent a letter last Thursday, I’ve checked the ADL website, my Inbox, fax machine, and asked in the climate skeptic community if anyone has seen any response of any kind from ADL. None has been received. It seems that ADL chooses silence after making a hypocritical error that puts their organization in a very bad light.
Readers will most certainly recall the ugly situation that ADL put themselves in when a climate activist at the Atlanta ADL office (Shelley Rose) issued a statement condemning Dr. Roy Spencer, who after years of suffering abuse, decided to fight back with a label of his own.
Apparently acting on her own, Shelley Rose moved quickly to denounce Dr. Spencer, yet the ADL main organization appears unwilling to defend him and other climate skeptics from reprehensible analogies to “Holocaust deniers”.
Since then, I and many other have sent letters, made phone calls, and some even made visits to ADL offices trying to right this hypocritical wrong. So far, ADL’s public reaction has been indifference and silence, and they’ve even gone as far as shutting off comments on their original press release, but have remained silent on the criticism of an issue they themselves created. Yet, their own director says this:
“Inappropriate Comparisons Trivialize the Holocaust” – Abraham Foxman, ADL Director
Where was ADL through the years of abuse climate skeptics have dealt with? Why does ADL condemn Dr. Spencer for labeling attackers as “climate Nazis” while turning a blind eye to the much larger and longstanding pattern of abuse that trivializes the Holocaust? Below, over 40 examples of such abuse from prominent people in the climate debate follow. Following that, two letters that have been sent to ADL on this issue that have been ignored as of this writing.
Examples of “Inappropriate Comparisons Trivialize the Holocaust”
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| Ellen Goodman |
“Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.”
– Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe (2007)
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| Al Gore |
“Clouds of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. Once again, world leaders waffle, hoping the danger will dissipate. Yet today the evidence is as clear as the sounds of glass shattering in Berlin.”
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| Andrew Glikson |
“I wonder whether such a show, if concerned with denial of the holocaust of world war II, would have been conceived?”
– Andrew Glikson, Australian National University (2012)
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| Bernie Sanders |
“It reminds me in some ways of the debate taking place in this country and around the world in the late 1930s – there were people – who said ‘don’t worry! Hitler’s not real! It’ll disappear!”
– Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator from Vermont (2010)
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| Bill McGuire |
“We have Holocaust deniers; we have climate change deniers. And to be honest, I don’t think there’s a great deal of difference.”
– Bill McGuire, University College London (2006)
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| Caroline Lucas |
“Would the media insist on having a Holocaust-denier to balance any report about the Second Word War?”
– Caroline Lucas, U.K. Green Party MP (2007)
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| Chad Kister |
“…the others working to derail this critical piece of legislation will be seen as the Adolph Hitlers of our day, contributing to a holocaust vastly eclipsing the horrors of World War II.”
– Chad Kister, Environmental Activist (2008)
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| Charles Larson |
“The deniers of climate change are cut from the same cloth as Holocaust deniers. They’ve never been to the death camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau, so what they haven’t seen does not exist.”
– Charles Larson, American University (2013)
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| Chris Mooney |
“The obvious reductio ad absurdum is Holocaust deniers: Should their perspective be provided, for “balance,” any time someone writes about the Holocaust?”
– Chris Mooney, The Intersection (2006)
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| Clive Hamilton |
“Climate deniers are less immoral than Holocaust deniers, although they are undoubtedly more dangerous.”
– Clive Hamilton, Charles Sturt University (2009)
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| Craig Rosebraugh |
“Fox [News] is far and away the extreme example. They’ll have a known holocaust denier debating a holocaust survivor.”
– Craig Rosebraugh, Environmental Activist (2013)
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| Chris Huhne |
“Giving in to the forces of low ambition would be an act of climate appeasement. This is our Munich moment.”
– Chris Huhne, U.K. Energy and Climate Change Minister (2011)
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| David Fiderer |
“At its core, global warming denial is like Holocaust denial, an assault on common decency.”
– David Fiderer, The Huffington Post (2009)
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| David Roberts |
“It’s about the climate-change “denial industry”, …we should have war crimes trials for these bastards – some sort of climate Nuremberg.”
– David Roberts, Grist Magazine (2006)
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| Donald Prothero |
“There are many more traits that the climate deniers share with the creationists and Holocaust deniers and others who distort the truth.”
– Donald Prothero, Occidental College (2012)
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| George Monbiot |
“Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial.”
– George Monbiot, The Guardian (2006)
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| Greg Craven |
“When the press does a story on the Holocaust, do they give equal time to the revisionists?”
– Greg Craven, Central High School, Independence, Oregon (2010)
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| Guy Keleny |
“I think these people are anti-science flat-earthers. …They are every bit as dangerous as Holocaust deniers.”
– Guy Keleny, The Independent (2013)
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| James Hrynyshyn |
“I asked Lucht if he would give similar treatment to anti-vaccine activists or Holocaust deniers.”
– James Hrynyshyn, The Island of Doubt (2009)
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| James Powell |
“Those who abjure global warming are not skeptics; they are deniers. To call them skeptics is to debase language as much as to call the Ku Klux Klan “prejudiced,” Holocaust deniers “biased,” or Flat-Earthers “mistaken.”
– James Powell, National Physical Science Consortium (2012)
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| Jim Hoggan |
“These are not debunkers, testing outrageous claims with scientific rigor. They are deniers – like Holocaust deniers.”
– Jim Hoggan, DeSmogBlog (2005)
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| Joe Romm |
“Would PBS go so far as to give air time to an even more extreme kind of disinformer, a Holocaust denier?”
– Joe Romm, Climate Progress (2012)
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| Joel Connelly |
“Bluntly put, climate change deniers pose a greater danger than the lingering industry that denies the Holocaust.”
– Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (2007)
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| Johann Hari |
“The climate-change deniers are rapidly ending up with as much intellectual credibility as creationists and Flat Earthers. …they are nudging close to having the moral credibility of Holocaust deniers.”
– Johann Hari, The Independent (2005)
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| Jon Niccum |
“An Inconvenient Truth is so convincing that it makes opposers of the argument as credible as Holocaust deniers.”
– Jon Niccum, Lawrence Journal-World (2006)
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| Margo Kingston |
“David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial. Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence – it is a crime against humanity after all.”
– Margo Kingston, Webdiary (2006)
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| Mark Lynas |
“I wonder what sentences judges might hand down at future international criminal tribunals on those who will be partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths from starvation, famine and disease in decades ahead. I put this in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial.”
– Mark Lynas, Environmental Activist (2006)
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| Nathan Rees |
“The threat of climate change is catastrophic. In fact, the current wave of climate change scepticism smacks of 1930s-style appeasement.”
– Nathan Rees, Australian Politician (2009)
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| Paul McCartney |
“Some people don’t believe in climate warning – like those who don’t believe there was a Holocaust.”
– Paul McCartney, Musician (2010)
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| Pete Postlethwaite |
“There are bound to be deniers. Whenever you set up a thesis there’s bound to be somebody who comes the opposite way …like Holocaust deniers.”
– Pete Postlethwaite, Actor (2009)
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| Peter Christoff |
“Even so – and because of its resonance with Holocaust denial – the term “denier” can be used to describe those who trivially reject the existence and threat of global warming.”
– Peter Christoff, The Age (2007)
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| Peter Jacques |
“This article begins by first naming this counter-movement “climate denial” and working through the various apparent options by specifically looking at the scholarship on Holocaust denial for insight.”
– Peter Jacques, University of Central Florida (2012)
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| Rajendra Pachauri |
“What is the difference between Lomborg’s view of humanity and Hitler’s? …If you were to accept Lomborg’s way of thinking, then maybe what Hitler did was the right thing.”
– Rajendra Pachauri, U.N. IPCC (2004)
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| Richard Glover |
“Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.”
– Richard Glover, The Sydney Morning Herald (2011)
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| Richard Kyte |
“Does the Media Research Center think equal air time should be given to Holocaust deniers and flat-earthers as well?”
– Richard Kyte, Viterbo University (2013)
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| Richard Schiffman |
“We don’t give Holocaust deniers equal time to vent their noxious views, so why offer it to the climate change deniers?”
– Richard Schiffman, The Huffington Post (2012)
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| Robert Manne |
“Denialism, a concept that was first widely used, as far as I know, for those who claimed that the Holocaust was a fraud, is the concept I believe we should use.”
– Robert Manne, La Trobe University (2009)
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| Scott Pelley |
“If I do an interview with Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?”
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| Stephen Buckley |
“I now have a new level of disdain for global warming deniers. I just lump them in with Holocaust deniers and act accordingly.”
– Stephen Elliott-Buckley, Politics, Re-Spun (2007)
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| Stuart Pimm |
“The text [The Skeptical Environmentalist] employs the strategy of those who, for example, argue …that Jews weren’t singled out by the Nazis for extermination.”
– Stuart Pimm, Columbia University (2001)
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| Thomas Schelling |
“I do think it’s often a mistake to call them climate skeptics. I think they’re deniers, just as I think president Ahmadinejad of iran who claims not to believe that the Holocaust occurred.”
– Thomas Schelling, University of Maryland (2013) 
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PDF Posted by Andrew Labels: Global Warming
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Thanks to Andrew at PopularTechnology.net for compiling that list.
Below is a letter that I sent to ADL National Director Abraham Foxman last week via email and by fax. I have received no response.
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ABRAHAM H. FOXMAN
National Director
Anti-Defamation league
New York, NY 10012
2/27/14
Dear Mr. Foxman,
I hope you are aware of the recent events surrounding a press release issued by Ms. Shelly Rose, if not, this letter may be helpful to you.
Since it appears the press release issued by Shelley Rose out of the Atlanta office condemning Dr. Roy Spencer has not been posted on the main ADL website yet, does your organization have any comment on whether they endorse it or not?
That press release is here: http://atlanta.adl.org/news/adl-condemns-spencers-nazi-analogy/
It appears Ms. Rose used her connections and knowledge as a climate activist to form an opinion on the issue, yet it seems antithetical to the mission of the ADL.
Since Dr. Spencer and many others have been the victims of Holocaust related hate speech for years, including calls for Nuremberg style trials, propaganda style videos of exploding children who might be skeptical of climate change, and even calls for the death of climate skeptics (see references below) for at least seven years since the term “denier” was thrust into the American lexicon as a term used to describe climate by a widely syndicated column by Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe in 2007, my belief is that the main ADL organization has remain silent on this issue simply due to being uninformed on the issue.
I also believe that Ms. Rose may have acted without your knowledge and/or approval when she issued that press release, but given the history we have uncovered about her climate activism at an Atlanta synagogue, it seems she was well versed in the climate issue.
The mission of the ADL clearly is: Imagine a World Without Hate®
Yet, here we have the ADL silent on Holocaust related hate speech being used to label people who have a different viewpoint on the science surrounding climate. As Dr. Spencer notes in his rebuttal, “…we do not deny global warming. We do not deny climate change.” but many climate skeptics, including myself, question the intensity of the effect, especially since projections from computer climate models and measured temperature have not matched now for 15 years.
I see this as a golden opportunity to right a wrong, and to expand on what Ms. Rose said in her press release to include the use of “climate denier” as also being unacceptable.
It has become too common to use comparisons to the Holocaust and Nazi imagery to attack people with opposing views, whether the issue is global warming, immigration or stem-cell research. The six million Jewish victims and millions of other victims of Hitler deserve better. Their deaths should not be used for political points or sloganeering. This type of comparison diminishes and trivializes the Holocaust. There is no place for it in civil discussions.
I certainly agree with that, and I hope that ADL will solve the quandary Ms. Rose has created where it seems hypocritical to favor one usage and not another. I would hope that ADL amends their position to include the use of the term “climate denier” as equally wrong.
Thank you for your consideration, and hope you’ll make a statement that covers both sides of this ugly episode rather than just one. I look forward to your comments on the issue.
Anthony Watts
WUWT
Chico, CA
[business address and phone number redacted]
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REFERENCES:
(1.) I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future. – Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe, February 9, 2007 “No change in political climate” on the Wayback Machine here
(2.) The1010Campaign | September 30, 2010
http://www.1010global.org/no-pressure
Whippersnapping climate campaign 10:10 teams up with legendary comic screenwriter Richard Curtis – you know, Blackadder, Four Weddings, Notting Hill, co-founded Comic Relief – and Age of Stupid director Franny Armstrong to proudly present their explosive new mini-movie “No Pressure”. The film stars X-Files’ Gillian Anderson, together with Spurs players past and present – including Peter Crouch, Ledley King and David Ginola – with music donated by Radiohead. Shot on 35mm by a 40-strong professional film crew led by director Dougal Wilson, “No Pressure” celebrates everybody who is actively tackling climate change… by blowing up those are aren’t.
Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjVW6roRs-w
(3.) Austrian Prof: global warming deniers should be sentenced to death
(4.) NUREMBERG-STYLE TRIALS PROPOSED FOR GLOBAL WARMING SKEPTICS
http://www.epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=264568
(5.) Editorial on the Press Release from Ms. Rose, including photos of her at an Atlanta Synagogue with a climate activist group.
sent via email, fax
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Now, here is a much more powerful letter, sent by one of our readers about the same time as my letter, who is far more prescient than I on the issue and who spoke with ADL Director Foxman
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Abe – Thank you for taking the time to speak with me this morning.
Let me preface what follows by stating up front that, as a Jew and a member of civil society, I greatly appreciate the work ADL has done over many years to fight anti-Semitism in the U.S. and across the globe, and I enthusiastically support your efforts in that pursuit.
As we discussed, I am writing you to highly recommend, in the strongest possible manner, that ADL retract the condemnation of Roy Spencer’s analogy issued by ADL SE Interim Regional Director Shelley Rose yesterday and apologize to Dr. Spencer. The only plausible alternative would be to retract the condemnation, issue an apology to Dr. Spencer, and condemn the use of Nazi/Holocaust imagery and rhetoric by either side in the debate about global warming/climate change.
During our conversation this morning, you said that ADL reacts to these types of situations as you become aware of them, and that had you become aware of similar offensive imagery/rhetoric being used against Dr. Spencer and others, you would have condemned it, too as you became aware of it. In the same way that there is no statute of limitations on hunting Nazi war criminals 3 generations after WWII, I believe it is only fair to expect that there is no statute of limitations on the ADL position of condemning this type of speech/imagery when you become aware of it, regardless of its date.
As such, as I promised during our call this morning, below you will find a few examples of Nazi/Holocaust rhetoric and imagery being used against those who hold the same beliefs as Dr. Spencer, about which ADL has remained silent for almost a decade. In fact, if you will read Dr. Spencer’s initial blog post that began this episode, and consider it in context with the below examples, I believe any objective assessment of his comments versus those in the links below would find Dr. Spencer’s analogy historically very relevant and the other speech/imagery something, quite frankly, rather reminiscent of the era before WWII. You will note that Dr. Spencer does not advocate for mistreatment, physical harm, imprisonment, or death of those who hold different view. You will also note that the rhetoric/imagery in the links below in some cases explicitly calls for mistreatment, imprisonment, and even suggests death for those who hold the same beliefs as Dr. Spencer.
This is intended to give you a broader view of the playing field. Dr. Spencer and many others have been the subject of vile personal and professional attacks simply because of their scientific beliefs. Environmental extremists, journalists, and others have even gone so far as to publish a list of “deniers” (one by a prominent writer for the UK Guardian here http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/06/climate-change-deniers-top-10 and another here http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-denier-elite-20130912 and another here http://denierlist.wordpress.com/
While I could (and would be happy to) send you dozens of such examples by “journalists”, activists, professors, politicians, and other scientists in this field using Holocaust and Nazi rhetoric and imagery, I will give you a brief sampling below, again in an attempt to demonstrate the context that Ms. Rose seems to have completely missed and how ADL has not once condemned such speech.
Here, NASA scientist James Hansen says, “if we cannot stop building of more coal-fired power plants, those coal trains will be death trains – no less gruesome than if they were boxcars headed to crematoria, loaded with uncountable irreplaceable species”. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2007/11/26/202133/hansen-stands-by-coal-traindeath-train-analogy/#
Here, Professor Richard Parncutt uses the intentionally derogatory term “denier” over 20 times in an article where he states “in this article, I am going to suggest that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for influential GW deniers”. http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/prof-richard-parncutt-death-penalty-for-global-warming-deniers/.
Note that the “denier” label has been used hundreds of times by professors, journalists, activists, scientists, and many others supporting action on climate change/global warming for about a decade. In every situation, it is an oblique way of painting people who have different beliefs on this issue as “evil”; since rational, civil people all accept that those who deny the Holocaust are evil. Use of the term “denier” is – unequivocally – intended to portray those who disagree with extreme environmentalists as a mirror image of Holocaust deniers. In fact, in this same post, Professor Parncutt isn’t even oblique about it, quote: “What about holocaust deniers? The Nazi holocaust was the worst crime in human history, for two reasons: the enormous number of murdered people and the automation of the murder process. Those who deny the holocaust certainly belong behind bars. The death penalty would be too much for them, because holocaust deniers are not directly causing the deaths of other people”. So, according to Professor Parncutt, people like Dr. Spencer are obviously worse than Holocaust deniers, because those deniers “certainly belong behind bars”. But deniers like Dr. Spencer? They deserve the death penalty, according to Professor Parncutt.
In 2006, environmental journalist David Roberts wrote in an article on Grist, speaking of those he had repeatedly referred to as “deniers” in previous articles at Grist and other similarly-minded publications, “”When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.” Grist took down the article because it was so controversial, but reference to it even appears on the U.S. Senate Env. & Public Works website to this day here (and dozens of other places) http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=A4017645-DE27-43D7-8C37-8FF923FD73F8 and while the article Roberts penned has been removed from Grist’s website, Roberts mea culpa has not, see here http://grist.org/article/on-climate-denialists-and-nuremberg/
Should you need more evidence that the use of the oblique – and as you can see sometimes explicit – term “denier” to equate those who hold the same beliefs as Dr. Spencer with Holocaust deniers has become commonplace, look no further than “America’s Newspaper of Record”, the NY Times. See the upper right hand quadrant of this rather suggestive cartoon that publication ran earlier this month http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/see-something-say.html?_r=0#1 At least one other Judeo-Christian organization with a website was bothered enough to draw attention to this, see here http://blogs.christianpost.com/time-for-everything/new-york-times-humor-stab-climate-change-deniers-20224/
Below are a sampling of pictures that were taken down from the “Skepticalscience.com” website forum. The site is run by Australian climate scientist John Cook. In these pictures, climate scientists John Cook and Dana Nuccitelli appear photoshopped into Nazi uniforms, as some sort of “climate truth” Gestapo, implication being they will exterminate “deniers”. Once discovered, these were quickly taken down from that forum but not before certain screen shots were captured in the blogosphere.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/1_herrcook.jpg
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/1_herrcook.jpg
As a final point of reference and context into the depravity to which environmental extremists have taken this issue, one with shockingly graphic specific Holocaust undertones, I submit a video produced by climate activists “1010 Global”, from 2010, in which school children who do not agree to reduce their carbon footprint and others with similar beliefs are blown up, literally, see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfnddMpzPsM
As you can see, this has been going on for over a decade. I can find not a single instance when ADL Southeast Interim Regional Director Shelley Rose or anyone at ADL National condemned this rhetoric or these images.
You should know that Dr. Spencer, who has suffered these vile attacks for years, is a distinguished scientist in his field. A PhD, he was a Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, where he and Dr. John Christy received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for their global temperature monitoring work with satellites. Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has provided congressional testimony several times on the subject of global warming. He and Dr. Christy are currently responsible for the world’s oldest global temperature satellite data set (known as the “UAH” data set, used by all climate scientists worldwide).
Consider this: I think we can both agree that Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany targeted a minority group (Jews), blamed them for terrible ills facing their society (Germany’s economic/social condition), used bad science to substantiate their policies (eugenics), used fear and intimidation to marginalize that group (Goebbels, SS, paramilitary groups, youth groups), and what evolved from there is the saddest chapter in modern human history. This is not to suggest that extremist environmental critics of Dr. Spencer are on the verge of rounding up “skeptics” and putting them in concentration camps. It is only to suggest a) that we have some historical context/precedent of behavior that is analogous in its earliest stages, and b) I do not believe that ADL’s SE Interim Regional Director had the perspectives of both sides in this debate when she issued that condemnation.
Regarding the latter, I started the day giving Ms. Rose the benefit of the doubt. However, I am troubled that her personal politics may have influenced the condemnation she issued. Ms. Rose is pictured here in 2007 with a group called “Congregations Caring for the Climate” http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/stepitup2007/464126698/ in conjunction with a non-profit called “StepItUp2007”. A visit to StepItUp2007’s website leaves no question that it is a climate activist organization http://stepitup2007.org/article.php?list=type&type=48 and their list of “Friends and Allies” includes numerous well known climate activist organizations who themselves have engaged in or enabled “denier” speech like the examples shown above for the better part of the last decade http://stepitup2007.org/links To many, this might bring into question whether Shelley Rose is speaking for the ADL, or using her platform as SE Interim Regional Director for ADL to advance her own agenda.
Frankly, I will agree with Ms. Rose that the use of this sort of rhetoric and imagery is inflammatory and disrespectful to the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Dr. Spencer, who has always behaved, and responded to these vile personal attacks, in a manner that is civil, factual, cogent, and highly thick-skinned, could have done himself a favor and avoided the use of the Swastika image and the term “global warming Nazis”. But a fair examination of the analogy itself as Dr. Spencer articulates it, taken in combination with the examples I’ve given above (there are dozens more should you like them) leaves one scratching one’s head around the question of whose speech ADL should be condemning in this matter.
Abe, you, Ms. Rose and the ADL do not have to agree with Dr. Spencer’s position on the science, but that is not at issue here. What is at issue is a double standard. To condemn Dr. Spencer’s analogy while remaining silent as his political opponents were guilty of far more egregious speech and imagery of the same type doesn’t look good for ADL.
I leave you with two thoughts as you ponder ADL’s position on this matter.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum quotes this text, attributable to Martin Niemoller, and I’m sure you are familiar with it: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.” You may disagree with Dr. Spencer’s use of the imagery and the dreaded “N” word, but I hope you will read the blog post that started this relative to the substance of the analogy, the parallel I offered above, and Niemoller’s important words in historical context.
Finally, ADL Southeast region’s website lists ADL’s Mission Statement, part of which reads, “Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.”
Abe, you are now aware of the more egregious offensive speech and imagery engaged in by opponents of Dr. Spencer. I’m afraid that absent a retraction and apology to Dr. Spencer or, alternatively, a retraction/apology and statement that condemns the use of such rhetoric and imagery by any and all sides in this particular debate, ADL might appear to either be siding with environmental extremists or rather hypocritical. I do not believe either is the image ADL wants to project, and I’m afraid that unless this is resolved quickly and in a more balanced manner, it will receive national attention that won’t be flattering. I would encourage you to act on this matter before the week is out.
Thank you for giving this matter the serious and urgent attention it merits, as well as for the generosity of your time on the phone this morning, and indulging me in the details above.
Alan J. Bressler
[address redacted]
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The glaring question: Why is the Anti Defamation League remaining silent on such a hypocritical travesty of their own making?
There is no sin in admitting a mistake, yet they seem unwilling to even address the issue they created by the actions of one of their employees, and have ignored many reasonable arguments from people close to the issue by lineage and experience. Where is the fairness in this silence?
Although the mandate of “Never Again” has proved difficult to achieve, the lessons of the Holocaust remain relevant and significant in the lives of youth, including the dangers of silence, the consequences of indifference, and the responsibility to protect the vulnerable. – ADL website on education
The issue won’t be going away, and before it escalates further, I hope that ADL will address the issue honestly and openly, rather than remaining silent.
Well said!
Outstanding.
This should be required reading by every news organisation.
Wow.
Thanks PopTech. I’d have more to say but reading all the ‘d-word’ rhetoric concentrated in one place like that has temporarily knocked the wind out of me. Like a sharp jab in the gut.
You forgot to mention that soon after his remarks Chris Huhne went to jail for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Just wanted to put the record straight.
up to them if they want to be quiet. actually the more extreme the name calling the better i like it especially if it looks like its an orchestrated ‘message’. Each time they promote the co2 deathstar gives an opportunity to raise the evidence that doesn’t fit or remind them of their own predictions? if the co2ers and their yapparazzi and groupies are digging a hole for themselves let them keep digging? 🙂
I have often thought Skeptics (of which I am one) are overly sensitive to the word denialist or deniers (of which I am also one – of the AGW Theory). The idea that that a denier is anything more than someone who refutes of blocks something, in this case the AGW theory, is a stretch. Are basketball players who block shots, deniers who need to make a statement about the Holocaust? I’ve heard them called “deniers”. A denier or someone who denies something is used too often in English to make this leap. I understand you do not agree, Anthony, your views are pretty clear on this score… but I doubt ADL even comments on this. People who deny AGW (which I do) are deniers. You are a skeptic if you’re unconvinced. I am convinced the C02 signature is so insignificant, that it’s true impact cannot be measured today, because of the natural variability and noise in the measurement (plus some corruption). CO2 is the second or third decimal point, in my view. For a while I posted as Dave the Denier, until I saw how sensitive you all are. I think what was done to Polish and German Jews, is the worst moment in history of the 20th century. But it occurred 20 years before I was born and I’m not a young man. Calling out liberals or others who disagree with my climate science views who label me a denier, 70 years after the fact in the 21st Century – not worth my time. Just one man’s view.
I was thinking of doing something similar but no need as PopularTechnology.net has done a great job.
One significant one that should not be left out is:
“Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial.”
George Monbiot
The Guardian, Thursday 21 September 2006
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/sep/21/comment.georgemonbiot
Scratch that last comment. For some reason, I missed the Monboit quote already on the list.
I reserve judgement, but my patience is already thin. Bully tactics, name calling in what has become science usurped by socialist agenda is overripe. ADL will be just another victim whose sacred mission is usurped for an agenda that has no moral metric other than that of what works as a political tactic. However only ADL can completely and unforgivably abdicate their moral high ground by “accidental” blindness. Is the alter of political agenda worth the sacrifice?
“Inappropriate Comparisons Trivialize the Holocaust”
Here’s what you’re missing Anthony, as clearly evidenced in most of the (terribly disturbing) quotes you included. In their minds, the comparison is in fact appropriate and proportional. We skeptics are denying, hence aiding and abetting, a global climate holocaust which will be every bit as bad as or worse than the one the Nazi’s perpetrated.
You’re not going to get anywhere by claiming the comparison trivializes the holocaust.
From the ADL Mission Statement: “Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.”
The use of “Denier” is a defamation on a body of citizens.
Will the Anti-Defamation League:
A) Condemn the use of “Denier” as defamation, or
B) Condone through silence the use of “Denier” as “Just and Fair”
…. Then they came for me–
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
The moral gap between today’s Jewish leadership and the persecuters of Jews in the past century has greatly diminished.
I suspect this has less to do with defamation of skeptics than it does in showing “solidarity” with the “correct” progressive positions on things.
holocaust denial is based on denying a mountain of evidence.
co2 as the main driver of climate denial is based on denying predictions from unvalidated models, hockey sticks and that this is a spiritual and moral challenge to deindustrialise and live in an eco utopia? ie not believing al gores dvd. Not sure they are equivalent?
Rhetoric like that is the way mobs work themselves up to lynchings and
other atrocities. Notice the characteristics.
less immoral than Holocaust deniers are still immoral, and dangerous.
contributing to a horrible WWII like holocaust in the future.
We don’t need to be ‘balanced’ in treating with the deniers.
This is hate speech my friends.
I noted that the quotes that I read all spoke of “climate change denial” (or even “climate denial”, whatever that is). Since none of us denies that climate change has occurred, and say clearly that it is expected to occur ad inf, all these people are showing that they don’t know what they are talking about,
Ian M
Bressler’s letter is excellent and very comprehensive. Will be very difficult for ADL to ignore, especially since Bressler’s a Jew himself.
I built the innapropriateness of the ‘denier’ term into a skeptical cli-fi / sci-fi novelette featured at WUWT and Climate Etc. just over a year back. It’s free to read and I figure if it spreads around, this may help to combat the problem.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/273983
As far as I am concerned, the Anti-Defamation League has joined the ranks of true, new Holocaust deniers – those who ignore the deaths and suffering caused by policies that attempt to control carbon dioxide. This is another Holocaust, and these people are REAL holocaust deniers, and they deserve to be associated with those who do deny the Nazi-Jewish Holocaust. Dr. Spencer’s term “climate Nazi” most aptly applies to these new HOLOCAUST DENIERS.
And they have the crust to call skeptics, who are trying to stop this new Holocaust, “Holocaust deniers” when they, the ADL and their co-conspirators, are personally responsible in part for this new Holocaust by promoting the genocidal policies of carbon dioxide control.
http://atlanta.adl.org/news/adl-condemns-spencers-nazi-analogy/
Comments for the press release are still closed, but some of the un-censored comments have reappeard.
Calling someone a “Nazi” can be inferred as related to Holocaust in a very indirect way. However, calling someone a “denier” assumes direct reference to Holocaust.
These taboos on normal words like ‘denier’ and ‘holocaust’ are disgusting, and are respected only by the terminally naive.
The Holocaust I care about is the murder of my German relatives by Allied bombers, and their butchery, including being run over by tanks, by Soviet troops.
You don’t care about that holocaust? Fine, don’t care; but don’t expect me to care about this ‘Auschwitz’ stuff, or tiptoe around words that have had their meanings twisted out of recognition.
This post is a comprehensive smackdown of the AGW true believer assertion that ‘denier’ as a perjorative against climate skeptics has nothing to do with their fulfilling Godwin’s Law.
The climate obsessed have used the term “denier” as a way to stifle discussion, and have done so deliberately.
jauntycyclist says:
March 3, 2014 at 10:51 am
up to them if they want to be quiet. actually the more extreme the name calling the better i like it especially if it looks like its an orchestrated ‘message’. Each time they promote the co2 deathstar gives an opportunity to raise the evidence that doesn’t fit or remind them of their own predictions? if the co2ers and their yapparazzi and groupies are digging a hole for themselves let them keep digging? 🙂
The problem is that other theories purportedly backed by “science” have done untold damage to people and society before they lost credibility. It would be nice if the cycle could be short circuited by reason and information before it reached the social penetration that lead to entire civilizations accepting the stake, death camps, or gulags.
Add the “Bad Astronomer” Phil Plait to the list (http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2009/06/09/im_skeptical_of_denialism.html).
To be clear, Plait calls anyone who is critical of the speculations of the climate science mainstream a “denialist.”
The ADL, for whatever good they may have done in the past, is a liberal organization. As such, they never admit they are wrong, and certainly never say they are sorry. They sometimes ‘evolve’, which leaves most of homo sapiens wondering what took them so long when the rest of humanity did it 50,000 years ago.
@ Poker Guy 11:13.
Except one holocaust was real, the other a paranoid fantasy of academia.
The ADL is toast, barbecued by their own hypocrisy.
CAGW really is an intelligence test.
Belief in such an easily researched nonsense, suggests a person who can be sold most anything, on authority.
Why would we be surprised that these, followers of authority, can then be led to defamation and then violence?
Another WW2 reference; “I was just following orders”.??
Whipping up a mob, has always been the way of those who lust for power.
Consensus, go with the flow,team player,politically correct, all unthinking persons easily swayed with an emotional appeal.
Now as their imagined ascendence to power falls apart, they resort to identify the enemy, defame, dehumanize and then destroy.
Just the death-throws of another pathetic cult.
Poptech, nice list.
Visually what a bunch.These are our intellectual superiors?
Glad they have one thing going for them.
I am coming to the conclusion that the appropriate noun to describe a person in the alarmist camp should be DECEIVER. Whether the individual is deliberately engaged in deceiving others of the overblown dangers of using fossil fuels for personal glory or money or is innocently full of self-deception is immaterial. The result is a society being lead in a direction of great folly.
Deceiver may be the closest counter for the word denier. At least the onus would be on the deceivers to justify their views with solid scientific evidence and argument as the deniers have been doing for a long time.
Silence is consent.
Their silence speaks volumes. For shame.
Pete Postlethwaite has been punished
Powerful letters, both of them. Now that the National Director of ADL has the facts before him and has been made very aware, it will be interesting to see how he responds – hopefully with all his weight behind it. Rose should go. An activist with an agenda has no place with the ADL.
Bob Sheffwiz says
“The Holocaust I care about is the murder of my German relatives by Allied bombers, and their
butchery, including being run over by tanks, by Soviet troops.”
You might consider the following statistics:
For each german civilian killed by Allied bombers a non-german civilian was killed by Luftwaffe bombers.
For each german civilian killed by Allied bombers five russian POW:s starved to death in german POW camps.
For each german civilian killed by Allied bombers ten jews died in german extermination camps.
I could go on.
Help ADL combat hate with your donation. You can learn a lot at their website. I did not know before that numbers 5, 14, 18, 23, and 28 were hate symbols.
“The moral gap between today’s Jewish leadership and the persecuters of Jews in the past century has greatly diminished.”
Do you really think todays’ Jewish leadership (a term which doesn’t strike me as particularly useful) have the morals of those who murdered 6 million of their people during WW2.
Our side is better than theirs. Let’s always try to show it.
jauntycyclist says:
March 3, 2014 at 11:16 am
holocaust denial is based on denying a mountain of evidence.
co2 as the main driver of climate denial is based on denying predictions from unvalidated models, hockey sticks and that this is a spiritual and moral challenge to deindustrialise and live in an eco utopia? ie not believing al gores dvd. Not sure they are equivalent?
———————————————-
Let me help you with that….no
cn
Here are a few more to add to the list of people comparing sceptics to Holocaust deniers.
Since when did the ADL become the only determinant of the use of the term Nazi? All of Europe and Russia suffered under the Nazis, not just Jews. The whole world is free to use the parallel of
Nazism, without requiring the approval of the ADL.
Thank you Anthony & Poptech.
Outstanding work.
Anthony, after reading the list via Poptech of the Holocaust / sceptic comparison, I have compiled a list of what some people in the debate have proposed as punishment.
VARIOUS PROPOSED TREATMENTS FOR THE ‘DENIERS’
—————————————————-
National Clean Energy Summit With Reid and Schwarzenegger
Speaking of greenhouse gas deniers: “Strap some conservative-thinking people to a tailpipe for an hour and then they will agree it’s a pollutant!”
source Arnolod Schwarzenegger – 2013
—
[Dr. James Hansen]
“…Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near on Global Warming
CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. If their campaigns continue and “succeed” in confusing the public, I anticipate testifying against relevant CEOs in future public trials….”
Huffington Post – 2008
—
[Concerts for a Climate in Crisis]
“Now you’ve heard today a lot of people say that there are many little things that you all can do today to avert climate change on your own……
“This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr – 2007
—
“When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.”
David Roberts – Grist – 2006
—
Jail politicians who ignore climate science: Suzuki
…“What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there’s a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they’re doing is a criminal act,” said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. “It’s an intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years.”…
David Suzuki – 2008
—
NYT suggests ‘deniers’ should be stabbed through the heart – like vampires
WUWT – 2014
—
“They are the same people who deny the link between smoking and cancer,” he said. “They are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder – and I hope they put it on their faces every day.”
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri – 2010
—
“If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.And we be many, but you be few.”
Greenpeace Gene From India – 2010
—
“Resistance at individual and societal levels must be recognized and treated…This kind of cultural resistance to very significant social threat is something that we would expect in any society facing a massive threat,”
Professor Kari Norgaard – 2012
—
“Get rid of any cabinet ministers or senior governmental advisers who refuse to accept the scientific consensus on climate change or who won’t take the risks to the UK seriously.”
source Green Party of England and Wales – 2014
—
“In an age when most people are sensitive to acts of terrorism and the safety of children, I’m stunned the makers behind the “10:10 No Pressure” video would combine these two concepts in order to raise awareness about climate change.
….the video ”punishes” those indifferent to acting on climate change by blowing them up. This includes children. Seriously, blowing up kids?…”
Watching The Deniers
—
“This week we received a deluge of free books from the Heartland Institute {this or this }. The book is entitled “The Mad, Mad, Made World of Climatism”. SHown above, Drs. Bridger and Clements test the flammability of the book.”
San Jose State University – Department of Meteorology and Climate Science – 2013
—
“…If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn’t agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns…”
Dr. Heidi Cullen – 2006
[as above]
Death penalty for global warming deniers?
An objective argument…a conservative conclusion
“At the end of that process, some GW deniers would never admit their mistake and as a result they would be executed. Perhaps that would be the only way to stop the rest of them. The death penalty would have been justified in terms of the enormous numbers of saved future lives.”
Richard Parncutt, Professor of Systematic Musicology, University of Graz – 2012
Since many of our opponents are determined to make comparisons, no matter how weak, here are some comparisons to take note of.
—————————
An alternative to the new wave of ecofascism
By liberating humanity from the compulsion to consume, climate catastrophe can be averted without recourse to authoritarianism
“Linkola has built an environmentalist following by calling for an authoritarian, ecological regime that ruthlessly suppresses consumers. Largely unknown outside of Finland until the first English translation of his work was published last year, Linkola represents environmentalism pushed to its totalitarian extreme. “An ecocatastrophe is taking place on earth,” he writes concluding several pages later that “discipline, prohibition, enforcement and oppression” are the only solution.”
Guardian – 2010
—
Fascist Ecology:
The “Green Wing” of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents
“Hitler and Himmler were both strict vegetarians and animal lovers, attracted to nature mysticism and homeopathic cures, and staunchly opposed to vivisection and cruelty to animals. Himmler even established experimental organic farms to grow herbs for SS medicinal purposes. And Hitler, at times, could sound like a veritable Green utopian, discussing authoritatively and in detail various renewable energy sources (including environmentally appropriate hydropower and producing natural gas from sludge) as alternatives to coal, and declaring “water, winds and tides” as the energy path of the future.32″….Her book Blood and Soil, undoubtedly the best single source on Darré in either German or English, consistently downplays the virulently fascist elements in his thinking, portraying him instead as a misguided agrarian radical……….One account even claims that it was Darré who convinced Hitler and Himmler of the necessity of exterminating the Jews and Slavs.44 The ecological aspects of his thought cannot, in sum, be separated from their thoroughly Nazi framework. Far from embodying the ‘redeeming’ facets of National Socialism, Darré represents the baleful specter of ecofascism in power….”
Peter Staudenmaier
—
‘Ecology’ and the Modernization of Fascism in the German Ultra-right
“FAP Nazis especially loathe “humanistically oriented cosmopolitanism.” Marxism, liberalism, and Christianity “have torn humanity from its connectedness to the natural cycles of our earth.” No “technical environmentalism” will succeed against the “increasingly obvious ecological catastrophe,” they believe. Rather, the “disrupted relations between humanity and the rest of nature” require an “ecological revolution” and a “radical revolution in consciousness” that will “lead humanity to a reintegration with the structure of planetary life.” We need a new ethics, they maintain, one in which “humanity, animals and nature are regarded as a unity. Animals are not things” but are “life-forms that feel joy and pain and need our protection.” ”
Janet Biehl
—
HITLER’S HOME LIFE
Teetotal Vegetarian Not Likely to Marry
… chief joy, and he has no hobbies. Two years ago he ceased eating meat, when already a non-smoker and a total ab- stainer, and he has never been so fit as he is now, enjoying the Austrian vegetarian dishes and puddings, which he misses at Munich and Berlin.”
The sister showed the newspaper correspondent Herr Hitler’s bedroom, in which hangs a copy of the Lord’s Prayer.
The Mercury – 1933
—
Eco-fascists: How Radical Conservationists Are Destroying Our Natural Heritage
Book Review
“Elizabeth Nickson’s book, “Eco-Fascists: How Radical Conservationists Are Destroying Our Natural Heritage” is a superbly written account of the devastating political agenda of the environmentalist junta. A talented and experienced journalist, Ms. Nickson previously worked as European bureau chief of Life magazine, reporter for Time magazine…..
“I walk the green mile more than anyone I’ve met.” She resides in a sanguine rural setting in Salt Spring Island, B.C. The area is surrounded by a forest, meadows and a ravine. Her living abode is “a green house heated by geothermal” and is “carbon neutral.” More to the point, the house has “no drywall, no paints, no solvents, and could be certified as a healthy house.””
The Washington Times – 2012
—
Does immigration hurt the environment?
“…In fact, anti-immigration campaigners’ attempts to win over environmentalists date back to at least the 1970s, when Herbert Gruhl, a founder of Germany’s Green party, made the ecological case for anti-immigration policies. When German Greens didn’t bite, Gruhl went off in a huff and founded his own far-right ecological party. Since then, his ideas have been championed by German neo-Nazi groups and eagerly embraced by the British National party….”
Guardian – 2008
—
Friedrich Nietzsche and His Proto-Nazi Eco-Fascism
“…Hitler’s lifelong fascination with Nietzsche is corroborated by the fact that the Nazis essentially made the Nietzsche Archives of Weimar the official shrine of their regime in 1933. Even as late as 1944, the green Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) went so far as to say that Nietzsche was the spiritual inspiration of Hitler….”
American Thinker – 2011
—
Holistic Environmental Ethics and the Problem of Ecofascism
…Thus the existence of such a large human population is land ethically wrong. To right that wrong should we not do what we do when a population of white-tailed deer or some other species irrupts and threatens the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community? We immediately and summarily reduce it, by whatever means necessary, usually by randomly and indiscrimi9nately shooting the members of such a population to death – respectfully, of course-until its numbers are optimized….
Baird Callicott – Writings by Aldo Leopold [PDF]
Note: [transcribed by hand by me]
I was listening to the radio the other day where there was a long and interesting segment about “AIDS deniers”. As I listened I found myself becoming annoyed that the same word used to describe us climate skeptics was being applied these charlatans. That reaction made me stop and think. How could I find it annoying that people with nutty ideas about not taking AIDS medication are put in the same category as myself when the category already includes holocaust deniers who are scum of the earth?
I concluded that the word “denier” is associated much more strongly with climate skeptics these days than it is with the holocaust. If I hear someone called simply a denier my first thought is that they are a fellow skeptic and my immediate reaction to them is positive. It seems to me that it is far too late for the ADL to object to this use of the word on the grounds that it might be devalued. That has already happened. If they didn’t want it they should have raised a fuss a decade ago.
The ADL is going to have to start thinking about a new label for holocaust deniers because long misapplication of the word “denier” to climate skeptics is shifting the meaning of the word. Today it is being used to simply mean someone who stands against the scientific “consensus”. Tomorrow it may come to mean someone who BRAVELY opposes the scientific consensus and who is later proved RIGHT. Unless the ADL wants holocaust denial to assume such connotations they will be forced to find another word.
tty says:
March 3, 2014 at 12:11 pm
Bob Sheffwiz says
“The Holocaust I care about is the murder of my German relatives by Allied bombers, and their
butchery, including being run over by tanks, by Soviet troops.”
You might consider the following statistics:
For each german civilian killed by Allied bombers a non-german civilian was killed by Luftwaffe bombers.
For each german civilian killed by Allied bombers five russian POW:s starved to death in german POW camps.
For each german civilian killed by Allied bombers ten jews died in german extermination camps.
I could go on.
———————————————————-
And the Germans started it.
Ouch.
cn
The moderators must be working very hard today. So much use of the D word!
Well, I’m cancelling my ADL membership. The hypocrisy is unbearable. And the kids who answered my calls at the regional and the national offices were just rude.
My annual contribution will now go to support WUWT, Climate Audit, Bishop Hill, etc.
Good work on this Anthony – even though it depressed the hell out of me, I respect intellectual honesty above all else.
AGW_Skeptic says:
March 3, 2014 at 11:27 am
http://atlanta.adl.org/news/adl-condemns-spencers-nazi-analogy/
Comments for the press release are still closed, but some of the un-censored comments have reappeard.
————————————————————————————————————–
Very interesting. Let me point out a curious addition to the restored comments. At the very bottom of the comments is one from ‘CB’. I have been engaged with this one on some recent articles elsewhere. I had never seen her around prior. Now she is the last comment of the restored group. I would have to suspect that this is the author, herself. She makes some of the most idiotic statements that I have ever read in the last 6 years of discussing climate. Was her comment on the page when it was initially closed? The comment which she makes is identical in content to those I have seen her make over the last week at the ‘daily caller’ and now at ‘breitbart’. I won’t dialogue with her anymore. There is no point in dialoguing with this person. If she was able to add her comment at the ADL site after the closing of the thread, then that means that she has some control over that thread. I remember one of us here had made a screenshot of the page prior to the closing and removal of the comments. Was ‘CB’ the last comment on the page?
I note that my comment on that page was restored, although it had been one of the original deleted comments.
Mark Bofill:
That is absolutely right. But I believe it must be the first time that such dehumanising language has arisen directly from the ashes of a previous genocide where the targets (sceptics) have had absolutely nothing to do with the original (and horrendous) crime.
In considering the blindness involved it is well worth re-reading Steve Mcintyre’s words about the Australian psychologist Paul Bain on this in his brilliant takedown of Stephan Lewandowsky in September 2012:
Many thanks to Andrew of PopularTechnology and to Anthony for making clear how far the ‘derogatory epithets’ have already spread. Roy Spencer was absolutely right in my view right to say eleven days ago:
WUWT is as ever leading the charge and we are deeply grateful.
pokerguy says:
March 3, 2014 at 11:13 am
“You’re not going to get anywhere by claiming the comparison trivializes the holocaust.”
That reflects the insanity of the warming movement on the face of it. Of course “denier” trivializes the memory of the holocaust and reflects the delusions the modern left has been sinking to in particular since the 60’s.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/2014/02/28/exclusive-former-greenpeace-founders-reality-check-liberals
The Holocaust is probably the most documented atrocity in history. While there are certainly avenues of valid historical inquiry about the precise details of the Holocaust, the general outline is extremely well documented and all but rock-solid. What’s more, there Holocaust is the most plausible explanation for the death of millions of European Jews – there are no plausible explanation aside from organized mass murder.
Climate change is a poorly understood subject, and any deaths from human-caused Global Warming have yet to occur. There are a number of alternative explanations for global warming besides humans. The two have so little in common that only a bigot would conflate the two.
I am especially annoyed by Phil Plait claiming that the two are similar. Scientific consensus has been wrong before. For example, the conventional wisdom among doctors was that ulcers were caused by stress and innate defects in the gastric lining. The idea of bacteria growing in the roiling acids of the stomach sounded laughable, and they scoffed when a research claimed Helicobacter pylori was the responsible agent. Now, antibiotics are standard anti-ulcer therapy. If people remained with the scientific consensus, a lot of people would still be suffering.
Abe Foxman has announced his retirement. I doubt that he will take strong action one way or the other in regard to an issue as controversial as this at this point in his career.
REPLY: Not until July 2015
http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/miscellaneous/abraham-foxman-to-step-down-as-national-director-july-2015.html
– Anthony
Just for dear old George Moonbat…
I still don’t understand how climate science has anything to do with Hitler or WWII or the Jews or anyone else who died during WWII. Whoever uses references to atrocities that occurred during WWII in their arguments for or against catastrophic climate change are idiots. Just stick with the facts. What does the scientific evidence support ?
Excellent list, excellent article!
In addition to making a stupidly cynical excuse, Foxman is not being truthful. The ADL was put on notice about this issue by a column published in the Jewish Journal four years ago. See here:
http://www.jewishjournal.com/dennis_prager/article/when_jews_on_the_left_see_americans_on_the_right_as_nazis_20100504
Note that this column includes specific reference to Ellen Goodman’s quote equating global warming skeptics with Holocaust deniers. Also note that this column calls ADL to task for its politically biased treatment of people using WWII imagery for current domestic use, and not just for climate. ADL applies their double standard to lots of political positions with which they do not agree. If you are a liberal Jew like Ellen Goodman, you get free reign to shout “DENIER” at anyone you want – so long as they are sitting to the right of the ADL. If anyone says it back at you, ADL brings down the hammer.
Anthony would be well served to contact Dennis Prager at the Jewish Journal, and see if together they could get some traction with Foxman.
I wouldn’t hold my breath, however. From the quote above, note that Algore has his ADL pass to use Holocaust imagery for “global warming” propaganda. That article was published in the New York Times under the title “An Ecological Kristallnacht. Listen.” But when Glen Beck said this about Algore …
… Abe Foxman himself issued a press release against Beck, saying ““Glenn Beck’s linkage of Hitler’s plan to round up and exterminate Jews with Al Gore’s efforts to raise awareness of global warming is outrageous, insensitive, and deeply offensive.”
And that was three months after Goodman’s “Holocaust” column …
Abe Foxman is not an honest man.
Bob Sheffwiz:
And your response to the Third Reich would have been….?
The leader of the UK Labour party Ed Miliband has joined the ecofascist chorus:
Prime ministers questions 26th Feb 2014
“Will the Prime Minister clarify his position? Is he happy to have climate change den!ers in his Government?…The whole country will have heard that the Prime Minister cannot answer the question about whether people need to believe in man-made climate change to be part of his Government. He has gone from thinking that it was a basic part of his credo to thinking that it is a matter of individual conscience.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140226/debtext/140226-0001.htm
What more proof is needed that ‘climate change’ is now a dogmatic and militant religious creed?
The leader of the opposition believes ‘den!ers’ have no place in the democratic process.
We skeptics don’t seem to have an issue with referring to Holocaust deniers for what they are. We don’t because we believe with absolute certainty that the evidence for the Holocaust is unequivocal and that it was true. This is exactly the same reason why AGW mythologists feel no compunction about using ‘denial’ to refer to us.
I am compiling an interesting shortish list. I would then like any Warmists here to respond. It will really be interesting to read the ummmmm, ahhhhhh, ummmmm, ahhhhhh. The ADL messed with the wrong crowd, we have been defending ourselves for years against a well funded onslaught. It gets quite easy as the years go by.
Michael Mann cannot claim he was not aware of how denier/denial/denialism was being used, as per Poptech’s excellent list, or on a personal level:
3 March 2012: Guardian: Live Q&A: Climate scientist Michael Mann on the ‘hockey stick’ controversy
Question: thefandango 28 February 2012 4:47PM
Micheal –
Given that the term “denier” has obvious holocaust denial connotations, do you think that your use of that word is:
1. unacceptable for a scientist to use
2. one that could incite certain elements to violence against people who question the concensus
Or do you consider it a reasonable term?
Michael Mann:
Frankly, I think those who complain about this are often just producing crocodiles tears. As someone who lost relatives to the religious persecution of the jewish people, I would be as sensitive to anyone if I really though the use of the term has anything whatsoever do do with the holocaust. I find that argument quite disingenuous if not downright dishonest. For those who are denying mainstream science, the logical thing to call them is “deniers”. they are certainly not “skeptics” and even “contrarian” doesn’t always fit the bill. Given that some of the fiercest of our detractors have proudly declared themselves deniers (one such individual even wrote a book “The Deniers”) I find that this argument has no currency at all. I suspect its often used as a somewhat disingenuous ploy to get journalists and other commentators to grant the highly undeserved term of “skeptic” to those who are nothing of the sort…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/feb/27/michael-mann-climate-change-live-q-and-a
17 Feb 2012: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: The inside story on climate scientists under siege
(Michael Mann): “When it comes to climate change, true scepticism is two-sided. One-sided scepticism is no scepticism at all,” he said. “I will call people who deny the science deniers … I guess I won’t be deterred by the fact that they don’t like the use of that term and no doubt that just endears me to them further.”…
“I think increasingly the campaign to deny the reality of climate change is going to come up against that brick wall of the evidence being so plain to people whether they are hunters, fishermen, gardeners,” he said…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/17/michael-mann-climate-war
Mann, nonetheles, has chosen to continue using the denier terms up to the present:
26 Jan 2014: Aljazeera: Amel Ahmed: Prominent scientist suing climate change deniers for libel
(Michael Mann): “The tactics climate-change deniers employ is based on the idea that if they can discredit one prominent scientist, they can discredit the entire environmental movement. They’re also trying to serve notice to other scientists who think about speaking out,” he said.
Mann’s lawyer John B. Williams added that the invidious nature of some comments from climate-change deniers was “sidetracking the real debate, which is science-based.”…
Mann became a target for climate-change deniers in 1999, when he published the “hockey stick” chart showing rising global temperatures…
(Michael Mann): “These allegations have been reviewed by the highest scientific authorities in the land. None of them found any evidence of impropriety. And yet they continue to be laundered by climate-change deniers,” he told Al Jazeera…
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/26/judge-allows-climatescientisttomoveforwardwithdefamationcase.html
Here’s another column by Dennis Prager of the Jewish Journal, this one published in David Horowitz’s Frontpagemag:
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=155
This one directly addresses the “AGW sceptic = Holocaust denier” column by Ellen Goodman – immediately after she published it seven years ago. And he calls out ADL. And ADL played dumb. Seven years ago.
Strains credulity that Foxman claims to have been ignorant of all of this. Evidently, neither Abe Foxman nor anyone else in the ADL read Ellen Goodman’s nationally syndicated column. Or the Jewish Journal. Or Horowitz’s magazine. Or the NYT op-ed page. Apparently, they’ve been too busy keeping up with Glen Beck’s TV show and Roy Spencer’s blog.
Odd, that.
Given the ever rising death toll, perhaps the pushers of carbon mitigation schemes are really guilty of mass projection.
It is hard to deny, that political decisions to dilute our fuels with corn ethanol drove the price of basic foods up.Destabilizing the poorer countries, people starved or were killed in the ensuing chaos.
That the “incentives” to well-connected alternate energy artists, added to the cost of every users electricity bill,forcing many into fuel poverty.
That the policy decisions to forbid loans for reliable energy projects, by the IMF and world banking organizations have denied Africans access to reliable and affordable electricity.
Ensuring no access to refrigeration for food and medicine.
Still some million children die of preventable causes before they reach 5 years old, but the magic gas has priority over poor brown people.
Construction of required infrastructure is brushed aside, prevented, all for feel good posturing.
Denial is just a river in Egypt.
Seems very strange that persons so concerned about the future of their grandchildren, can be so blind to the reality their policies create.
Looks like, smells like and walks like Eugenics 2.0
But when you know you have chosen the path of righteousness, all good folk tell you so, you are hardly likely to consider that you might be wrong, or that you are acting badly toward others.
Why bother yourself with the Anti-Defamation League? They are simply a group of tiresome, run-of-the-mill censors with their own agenda.
“Inappropriate Comparisons Trivialize the Holocaust” – Abraham Foxman, ADL Director
You could interpret that statement as saying the CAGW deniers are much worse……
Not to push any buttons here but the ADL seems to be going down the road of the NAACP.
Where was it when Clarence Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court was being opposed by a trumped up sexual harassment charge? (For those unfamiliar with it, the charge had already been investigated and dismissed. But when nothing else could be found against him, Senator Metzenbaum’s office made the charge public.)
Has the ADL been subverted from it’s cause?
Actions speak louder than words and silence louder than actions.
goldminor says:
March 3, 2014 at 12:40 pm
I have opened up that link twice, now. I don’t see any comments. Weird.
About “CB,” someone here showed a screenshot of the original comments; you seem to be looking at a copy of that version. CB’s comment was a Reply to the first comment on the page … somehow it's now showing as the last comment. The order of the comments has been 'corrupted' or something. In other words, the screenshot showed all the original comments, then started to show the replies but only got as far as the first reply. (Hope that makes sense.)
So, no, CB has no control over comments on the ADL site. In fact, he/she freaked out … thought that us 'evil den!ers' had 'false flagged' it's comments and were stalking it. Even temporarily set it's privacy settings to Private … until I pointed out that ADL, itself, had deleted ALL comments, not just CB's.
I was one of the ones who replied to his/her comments on ADL. I have since, like you, encountered CB on TheDC and Breitbart … I believe CB is now following me around the internet (any website that uses Disqus) and badgering me. I probably should start ignoring it and maybe it will lose interest. Either that, or I will have to change my Disqus privacy settings. I've encountered this troll before on various other websites. It is irrational, illogical, immature, and repeats the same nonsense over and over … and is constantly hijacking threads like he attempted to do at ADL.
That the need to resort to such insults is seen at all shows how little is really is to do with the science and how much it is to do with a demand for obedience to the AGW dogma.
The need to paint AGW sceptics as not just wrong , but ‘mad or bad’ has no scientific basis rather it finds a happy home with those with extreme religions or political view who show the same total intolerance to those that commit ‘the crime ‘ of failing to their unquestioning faith in ‘the cause ‘
Oops. Sorry about the formatting faux pas! Mods?
REPLY: so horribly botched that I refuse to try to correct it – Anthony
[Since I have more time on my hands than Anthony, who is always overworked, I fixed it. ~ mod.]
for those discussing the returned comments at the original press release? I go there now and all comments are removed.
The more the facts and science deny that CO2 and its increase is a problem and the more that the World’s temperatures stay unresponsive, the shriller become the screams of the Warmistas against the “Deniers”. The Deniers ranks now include the facts and the Science.
Where have all the comments gone, a long, long time ago?
See: http://atlanta.adl.org/news/adl-condemns-spencers-nazi-analogy/
Zero comments now and a notice that comments are closed.
If they were saved, maybe reposting them here would be appropriate. Or perhaps just reposting them in other recent news or press releases on the adl site that still are open to comments.
Michael Mann has publically stated on his FB page. “… As one of jewish heritage, I would not use the term “denier” if I thought that it had any Holocaust connotations whatsoever, as this would detract from the seriousness of that horrible episode in history. …”
Michael Mann has not publically chastised most of those 40 people (quoted by Poptech in Anthony’s post) about their very explicit and direct comparison of climate ‘deniers’ to holocaust deniers. He should now do so, given his position on such comparisons. With this WUWT post he cannot now say he was unaware of their linking of climate ‘deniers’ with holocaust deniers.
All bold emphasis in the following blockquote is mine.
John
REPLY: Not until July 2015
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That is a blink of an eye to this man.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not excusing him. The ADL has evolved into a very left leaning organization that embraces what is in many cases the very source of the antisemitism they they are supposed to be fighting. They are blind to this. Don’t ask me to explain it, I cannot. But if they are blind to THAT, then I hold out little hope that they’ll be any less blind to the issues you raise.
I’d volunteer for a discussion panel with them, but I think you have a better talent pool than me to draw upon. Ask Richard Lindzen to volunteer, and/or Ira Glickstein….
The irony abounds…
The ADL defames a climate scientist for his ironic, satirical response to defamation.
Dave D says:
March 3, 2014 at 10:56 am
I have often thought Skeptics (of which I am one) are overly sensitive to the word denialist or deniers (of which I am also one – of the AGW Theory). The idea that that a denier is anything more than someone who refutes of blocks something, in this case the AGW theory, is a stretch.
————————————————————————————————————————-
Dave,
I tend to agree with you as far as the word itself is concerned, but not regarding the nature of its use. There is nothing linguistically wrong with calling someone “black”, but when used in a derogatory and hate-filled way it’s unacceptable. Because of that, any decent person avoids using it unless they know they’re in safe company, where their meaning won’t be misunderstood or offensive, I have had black friends in the past who I knew I could safely use the “N” word with, but I wouldn’t dream of using it within earshot of others who might not understand.
The intention of using “denier” in the context of AGW debate is made abundantly clear from the examples quoted in this post, and it IS intended to draw similarities to Holocauset deniers. Personally, I find that more deeply offensive to the victims of the Holocaust than I do to myself, but others may well be offended themselves, which is obviously the intent.
Given that obvious intent, decent people, whether they believe in AGW or not, should no more use the term than they should call their friends niggers in public!
Meanwhile, I’ve also written briefly to the ADL (through their standard web contact form, which may have different gatekeepers to specific email addresses 😉 ) for all the good it may do:
Dear Sir or Madam,
You may be aware of the press release prepared by your Alberta office recently, condemning (I believe rightly) comments made by Dr R Spencer. It is available here:
http://atlanta.adl.org/news/adl-condemns-spencers-nazi-analogy/
As I say, I believe it right to condemn such comments, as it is to condemn any comments that tend to trivialise the Holocaust.
However, the ADL has been silent for a long time while similar, even more direct, comparisons have been made by high profile Anthropogenic Global Warming supporters in denigration of AGW sceptics.
Rather than list examples here, I hope you will take the small time needed to see the examples (all referenced) compiled here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/03/the-silence-of-the-anti-defamation-league-suggests-they-endorse-defamation-of-climate-skeptics/#more-104205
Clearly, comments such as “At its core, global warming denial is like Holocaust denial, an assault on common decency.“, “I think these people are anti-science flat-earthers. …They are every bit as dangerous as Holocaust deniers.“ or “[…] I put this [AGW scepticism] in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial.“ are far more direct and explicit trivialisations of the Holocaust than any of Dr Pielke’s comments. Yet these comments have gone unchallenged for years.
Is it not time that the ADL, with its laudable aims, openly denounced such langauge and such comparisons from ALL sides?
Can it be right or just for some to make such comments openly and unchallenged, while others condemned for finally answering in suit?
I would respectfully suggest that such apparent hypocricy is not only damaging to the credibility fo an organisation promoting the end of hate, but also insulting to those who suffered, at least in part, because of the reluctance of others to speak out from the start.
I have always thought that the term deniers has been a bit of an own goal for the alarmists, it smacked of bullying and a lack of science on their part where they had to resort to name calling,
Most people I know found it quite offensive, sort of recoiled from wanting to be associated with those using the term.
It all felt a bit mucky.
They alarmists, using the term deniers, all felt to me to be a bit top shelf of the local news agents shop if you know what i mean.
From a recent “Telegraph” reflection on Abraham Foxman’s tenure at ADL, some irony indeed…
Thank you Anthony and commenters…
This requires wide dissemination. The battle we face is not just on scientific grounds, but moral and spiritual. Kudos to Dr. Spencer for saying enough is enough.
Whether you spell it ADL or ACLU the hypocrisy is the same.
OK, here area few sceptics of IPCC projected global warming / CAGW.
Are any of the following people akin to Holocaust deniers?
Would you label any of them as “Deniers”?
Which Warmist will take up this really simple challenge? Come on now, hands up, step up to the podium and do your stuff. You never hesitated before, don’t be shy now. 🙂 Before you answer guess which ones fled the Nazis or one of whose parents fled the Nazis. It’s so easy to answer, go ahead.
SLAM DUNK!!!
If any of these people are called “Deniers” or likened to “Holocaust deniers” then I EXPECT to see the confused ADL issue a timely press release. In the meantime Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
PS all of the above are Jewish.
The skeptics own the ADL. Next time don’t rub your arse up the wrong tree Shelley Rose.
Ockham57 says:
March 3, 2014 at 1:25 pm
We skeptics don’t seem to have an issue with referring to Holocaust deniers for what they are. We don’t because we believe with absolute certainty that the evidence for the Holocaust is unequivocal and that it was true. This is exactly the same reason why AGW mythologists feel no compunction about using ‘denial’ to refer to us.
——————————————————————–
I would disagree with the last part of your comment. I believe that there is a percentage of the warmists who do not fully believe in their own position, but they conclude ‘what is there to lose if we are wrong about the warming? We still do a favor for the world by reducing oil usage.’. I have noted that argument thrown into the conversation multiple times. It is an acknowledgement of doubt, and at the same time it is a complicit acknowledgement of their true agenda.
“Of course “denier” trivializes the memory of the holocaust and reflects the delusions the modern left has been sinking to in particular since the 60′s.”
Fer cryin out loud cwon, I’m giving you the thinking from *their* point of view, which should be clear from my post.
The ADL must re-focus its efforts on Paul Eisen
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2458
The ADL are an ugly bunch whose main purpose these days is to bully the US into support of Israel. They are just another AIPAC. Any criticism levelled at them or their aims is met with the cry “anti-Semitism”. They have misused that cry so often that it has no force now.
Ohhhhh Professor Einstein would be turning in his grave at this travesty by the ADL.
Would the physicist Einstein have been a CAGW sceptic? Was he up to the job? Would he have been disqualified because he was not a “Climastrology Scientist”? LOL.
Dr. James Hansen trained in physics and astronomy according to NASA GISS. Hansen is the father of modern day global warming alarmism.
I am lead to believe that Einstein knew a little about space and time.
========================================================
If it wasn’t for their silence here……………..
Thanks so much, Mods, for the correction. Next time, when I want to emphasize a single word, I’ll use CAPS. Note to self … must learn to proofread.
Fantastic! One more warmist position shot to pieces. And a truly evil one of them. Only crazed warmists will use the term again after having seen the documentation here. My warmests thanks to Poptech, Watts and Bressler.
Maybe I am just tired but I can’t get a grip on what Romm said. Is it comparable or not? Is “yet to come” worse than the holocaust?
The ADL made a BIG mistake the day Shelley decided that she was going to peek into the lion’s den. Rest assured she will never make such a mistake again. This is what happens when you under-estimate your opponents. Ms. Rose let her climate activism get the better of her. I wish her well though, just don’t do this again.
teapartygeezer says:
March 3, 2014 at 2:14 pm
————————————–
Thanks for looking that up. ‘CB’ is using 2 techniques. The first is to simply spam a comment section. The second appears to be their new ‘tool’ to throw into the argument. The new ‘tool’ is meant to confuse others and possibly elicit a response that gets the opponent to make a rebuttal that partially confirms their viewpoint. Here is an example from ‘CB’…””Given the steady decline in Arctic sea ice over 34 years from roughly 17,000 km³ in 1979 to roughly 5,000 km³ in 2013, how long do you think it will be before Arctic sea ice disappears completely in the summer?””.
Note how ‘CB’ tries to get me to make a comment stating that at some time “I’ might consider the concept that the Arctic sea ice will disappear. I have noted several others trying to use this technique on me over the last month. They are trying this out on the wrong person. My English comprehension was rather high back in the day. My math skills were rated slightly higher, although they now lay buried.
Anthony a Dr David Roberts (UNE) also said at a talk at the Sydney Institute, that I and two others who disagreed with a book written by a colleague could be compared with holocaust, climate change and JFK assassination deniers. He didn’t mention names but one man in the audience queried this and pulled him up. “Oh Maybe not holocaust deniers as no one died” I complained to the head of department and the university, and it came back, ‘he can have his own opinions and we can’t control this.’ Even slander? The book didn’t sell well (HA HA) But it would be interesting if ‘he’ is the same one. The author did say this lecture was shown on some pay TV channel. (That I’ve never heard of). I could not get a supervisor to look after my special graduate unit where I would expose the real facts, nor did I get good marks either. But passed eventually. The whole history department stood up for him?
Excellent post and thank you especially for pursuing the matter in this way. I appreciate Alan J. Bressler’s direct and transparent action to uproot the D-bigotry in climate discussions and most likely rescuing ADL in the process.
ADL may end up choosing between A) ADL ‘hate on display’ number 5, in this case, silence treatment à la Shelley Rose in ‘Congregations Caring for the Climate’ and B) benefiting from tax-exemption under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3).
Apart from that, my reasons are quite similar to what ‘Cynical_scientist’ already wrote here. After a years of experience, I’ve gathered more positive experience with those labeled denialist than those labeling others. Consequently, it arouses now also positive connotations. It is somewhat unsettling in non-AGW contexts, but blindness, deafness and dumbness is worse. So, I’m reassessing my assumptions continuously.
In this journey I’ve discovered that Semitic family is vast, including the ancient and modern forms of Ahlamu, Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian), Amharic, Ammonite, Amorite, Arabic, Aramaic/Syriac, Canaanite/Phoenician/Carthaginian, Chaldean, Eblaite, Edomite, Ge’ez, Hebrew, Maltese, Mandaic, Moabite, Sutean, Tigre and Tigrinya, and Ugaritic, among others. Within this family there are some still subjected to anti-semitism or other sort of bigotry and needing help today. I’m confident that ADL Director A Foxman needs no outsides to tell him any of that.
The picture doesn’t relate to the David Roberts I know, he has long red hair that he normally wears in a pony tail. Although I think he cut it off recently.
I am very impressed with the quote collection and the photos that go with them. I urge Anthony or someone to continue add updates of new names and photos to the end of the list. The additions by Gary and Jimbo would be a start. This list and associated photos could then be used as the basis for a wall of shame memorial in DC to these stinkers when the warm turns.
Jimbo says:
March 3, 2014 at 4:21 pm
——————————————–
Romm has made a disclaimer about a link between the two. Note his use of the term ‘climate science dis-informers’. That is his out card. He then goes on to imply that ‘although the catastrophe of global warming is under way, it will surely get worse in the years to come’.
Thanks for the long list of Climate-change denier = Holocaust denier quotes. Interesting (and depressing) reading. I’ll use some of these at Wikipedia, when I get the energy to fight their vile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial article.
dbstealey says:
March 3, 2014 at 11:13 am
The moral gap between today’s Jewish leadership and the persecuters of Jews in the past century has greatly diminished.
>>>>>>>
db gets it right once again.
Beyond that, call me a DENIER. I DENY that mankind can pump enough CO2 into the atmosphere to warm the planet, even if we tried. (Check last 20 years, if you doubt.)
Sorry to have the science on our (DENIERS) side.
After reading comments from the list of “Holocaust Trivializers” I was struck by several related trains of thought:
All word play and sophistry – name calling.
From these quotes, they all come off as nasty and even hate-filled. Trials? Forcible tattoos? Death sentences? What on earth is going through their heads? What are they talking about?
For the life of me, I really can’t figure out who they are talking about. They seem to be addressing a group of people holding views on climate and atmospheric and earth sciences who are inimical to fact, data, and science.
I for one, certainly do not feel like the target of their ire; I just don’t see the tiny fraction of Man-Made CO2 doing anything at all out of the ordinary to the climate. Just show me the arguments, the data, the code, the empirical observations; I’ll draw my own conclusions. What? Drawing my own conclusions makes for a “denier”? A denier of what? Climate alarmist seem to me to be non-rational, not irrational, just non-rational. What crises? What alarm? Just show me.
But so far for me, I see nothing in recent climate change outside historic bounds – in fact we live in a wonderfully warm and climatically optimum time – more CO2 and more warming would, as far as I understand, make it even better for life here on earth.
Climate changes. Always has, no big deal. Getting warmer? How much: very little. How much of the warming caused by Man-Made CO2? Unknown. Last 17 years or so the so-called Man-Made Global Warming hasn’t amounted to much of anything. Roman and Medieval periods likely warmer than now. Oh and they did just fine when it was warm. (see above…).
Climate change/Man-Made Global Warming/whatever is the provenance of a small group of niche, academic researchers perhaps; but a problem, no, crises, of global proportions? Don’t be silly.
So saying this makes for an “evil denier”? How so? I just don’t get these people.
Oh dear the Australia mass media are now say high CO2 content is causing our extreme weather.
What extreme weather, it is getting cold at nights now on the Northern Tablelands as usual, being the beginning of Autumn here. They must be wanted a spark of interest to be leveled at the likes of Tim Flannery.
gregole,
Excellent comment. Well thought out.
Here is a Jewish gentleman’s prescient observation:
Here’s another one to keep in mind:
It is a sad day when a formerly well-respected organization like the ADL uses the very same tactics to demonize another minority [scientific skeptics] that were used to demonize Jews not all that long ago. Do they really not see what they have turned into??
check the comments too:
4 Mar: Salon.com: Josh Eidelson: GOP’s “inane” war on science: Plasma physicist congressman takes on the denialists
Retiring Rep. Rush Holt tells us why “millions will die” due to climate change — but why the solution is a bargain
“Millions are already dying, or have died, as a result of changes in the climate,” Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., told Salon.
Holt, a plasma physicist and eight-term congressman (and five-time “Jeopardy!” champion), last month announced he’ll leave the House in January. For “future generations, who will pay an even greater price than the current generation from climate change,” Holt told Salon late last week, “it will be hard to explain to them the inaction of America and the U.S. Congress.” A condensed version of our conversation – on climate change, the Keystone Pipeline and colleagues who “don’t really have a clue of how you sustain a productive science enterprise” – follows….
HOLT: It’s very much reminiscent of the behavior of the tobacco companies during the smoking and cancer debates. They took what was becoming overwhelming evidence … that smoking caused cancer, and they planted doubts in people‘s minds — and through that, got a couple more decades of lucrative tobacco sales … until it became once again overwhelming in the public mind that smoking killed people …
EIDELSON: [On] climate change, there’s been an enormous amount of money spent sowing doubt in people’s minds. So an awful lot of people nowadays say, “Well, climate change? I’m just not sure. Maybe it’s going on, but there’s so much uncertainty — you know, scientists are so unsure. They’re on all sides of this issue.”
No, they’re not. Scientists aren’t unsure. I mean, sure you can find a few outliers … But scientists aren’t in doubt. The scientific consensus is strong. But the disinformation campaign has been surprisingly effective…
You entered Congress in 1999; you’ll leave at the start of 2015. What are you going to tell your grandchildren or great-grandchildren about what Congress knew about climate change in that time, and what you did about it?
HOLT: Good question …
I have been sounding the alarm on this for, well, a couple of decades. You know, I’ve been intrigued by the science, climate science, for 50 years now … Ever since it became clear that this was headed in a dangerous and costly direction, I’ve been sounding the alarm. So, maybe I could have done more. I don’t know what that would be.
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/03/gops_inane_war_on_science_plasma_physicist_congressman_takes_on_the_denialists/
I just visited Roy Spencer’s website and the ad being displayed by Ad Choices is an attack ad on a North Carolina congressman from the League of Conservation Voters. The title of the add is Climate Change Denier. Two other versions of the ad say Pittenger: Climate Denier and End Climate Change Denial. All three link to a petition against Pittenger. They got all the “D” words in except for denialist! Check out the petition.
A Holocaust denier denies there are dead bodies. Real dead bodies. In the millions.
Where are the climate dead bodies? They are in the future, if they exist at all. So in effect, climate denial is a “future crime”. A crime that exists only in the mind.
Forgot to mention that I live in the congressman’s district so the add may be targeted to my location. What ads do you see?
Judging by the comments on this thread the alarmists are making an impressive comeback. By not interrupting their enemy.
One of the most shocking articles I’ve read here.
It’s HATE speech. Pure and simple and shows the absence of any rational thought.Wholly emotional reactions. It is not merely confronting, it is an affront. None of them consider “what if I am wrong?”
I don’t know what the answer is, but it seems the ADL have taken sides, equally emotionally and equally irrationally.
Oh dear. Perhaps this recent event might be germane and hardly coincidental?
Glenn Reynolds @instapundit is on this now…perhaps Mark Steyn will hopefully weigh in as well…
https://twitter.com/instapundit
If they stoop this low then they are trying to push buttons. It is incitement to hate people with this comparison and discredit them. I just think they will annoy Jews and they are of course involved in banking so maybe the Green energy lobby are trying to appease them when so much money is likely to be lost.
Something strange happening to the blog, keeps cutting out. Might be my puter, but beware.
“The glaring question: Why is the Anti Defamation League remaining silent on such a hypocritical travesty of their own making?”
Climate science has been politicized?
Anthony, do not let this issue die. Sticky post? If you don’t know it Jo Nova has weighed in.
I have had my own interactions with mostly the Atlanta ADL. I intend to write a description of that for the WUWT community. One of the things I did was go to the Atlanta ADL blog and log on one of the other threads and leave a comment about the Roy Spencer matter. My experiment got through and was promptly erased. They have their heads in the sand at the Atlanta ADL.
This is all a tragedy.
It has the potential to expose more history that “we” generally are ready to face.
Hilter got the idea of eugenics from the United States, where eugenics, positive and negative, were VERY much favored by the educated liberal elitists.
Hilter tried to take science and apply it wrongly to public policy to achieve his distorted goals. He merely used science.
We need to be very wary when people and movements attempt to carry out moral philosophy under the guise of science. The temptation for translating your moral beliefs about who deserves to live and die into science is that you avoid having to deal with limited ability to implement your ideals, and you have to debate morality. It seems much easier to simply say “the science is there, and there is no arguing science; it is settled.” Thus, you get your morals to be vaulted up to the level of public policy.
Darwin saw this right off the bat. At the time, England was wrestling with the problem of what to do with those who would not carry their own weight in society. The low-class women who had “too many” children, and the men who would not earn their keep. Moral training and job training simply did not seem to solve the problems.
Darwin’s subtitle was “The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”. He saw that the humans, grouped into cultural groups, who were the most fit were the vanguard, and would advance our overall genetic fitness.
His cousin, Galton, loved the idea, and developed the idea, and the term “eugenics.” This included “positive eugenics” (having the “right” people reproduce), and “negative eugenics” (having the “wrong” people reproduce less).
Hilter put both into place. He was set on destroying our basic freedom of deciding who we might marry or procreate with, and deciding how many children to have.
He basically set up breeding camps. He also moved education from being an obligation of the family to one of the state.
Here in the U.S. “we” educated progressive elitists were heavily into all of this, up until Hilter’s regime was exposed.
Many continued to hold these ideas, but they have had to be more discrete. Frederick Osborn’s “Preface to Eugenics, 2nd edition 1951, may be one of the final daring bald-faced “final solution” public statements put out there.
We still believe these Hilterian ideals, though.
Nine of ten children with Down Syndrome are aborted. Why? They live charmed lives. Those of us who have known a person with MR, including Down Syndrome, know what a happy life they lead, and how much richer they make our lives.
The “misery” argument is brought up. They don’t live lives of misery. The “misery” is that we want to spare ourselves the misery of caring for those with mental retardation.
Many with Cystic Fibrosis are aborted before they are able to be born. Why? They will live lives of difficulty, and will be a burden on the rest of us, and will not live their three-score-and-ten. Yet this can be said of many others. The problem for those with CF is that they are powerless over our ability to detect them prenatally, and kill them, legally.
We present these “scientific” arguments for carrying out immoral acts, and fool ourselves that we are practicing reason and mercy. We are not. My mentally retarded life-long neighbor and friend tells me different, as does my teen-age family member with CF.
The establishment puts pressure on us to abort them, and acts as if the science is settled if we object.
Low-SES whites, many Blacks, and many Native Americans have been sterilized in huge eugenic efforts from the 1940s up through the 1970s. You can google all of this. Much of it unknowing sterilizations. Men and women learned later in life, when trying to have kids, that they had been sterilized under government programs.
The truth is that “we” have the power, and don’t want the low-classes, the Negroes, and those Indians messing up our world with their presence. We disguise moral philosophy as “science” and carry out the sterilizations.
This is not to mention the way we Westerners have pushed birth control and abortion on the Asian and African countries. They did not come to the West asking for help controlling their reproduction. We went to them and convinced them how to be economically powerful. We then gave them our technology, and tied our financial support, by grants and loans, to the meeting of population goals. The documentation of this is extensive, but it is not put together often, and not taught to any degree like the Holocaust is.
In fact, the Holocaust is our cover. We point out how Hilter was bad, and hope that the extreme, seemingly home-grown, example of the Third Reich appears so different from us that no one is motivated to ever suspect that Hilter merely adopted mainstream philosophies and policies coming out of the U.S. and England.
Much of this sordid story is easy to access, for the inquisitive person with a web browser. One starting point is this article:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-population-control-holocaust
I believe the Holocaust happened, I have been to more than one Holocaust museum, I have heard well more than one survivor speak, and I believe the Third Reich and the Holocaust were horrible human tragedies. I also believe that this type of thing carries on, but unacknowledged. I believe the Holocaust gets used for ulterior purposes – to disguise the immorality of our (U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.) international involvement in negative eugenics.
So, we really need to beware of efforts to make the world a better place by appeals to “settled science.” While the U.N. is trying to say that “global warming” is settled science, they are also advancing quite a “settled science” of “reproductive health” across the globe – especially where skin pigments are darker.
As others have noted, the comments section now contains zero, nada, *no* comments; browser caching or maybe router, etc. (?) caching along the way may have ‘shown’ something which does not presently exist on the actual Atlanta ADL dot org website as of Monday evening, 9:30 PM CST.
.
When I went to school in the 1960’s, we were taught things like, ‘What is true Evil’? That was only a decade and a half after the Holocaust was discovered. But they don’t teach morality like that any more, at least not in government schools.
The best thing we can do is to publicize this widely. When visiting other blogs where you can make comments, just use this easy URL, which goes to this article:
http://tiny.cc/mvh6bx
Cut ‘n’ paste it, and save it somewhere [you can just email it to yourself, then you will always have it]. Then disseminate it widely. The more folks that see what is happening, the better. Turn over the rock that the ADL is hiding under in silence. Let the sun shine in.
I never realized that the holocaust and AGW were so tied together. Is there some kind of scientific explanation for being a critic of AGW also makes you holocaust denier? Exactly how are the two related?
”
ferdberple says:
March 3, 2014 at 6:09 pm
A Holocaust denier denies there are dead bodies. Real dead bodies. In the millions.
Where are the climate dead bodies? They are in the future, if they exist at all. So in effect, climate denial is a “future crime”. A crime that exists only in the mind.”
Big Brother knows, the only crime you can commit is a thought crime. Welcome to 1984. I didn’t know so many people felt that way. I thought we lived in democracy, that freedom of ideas and expression were encouraged. Especially in the face of such hostile arrogance and possibly wrongdoing on the part of people encouraging AGW. I am certain that if they had the power, they would have taken the lot of us out and shot us. What bothers me is the number of important people have bought into this type of logic that somehow a critic, such as myself, based not on personal vendetta’s against anyone, but on the science, would think that the world was in peril. It maybe in peril alright, but not from global warming. The light from the enlightenment just got a little dimmer.
By the way, while any number of deaths is reprehensible, I mean truly six million lives snuffed out, but twenty million in Russia, and seventy to ninety million under Mao, and another 12 million in Cambodia, do any of the authors of those words above know what they died of? They died of the kind of rhetoric that suppresses the right to be a critic, and have vialled arguments at that.
Shame on them all.
I very much like this thread. It will be quite the irony if Foxman and Crew are finally brought down by the blowback from this Incident, especially in light of the EXCELLENT post by Jimbo at 12:28 PM above – speaking to the national socialist, theosophist and fascist roots of the environmental movement. ADL’s silence on the issue, in this light, speaks volumes, as does Obama’s lionization of the Director Foxman.
Not a few Jews, myself included, have long had ‘issues’ with the ADL’s leftist and positions on a host of issues both domestic and international pertaining to Israel, given their seemingly unassailable perch and entrenched position within the Jewish-American establishment. All while the ADL purports to represent a non-partisan ‘mainstream’ Jewish perspective. “Mainstream” like the reconstructionist and/or reform Congregation with whom Shelly Rose flocks. Sure. Follow the Money.
AIPAC can also leave by the same door; for my lights; – give me the ZOA (Zionist Organization of America) for unapologetic support of World and American Jewish interests, anyday, and Honest Reporting for monitoring trends in modern hate within the media.
Good on Anthony, Prof. Roy Spencer and the overwhelming majority of posters here. Don’t be intimidated by any accusations of “anti-semitism” should they arise…and don’t feed the trolls.
I’m heading over to check out Jo Nova and Glen Reynolds. Popcorn is in the microwave.
“The silence of the Anti Defamation League suggests they endorse defamation of climate skeptics”. Well, so what? They’ve been defaming everyone else for decades. Anthony’s pathetic appeals to the ADL to be fair are no credit to the skeptical community. The ADL supported the apartheid regime in South Africa: http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/02/25/the-adl-spying-case-is-over-but-the-struggle-continues – giving information to its government. The reason was that the South African regime was an ally of the equally supremacist government of Israel. The appeals of skeptics to the ADL to be consistent in its opposition to freedom of speech amount to groveling to an organization which is as anti-freedom as Greenpeace.
ItsGettingHotinHereSo –
not at all surprised to hear about the denier AdChoice ads u saw on roy spencer’s website. google would say it’s simply targeting by algorithm. when i’ve gone there lately, including just now, i’ve been targeted with AdChoice “Australia’s Recession”, which seems like part of an attack on our current Australian Govt, which is trying to repeal all the CAGW legislation.
google’s algore-ithms regularly include expletive-filled stories from virtually unknown CAGW websites on my main google news page, where only the major MSM get a look-in, so i am well aware of the games that are being played.
btw who can find any MSM coverage of this stoush between ADL & Dr. Roy Spencer? i would have thought they’d have interviewed Dr. Spencer by now! LOL.
Ummm, Rod? I think you’re engaging in the same ‘generalization’ that this thread is trying to parse out of existence. Characterizing Israel as a ‘supremacist government’ is specious: – Israel has had more governments, ranging Left to Right, in it’s 60 odd years than yours has had in it’s entire existence, and I don’t really care or need to know where you live to make that statement true. It is an intensely democratic state, perhaps ‘demophrenic’ to borrow a term, while bringing data like a poorly documented ‘spying case’ from 2002 to place the ADL on what you perceive as the Jewish Right, flies in face of the facts, y’know, – evidence – ; your appeal to Counterpunch notwithstanding.
I have many issues with Israel’s governance, and system of governance for that matter, but albeit my political position is diametrically opposed to yours I can’t allow the thin veneer you’ve applied over your anti-Jew diatribe to go unanswered on its own merits.
“Defaming everyone else for decades”. So? Prove it.
“ADL supported the apartheid regime in South Africa” ? Again, prove it, and sorry, St. Clair and Cockburn hosting the Plaintiffs in the (dismissed) case won’t past muster.
“appeals…to the ADL to be consistent in its opposition to freedom of speech” – bit of cognitive dissonance there, Rod – as it’s quite a bit of “projection” on your part to posit it is the ADL’s mission to repress free speech. The consistency at debate here is the ADL’s application of standards of what constitutes Hate Speech, not “free speech”, n’est ce pas?
As to your rather rude comments about Anthony’s diplomatic and reasonable attempts to persuade the ADL to exercise balance in their critique, to wit as “groveling” and “pathetic”, I most strenuously beg to differ – publicly going toe-to-toe with an entrenched establishment organization requires quite a bit of courage, more so when treading into the heated realm of race and/or religious sensitivities.
Let’s just say that I well understand that ‘pathetic groveling’ is something a ‘take no guff’ (insert Godwin’s Law Trigger) like you would ever do.
“not” something
ONCE AGAIN, A TRICK HEADLINE & OPENING LINES:
3 Mar: Phys.org: Clifton B. Parker: Carbon regulation burden heaviest on poor
The heaviest burden for climate change regulation costs falls on people – especially lower income groups – and not corporations, according to new Stanford research…
The reason is that companies ultimately pass on those costs to people. For the poor, basic necessities take up a bigger chunk of the budget than for the rich.
“Households in the lowest income group pay, as a percent of income, more than twice what households in the highest 10 percent of the income distribution pay,” wrote economist Charles Kolstad, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Precourt Institute…
(ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE)
“This regressivity can be addressed through transfer payments, if and when the U.S. decides to regulate greenhouse gases leading to climate change,” said Kolstad, who researches environmental economics, regulation and climate change. As an example, he suggests reducing the payroll tax for lower income groups as a way to make a carbon tax more fair.
The study examined Bureau of Economic Analysis data and used a $15 per metric ton carbon “tax” as a scenario. In other words, every person or organization (such as a company) that emits carbon into the atmosphere would pay a tax on the total amount emitted multiplied by $15 per metric ton of carbon. The researchers looked at how such a hypothetical tax would hit individual income groups, industries and different regions…
Kolstad said that price and substitution effects may somewhat dampen the regressive nature of such costs. For example, when prices change, people change what they do. If the price of heating oil goes up, people may use more electricity or natural gas to warm their homes.
The paper was published as a SIEPR policy brief and is based on detailed analysis by Kolstad and Corbett Grainger of the University of Wisconsin-Madison…
Analyzing greenhouse cost burdens is important due to the urgency of coping with global warming, which may lead to sea-level rise, local temperature and precipitation changes, and increased frequency of extreme weather…ETC ETC ETC
http://phys.org/news/2014-03-carbon-burden-heaviest-poor.html
I wonder of the very clever man, Dr. Roy Spencer , knew what he was doing and the clueless ADL Atlanta interim Director fell right into his trap. Regardless, the ensuing debate is healthy for the perfidy of Global Warming extremists is being exposed. One wonders how it will all turn out. I do know I’m going to do my little bit to expose the Atlanta ADL for the hypocrites they are.
I have noticed two kinds of people using the term denier: evil people and those who are ignorant of the connotation. A couple of years ago, I called out someone on his “anti-Semitic remark.” At his request, I explained my reasoning. He seemed surprised, and though he still is an alarmist, he hasn’t used the term denier again.
If we educate the “decent” alarmists by calling them (or their remarks) anti-Semitic, then we can isolate the evil ones within their movement….Maybe.
stan stendera –
Dr. Roy Spencer’s initial article IS a GAME-CHANGER.
These guys will do and say anything in order to deflect attention from Agenda 21. If you think ‘denying’ AGW gets greenies (for want of a better name) you should try bringing up Agenda 21! Believe me the word is taboo and there will always be someone in a group who tries to shut you down -presumably ‘before any beans are spilt’. Always a surprisingly unnecessarily vehement reaction to a simple discussion.
I recommend Ian Wishart’s book ‘Totalitaria’.
Also, in my blog, see what is happening in my city where Agenda 21 is not mentioned but with the flimsiest excuse the polices are followed to the letter.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.wordpress.com
“…climate skeptics”
What is that, exactly?
Seems a pretty silly label, so why does anyone say it, or accept it, or not challenge it whenever it’s used?
Why is skeptic alone, not a sufficient term?
Or is that word skeptic and skeptical action the real target for debasement?
The public and media treatment of this entire dispute, which should be entirely about empirical data, seems highly contrived when terms like ‘denier’ and ‘climate-skeptic’ are used. It is the evidence that this is not actually about science. If it were about science then it would be treated like any other form of science discussion.
Are you a wonton Higgs ‘denier’ perchance? Are you a boson skeptic?
It’s ludicrous, and high time to knock it off.
Anti-deformation organization that revels in defamation = Double Speak
Jewish organization that equates holocaust to climate = Double Think
Bad Roy, Bad Roy!
say watch’cha gonna do?
when Sheriff Abe Foxman tries to come for you!
How the ethnic-activist ADL got started:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=leo+frank+mary+phagan+ADL
Individuals equating scientific skepticism with acts of evil = Anti Think
All that Evil needs to succeed is a bunch of extremely prejudiced people denying the rights of others to be considered rationally.
First they came for the skeptics, then they came for the …
EDIT:
Anti-deformation organization that revels in defamation = JUMP THE SHARK
OK, I’m done.
TheLastDemocrat says:
March 3, 2014 at 7:31 pm
————————————
I can see that you have a personal stake in some the issues you raise and you are “walking the talk” and I applaud that. I too knew a CF sufferer that was a high level sports person so I can see the argument for letting people overcome their own adversity.
However there is a massive difference between would-be parents getting a pre-natal diagnosis and making a decision for themselves and having one enforced on them by government. You are inferring that they are the same thing and that is not a supportable argument. If you believe that your attitude to this question should be adopted by all, then you are also also imposing your will and your morality on others.
Freedom starts with allowing others to make decisions that you do not agree with. The responsibility of that freedom is to accept the consequences of the outcome.
In Awe of Steve, Anthony and Andrew says:
March 3, 2014 at 11:57 am
—————————————
I like the idea of using the term “Deceiver”. Often they are deceiving themselves rather than deliberately deceiving others. If you lie to yourself and then repeat that lie, it is still a lie coming out of your mouth, regardless of how much you believe it. So “Deceiver” works if they are passively complicit or activity promoting the deception.
Thank you Anthony for articulating this so well. I believe that Roy has been more than thick-skinned in the way people have treated him. I believe in his work and respect his views on Climate. I may not always agree with the details of some of it, but that is to be expected. Rarely does one have identical views to someone else. I may even strongly disagree with some of what he believes outside of Climate, but that does not in any way detract from his science and my respect for it.
I think that the greatest irony of all here is that the Anti-Defamation League appears now to be ‘deniers’ themselves.
Delingpole weighs in:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/02/21/SKEPTICAL-CLIMATOLOGIST-CALLS-OUT-GLOBAL-WARMING-NAZIS
For Pat: Thank you, you obviously got my point.
Chris Huhne had his “moment” in Leyhill PRISON. He was the U.K. Energy and Climate Change Minister (2011).
Shocking quotes, Mr. Watts! 🙁
No wonder that most sensible scientists choose to shut up!
I think what bothers me the most is the equating of history (recorded observations), observations, and predictions. A Holocaust denier denies history, a flat earther denies observations, but a climate change denier only questions the validity of certain predictions. Predictions unlike history and observations cannot be known to be true or false until they become observable. Can we really not tell the difference between history and a thesis anymore?
I guess in Pete Postlethwaite’s world the Holocaust is just a thesis. It would have made a pretty decent point if he’d just said “Whenever you set up a thesis there’s bound to be somebody who comes the opposite way”. I mean, that’s pretty true, but how long has it been since the Holocaust or Earth’s roundness has been a thesis?
Is questioning the validity of predictions made by the Oracle at Delphi, Nostradamus, or The Bible similarly disparaged? How about questioning the validity of results from those Bible Code “researchers” that also use computers to find patterns in noise? Exactly what about climate scientists bestows them the perceived power to forecast the facts?
For example I could predict that Pres. Obama will not serve another term. Now that may seem to be a slam dunk future fact, but it’s not a fact until it happens. The populace could conceivably raise such a clatter that the 22 Amendment is revoked for the Chosen Nobel Laureate One to continue presiding over us. Also, Pres. Obama could be the Vice President sometime in the future and end up serving a partial term as President if something happened to the Elected President. The bottom line is that no matter how likely the outcome a prediction ain’t a fact, Jack.
The parade of useful idiots is frightening, but necessary to know what reasonable people are up against. The founding fathers warned against enemies from outside and within.
“Bob Sheffwitz says:
March 3, 2014 at 11:32 am
These taboos on normal words like ‘denier’ and ‘holocaust’ are disgusting, and are respected only by the terminally naive.
The Holocaust I care about is the murder of my German relatives by Allied bombers, and their butchery, including being run over by tanks, by Soviet troops.
You don’t care about that holocaust? Fine, don’t care; but don’t expect me to care about this ‘Auschwitz’ stuff, or tiptoe around words that have had their meanings twisted out of recognition.”
1. Germany started WW2. Your relatives died because of that.
2. Initially, all sides agreed to avoid the bombing of civilians.
3. The first to break that commitment was Germany, when it bombed Rotterdam.
4. Many thousands of civilians were killed in Britain and other allied countries through German bombing raids.
5. The most expert butchers by far in WW2 were German military personnel.
6. Axis forces killed around 5 times as many as Allied ones, and the greatest casualties were amongst the Soviets. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
All war is bad. All deaths, especially of non-combatants, are bad. But if a nation starts a war and wages it as mercilessly as the Third Reich did, it can’t expect its foes to behave according to Queensbury rules. As it sowed, so it reaped. The blame lies ultimately with the German government of the time: for all WW2 deaths, including those of its own people.
Interestingly, Germany has been in the forefront of present-day ecofascism and should accept responsibility for its fair share of misery resulting from that. It never will, of course. There’ll always be apologists seeking to minimise egregious behaviour by projecting their own shortcomings on those they seek to vilify.
The comment system is acting up.
This is not even a remotely uncommon term used in the NBA as I have never heard this used. They are called “shot blockers”.
Incorrect, it is a concession that you reject something known to be true like the Holocaust. It immediately discredits your arguments to anyone you are trying to convince and paints skeptics as accepting of the disparagement. With that being said calling yourself a “denier” in a sarcastic, mocking way as Lindzen has done, can be effective in certain situations. Using the term as an accurate description of your views it is a losing and foolish strategy. Libeling skeptics as effective Holocaust deniers is the implied intent and should be rejected.
Thanks Gary, I was aware of that quote but misconstrued the context the first time I read it. I have added it and the original source was from when his blog was on Discover Magazine.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/09/im-skeptical-of-denialism/
Slate appears to fit in better with his far-left views.
Oh the irony…
At the shortly to be convened Anti-Defamation League’s “Edward Brodsky Legal Conference” sponsored by “The Lawyers Division of the Anti-Defamation League’s New York Region”, Michael A. Carvin, partner “Jones Day”, who was, at least until recently, counsel representing National Review in Mann vs. Steyn et al, will be a featured panelist.
Wonder if the subject of ADL’s recent propagandizing inre CAGW might come up? I wouldn’t bet on it (but I’d sure like to feed the panel a question or two).
Dell Boy, that is tragic and I have grayed out Mr. Postlethwaite’s picture. He was a good actor despite his political views. I don’t pay enough attention to celebrity news.
Jimbo says: March 3, 2014 at 12:22 pm
I was aware of Tomkiewicz’s comment but did not want to get in an argument with a Holocaust survivor. I was also aware of Hoofnagle’s comment but did not want to get into an argument about the post it was quoted from. As for Polya, I am not sure if he is attributing those deaths to global warming or not.
Poptech,
I understand and I agree to an extent. I would not choose to call myself a “denier” all things equal. However, I think it is important to let the opposition know that the use of the smear will not discourage, intimidate, or silence me. The quickest way I know to make that plain is to reply ‘Denier? Sure am.’ Hopefully, this emboldens others listening to disregard the smear and voice their opinions. With that out of the way, we can then proceed to the real issues.
Maybe it immediately discredits my arguments to some. I suspect that my arguments would not be accepted by some regardless, so it’s not clear to me that I lose ground in this case.
Thanks for all of your work assembling these references. I was a little surprised and more than a little disturbed at how much you were able to dig up.
It looks as if we have been visited by an actual Holocaust denier, truly reprehensible.
Jack C says: March 4, 2014 at 2:26 am
Just for the record (as you’ve apparently missed it), Delingpole’s most recent was considerably more informed (though not apparent in his commentary title)..
I expect we’ll be treated to another Delingpole shortly.
Mark,
I understand your points but I have found that those you are trying to convince will dismiss your arguments on the use of the word alone. They will equate you to an anti-science crank while skeptics will always listen to your arguments. From experience, I only suggest you do so in a more mocking tone. as alarmists hate to be mocked. Regardless, the use of this disparagement has certainly never intimidated me and I did not expect it to intimidate you.
Thanks, I was surprised myself at how frequently the direct comparison was used and can surely find more if I devote the time but felt this was enough to make the point. I should note that the direct comparison was used frequently in comments by anonymous posters that I could not use in the list.
LOL, I had to look this up as “newsagents” is apparently the British term for what we call “newsstands” and “top shelf” is a common term for ordering expensive liquor here from a bar (they generally keep the better brands on the “top shelf”).
I was like, what the hell is common that local news anchors drink?
But I get it now. : )
Jimbo, the Lindzen, Singer, Shaviv and Peiser argument is very powerful and needs to be used more.
I will keep the post updated on my site (Anthony has too much to do as it is) when I am made aware of a new quote comparing skeptics to Hitler, Nazis or the Holocaust. You can submit them using the comment form on the right side of my page. I am keeping it confined to categories like: environmental activists, journalists, politicians, celebrities, academics and scientists and not any random person with a blog.
Jimbo and goldminer, I was aware of all of Romm’s comments about the Holocaust on his site and his arguments with those. This is why I chose the comment that I did because it is irrefutable in that comment what his true intent was, despite all his hypocritical claims in other posts to the contrary. Romm is a true hypocrite and the quote I used proves it.
Cross posting, Jo Nova weighs in,
Climate Change Denial and the Holocaust allusion
Then you do not understand the argument. This is not a free speech argument but one of blatant hypocrisy that undermines the credibility of the ADL’s denouncements. If the ADL wants to be taken seriously then it should not be seen as a tool of the far-left to make political attacks on opponents but rather stand on principle and denounce all those whose statements it claims to find offensive.
There is quite a bit on Dr. Spencer in the media,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/feb/21/nazis-climate-contrarian-credibility-gap
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/25/global-warming-climate-change-roy-spencer_n_4853119.html
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/21/people_who_call_climate_deniers_climate_deniers_should_be_called_global_warming_nazis_says_climate_denier/
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2014/02/uah_climate_expert_roy_spencer.html
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/02/25/climate_change_torrent_of_vitriol_pollutes_the_media.html
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/02/20/conservative-medias-favorite-climate-scientist/198161
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140224/NEWS/402240314
http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/20/climate-scientist-will-say-global-warming-nazis-until-they-drop-denier-label/
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/371955/other-n-word-c-jay-nordlinger
http://www.wnd.com/2014/02/is-calling-a-communist-a-communist-extreme/
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2014/02/uah_climate_expert_roy_spencer_1.html
The ADL’s denouncement is now effectively neutered.
Jimbo
Thank you, I had missed that.
Poptech,
Hansen made a holocaust analogy that evoked an ADL negative response. Please consider it for your list. NOTE: Subsequently, Hansen apologized to those distressed by his analogy to the Holocaust.
The details of the Hansen holocaust analogy follows.
Andrew C. Revkin reported [ http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/averting-our-eyes-james-hansens-new-call-for-climate-action/ ]:
Here is the quote of the controversial Holocaust analogy made by Hansen. It was made by James Hansen on Oct. 22 2007 to the utility board of Iowa,
[bold emphasis mine]
In addition Revkin reports that Kenneth Jacobson, deputy national director of the ADL responded critically to the above Hansen quote as follows:
[bold emphasis mine]
John
So, let me get this straight. The Anti-Defamation League has decided it’s not really anti-defamation? One would presume that the ADL would drop the “A”, and be known henceforth as the Defamation League…
John, the ADL did actually respond to Hansen’s comment since the NYT brought it up,
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/holocausts/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
They just never issued a formal denouncement.
Colonial says: March 4, 2014 at 1:08 pm
The
AntiDefamation League. Works for me.Poptech at 11:07 am
That guardian.com “97%” piece (#1 in your list), doubles down on the ADL view. It hardly neuters it. The guardian.com is a Spencer & Lindzen hit piece.
Stephen, no I agree. I should of been more clear – my neutered comment was referring to Anthony’s post here, not the list of news pieces.
================================================================
When I was a kid there was a line in a Christmas carol that nobody snickered at, “Now we don our gay apparel”. We didn’t snicker at it because “gay” hadn’t taken on it’s current meaning yet.
“Denier”, as used by those quoted in the post, is being used to equate skeptics to those who deny the very atrocity that the ADL would prevent from happening again. THEY SAID NOTHING. But when Dr. Spenser uses “Nazi”, they jump all over him. “Selective outrage”.
I think some parallels can be made here with the atrocities of Nazi’s contempt for the Jewish people. They dehumanised the Jews and established a hate culture against them with the appalling treatment that ensued. Reading over the Quotes above is quite stomach wrenching and , indeed, alarming. The same contempt for sceptical climate scientists, incitement of hatred against them and the promotion of their death, this is a disgrace. They are trying to encourage their supporters to make victims of the very people who have found them out. Have found them to be dishonest and disillusional. They can’t deal with someone having a different view, claiming, with great arrogance that only their view is to be preached. Anyone who is of a different opinion should be executed.
So, I think Dr. Spencer is correct in drawing attention to this similarity of the Nazi-like attitude of these alarmists. It is not trivialising the atrocities of the Holocaust, but instead drawing attention that there are still people amongst us who have the same crazy mentality. Ironically, by criticising Dr. Spencer, they (the ADL) are inadvertently lending support to the very section of society they would normally oppose.
Now that things have been made clear for them, I’m sure they would like to put the record straight. An apology would be a start, but surely this doesn’t go far enough. I have no idea how those people, quoted in the article above, have escaped prosecution. Maybe this is something that falls into the ADL’s domain.
Eamon, we want answers to this very question. Either the ADL is intellectually honest or they are a political weapon of the far-left who’s denouncements have no more weight than irrelevant groups like media-matters. Which will it be? Only they can answer but so far their silence is deafening.
I don’t think any one on this blog, are deniers we know climate changes, it is the causation factor that is being debated heatedly by the above. It is the bankers who see their investments in clean or green energy lessening, because it has not proven to be successful in supplying energy requirements, and is becoming terminal investments and won’t be followed up with more. Those investors have been affected, much like the South sea bubble, broke lots of British Investors.
But I object to being labeled a holocaust denier, what proof have they, I could be a Jew myself.
Something is a foot, mark my words.
bushbunny, all skeptics reject being libeled as a Holocaust denier, I especially do as I have Jewish family members and close friends who had family perish in the Holocaust.
Poptech, so do I, and I think it is a scandal that people are labelled like this. It is a generalization, such as all white people are racists, that true scientists are aware is not evidence, as there are many variables to be included in any scientific report. It is rarely a low life comment.
PS. For example in a comment column associated with a newspaper regarding the recent Manus Island unrest, I said long ago, PNG should be placed on a low priority, as if they escaped they would suffer the wrath of the locals, who don’t want it there. Sure enough I was labelled a KKK and should wear a white hood and eye holes. What a cheek? I’m not even American.
bushbunny, hopefully this will help to reduce its usage and disparaging intent.
Alan J. Bressler,
Nice job on your letter to ADL Director Foxman. It was circumspect.
John
I hope we get a followup from Mr. Bressler to see how his efforts have progressed.
Poptech –
just saw your list of “MSM” coverage but. apart from The Guardian, it’s mostly online websites:
where are the TV Networks, Cable News, NYT, WaPo, UK Tele, Daily Mail, SMH, ABC or News Ltd in Australia, etc etc etc? usually, the ADL pronounces & the MSM reports.
The stories came from the following sources, which includes well known magazines, newspapers and high trafficked websites,
Alabama Media Group
Media Matters
National Review Magazine
Salon.com
Slate Magazine
The Daily Caller
The Guardian Newspaper
The Huffington Post
The Standard-Times Newspaper
World Net Daily
I obviously thought that was enough examples, since each of the sites listed above is a high trafficked site and not merely some random online website but since you want me to compile a comprehensive list of sources – I can do this for you. Why did you not ask to begin with? How many sources do you require? Let me know so I have an idea when to stop.
Here is 25 sources instead,
American Thinker (online magazine)
Breitbart (news website)
Canada Free Press (news website)
DeSmogBlog (popular alarmist website)
Media Matters for America (non-profit)
National Review (magazine)
News Long Island (news website)
PJ Media (news website)
Real Clear Science (news website)
Right Side News (news website)
Salon (news website)
Slate (magazine)
Skeptical Science (popular alarmist website)
The Daily Caller (news website)
The Daily Mail (newspaper)
The Guardian (newspaper)
The Herald Sun (newspaper)
The Huffington Post (news website)
The Huntsville Times (newspaper)
The Huntsville Times (newspaper)
The New American (magazine)
The Standard-Times (newspaper)
ThinkProgress (news website)
WorldNetDaily (news website)
World News Network (news website)
It is disappointing to see the neo-nazis (just questioning the number of Jews killed) come out of the wood-work at Jo’s site and then make deranged free-speech arguments. The propaganda “list” crakar24 posted there can only be found on Holocaust denial and neo-nazi sites. I have no interest in entertaining the mentally deranged or debating racists.
Pat is that enough sources for you?
Maybe they think ‘mud sticks’ but it won’t this time, as the Holocaust has nothing to do with climate change and skeptics.
Roy Spencer, like a handful of other people working inside climate science, is a person I deeply admire. I do so because they like Mr FOIA have moral courage and that’s a lonely road to walk when you’re forever going up against all the big battalions. It would be so much easier for them, their careers and no doubt their families if they just shut up, gave up or submitted to the relentless intimidation. They don’t, they hang on in year after year and they take a lot of elective bullets for that integrity.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/do-we-call-them-nazis-or-not/
Pointman
Pointman…
Bravo ! Simply BRAVO !
Interested viewers should not fail to read his entire commentary. It should be force-fed to anyone associated with the ADL. Make it viral with your shares.
“The Holocaust I care about is the murder of my German relatives by Allied bombers”.
Ever heard of “The Blitz”?
Reap what ye sow…
Cynical1, The allied bombing of Germany was stepped up and was a response to the VI & V2 rockets sent over to Britain. I was in London at the time, and saw a church burning, my mother and I decided to go home to Liverpool. We stayed there until V Day. WWII was dreadful for all including the Germans, but the ‘Final solution’ will forever stay in our minds (and Germans) as deliberate genocide not only against the Jews but others that were considered not contributing to the chosen or master race’s profile. Anyway, let us learn from our mistakes, but we stopped the Nazi mentality in their tracks. However it is still being expressed in various fanatical groups who feel they are superior to other humans who should be exterminated.