This comment was sent to me in case it was not posted at all or in it’s entirety over at Climate Progress. It wasn’t, so I’m repeating it here because I think it is relevant to the discussion that Dr. Judith Curry started. From my perspective, the best way to begin to foster understanding is to stop using labels that degrade, and that goes for both sides of the debate.
– Anthony
Kate says:
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November 27, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Judith Curry wrote “I reserve the word “deniers” for people that are explicitly associated with advocacy groups that are politicizing this issue…”
I reserve the word “deniers” for people that explicitly reject the history of Jewish extermination in wartime Germany.
When I see anyone legitimize the term “denier” in the context of this debate, an alarm bell goes off – “this is not a serious person”.
To do so is to commit an unforgivable devaluation of the historical relevance of the word “denier. It’s a rhetorical tactic unworthy of anyone who wants their scientific credibility to remain above reproach.
When the word “denier” first crawled out of the political slime, I fully expected those in science and media alike to reject it, vocally and without qualification.
Instead, it has become mainstream.
Small wonder that a great percentage of ordinary observers such as I begin to question that we haven’t been fed one big, fat lie after all. For the people propagating it have seemingly lost all sense of historical proportion.
Not to mention, curious double standard.
Outrageous buffoons like Al Gore zoom about the planet in private jets in the name of your “science”. The WWF travel agency zooms multi-millionaires around the world in private chartered jets in the name of your “science”.
When those who support the AGW position fail to categorically reject the “Al Gores” as spokespersons, fail to categorically reject activist scams, fail to categorically reject the use of unacceptable smears ….then, and only then, will you be able to hope for a restoration of confidence in what you do. You have a long road ahead.
You may know a lot about science. You understand precious little about public perception.
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It seems to me that we’re getting into sophistry, here, exploring fine shades of meaning of words and how they can distort the truth.
But the vital truth is that socialists, in their pursuit of Utopian societies, have so far murdered 120,000,000 human beings–not one, but twenty Holocausts. We are now facing the advent of global Socialism, armed with superior technology, including computers. Think about that. Imagine two hundred Holocausts.
“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”–Churchill
I’m contacting everyone I know and telling them the truth about AGW. I will lose some friends over this. But the time to pull out all the stops is now, not after Copenhagen. All leftist organizations have lined up many sheep to put pressure on the Senate to ratify the Treaty ASAP. That must be stopped, even if it means going door to door this week and dropping off flyers to counter the coming Socialist media blitz.
Gail Combs (17:28:32) “Do you have any idea of when we can expect another dust bowl? or change in rain patterns? As a farmer that bit of information is of real interest to me.”
Great question.
In my mind there can be no question that figuring out every nuance of the terrestrial hydrologic cycle should immediately take front & center stage in climatology & related interdisciplinary fields. [Just so it’s crystal clear to everyone: I’m categorically not calling for even a single superconfuser fantasy based on untenable assumptions.]
Thank you for the interesting notes which you often share Gail.
Yes, there has been a deviation of the word to associate it with holocaust denial, but I always understood it to refer to the psychological state of being “in denial” of an unpleasant fact that one does not want to face up to (head in the sand). This sort of argument against scepticism would lead rather to locking deniers in mental institutions, a common Soviet method of quashing dissent (I was told in Moscow that it happened to Gargarine).
Also, let us not forget forget that many AGW sceptics have been “denied” access to publication.
Here’s another one I like. It goes beyond “critic” in capturing our embattled minority position, and it’s a bit more appropriate than “climate critic,” which on its face implies that we’re criticizing the climate: “Climate Contrarian.”
“Climate Curmudgeon” is another possibility.
A major argument of ‘climate change deniers’ is that the climate is always changing. Go figure, as the Americans say….
In contrast, one could make a case that the flat part of the hockey stick is the very essence of climate change denial.
Chris
I prefer the term denialologist…. or denialosophist… and where can one apply for one of these cushy jobs as a professional denialologist?
Global warming is a huge cult, not a religion, although the UK PC police have alotted it religious status in employment tribunals.
It is intresting tha JP Morgan connection has popped up, these hyper bankers seem to be behind a lot of mischief and suffering in their quest to control the world. Does this mean A Gore is a “tool” I would guess G Soros is a player here, the real devil here is socialism. It looks like the Illuminati have come out at last, good thing is, IF we get past this we have a spot on way to identify the bad guys as most have shown their colours, we have been lucky with the weather though, if it had kept warming who would have believed the truth?
Apologies to Anthony, but Dr Curry’s posts are cow-pies with thin layers of post-modern chocolate-icing applied to make them look palatable.
It’s always sad when someone dives into the linguistics pool without a diphthong or a morphology to help them remain afloat.
“Denier” is merely a person who denies. No one will remove this word from my vocabulary by attaching modern significance to its use. I’ve had enough of PC speech created by mostly morons without any historical perspectives.
Another point on the word “denier” is that in many countries it is, despicably, illegal to “deny the holocaust”. Denial there includes a study of the historical facts which draws conclusion that are at odds with the government approved conclusions.
Perhaps the AGW lobby want to eventually make it illegal to “deny AGW” in the same sense? The AGW lobby are indeed proving, as many have accused, that the “Holocaust Denial” laws are the thin end of the wedge.
I too was not at all impressed by Dr Curry’s letter. The letter read entirely as if she was a one way filter. Not open to learn from sceptics but convinced that their view is solely based on misinformation.
Is 1 woman going to rule the world?
The Holocaust is NOT the only time millions have been systematically exterminated (which is very sad), Mao is credited with some 60-80 million deaths…tyranny of any sort is unacceptable.
We should be able to use the word “denier” if we find it the best to express our position.
There may be better terms?
Pompous Git’s reference to William Tyndall is ironic, given the following:
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/About/Who-was-John-Tyndall
(I’m not sure of the exact relationshop between the Tyndall Centre and the CRU; clearly they are related, but are not one and the same thing).
DISSENTERS!!! DIOXIDE DISSENTERS!! That’s a D-word we can live with! How about it, gang?
The word “deniers” was a despicable rhetorical tool designed to lump people who questioned the validity of “settled science” around catastrophic anthropomorphic global climate change nee warming with people who denied the Holocaust or deny the validity of Evolutionary theory. It is a reprehensible debate tactic, one that would be totally unnecessary if the CAGW case was as cut and dry as claimed to be by the likes of Al Gore.
Given the revelations of the CRU leak, my opinion is that anybody who could still believe that CAGW is still settled science are not scientists at all but religionists. They’ve arrived at their place of happy certainty, and they don’t plan to leave no matter what valid, alternative conclusions are thrown at them. In that sense, they are actually the ones very much in the same psychological category as 9/11 “truthers”, Holocaust deniers, and extreme religious fundamentalists.
Why do colleges and universities still have “Climate Science” departments if the “science is settled” ? Why do they keep funding CRU ?
With reference to the word,”deniers”, the Warmies like to call the realists so with reference to Holocaust Deniers. However the real “deniers,” WITHOUT reference to the Holocaust, are really the Warmies (or Alarmists) because they deny the real science and accept the pseudo-science od the IPCC.
i hope that this message is clear and understandable
Lets not forget that there was a Consensus by smug/elite/wealthy/white people that Slavery was legal because some people were Real-Humans and ERGO…..didn’t fall under any of the rules for Science that defined intelligence
which separated Humans from the animals.
We now have NEW smug/elite/white/liberals wanting to enslave everyone on Earth that doesn’t think as they do , the plan appears to be to make everyone poor and stupid which increases the Death rate to purge us of the weak and unproductive.
Gee, poor Al Gore won’t have any skilled workers to fix his houses or repair his private jet because nobody will want to do a Trades-Job for the same wage as a worker harvesting Coffee beans for the smug elite to have a drink with breakfast while the rest of us eke out an existance.