If you were to ask Joe Romm, Jim Hansen, Bill McKibben, Al Gore, and some of the other hard core angry people who use this word daily, they’d probably say “no”. They think nothing of it, they’ve desensitized themselves to it and use it without even thinking about it any more. It’s a sad form of commentary.
But ask reasonable and rational people who don’t have anger and angst wound up in the climate change debate, and the answer is likely to be different.
Andrew Bolt has a disturbing piece on the use of the word by Australian PM Julia Gillard, who is so far the highest level government official to use the word as far as I know. He writes:
Six million Jews didn’t die so Combet could smear a sceptic
It is deliberate and it is grossly offensive – a foul smear acceptable only to the shameless:
The manager of opposition business Christopher Pyne said that after 11 years as chair of the Parliamentary Friendship Group on Israel, he was offended by the form of words – which he likened to the term “Holocaust denier”.
Amid uproar in the House of Representatives, Mr Pyne asked the Prime Minister to withdraw the comment…
“We know that she is trying to allude to the Holocaust. It is offensive and it must stop”.
Speaker Harry Jenkins refused to accept the basis of the complaint.
…
But while Abbott shows the appropriate sensitivity, Combet insists on appropriating the horror of a genocide to make his cheap political smear:
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott accepted the Speaker’s judgment but placed on the record that he found the term “climate change denier” offensive and untruthful.
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet was undeterred by the opposition’s sensitivity to the term.
“When you stop denying the climate science, we’ll stop calling you a denier. That’s the fact of the matter,” he told parliament.
Combet should realise that people with a historical memory and a love of reason find his language contemptible.
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Read Bolt’s piece here.
For our Australian readers, you can take ABC’s poll here if you wish.
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In other news:
TONY Abbott will address a rally of climate sceptics in Canberra today as the Opposition tries to defend Labor accusations that it is a party of climate change deniers.
Strongly supported by right-wing shock jocks, the rally is expected to hear from a range of voices questioning the scientific evidence for climate change.
Scores of buses, filled with opponents of the planned tax, are heading to Canberra for a rally outside Parliament House this morning.
…
The Opposition Leader is expected to address the Canberra rally and yesterday renewed his attack on the Prime Minister’s pre-election promise not to introduce the tax.
He told parliament the PM suffers from truth deficit disorder and is clocking up frequent liar miles.
Godspeed to our friends in Australia, may the light soon shine for you.
h/t to Tom Nelson and to WUWT reader Michael R
UPDATE: ABC Closed the poll within about two hours of it being mentioned on WUWT, voting is no longer allowed.
Don’t give the ABC traffic. If I ever want a deluded extream left opinion on something I visit the ABC site. Otherwise I keep well away.
I deny that getting rid of the MWP is science.
I deny that the hockey stick is science.
I deny that refusing to release data and code for published papers is science.
I deny that gaming the peer review system is ethical.
I deny that blocking skeptical papers from publication is ethical.
I deny that hiding the decline is in any way ethical.
I deny that the past 10 years of temperature flatlining is consistent with GCM’s.
I deny that AGW proponents’ use of ad hominem arguments is consistent with having the facts on their side.
I deny that the 10-10 video is anything but evil.
I deny that the mainstream media are fair, even-handed, or unbiased.
I deny that Cancun was about anything other than wealth confiscation and redistribution.
“The equivalent in reverse is “climate change Nazi”. I hope we can agree not to call them that.”
Why? The AGW crowd realise that, in a world of anti nuclear hysteria, an appeal to reason is not what is needed, merely an appeal to emotion. They use the word “denier” to do exactly that.
And what is a nazi? Well, the AGW crowd wish to use AGW to assume total control over all industry without actually owning it, this system is called facism, sound familiar? They wish to use AGW to usher in socialism (since the word “communist” is now verboten), you know, like the German National SOCIALIST Party, which we now call Nazi. So if they talk about climate change and are using it to bring about facism, and are more and more using the tactics of nazies, such as first demonizing the opposition, then ramming regulations on practically everyone and everything through without benefite of democraticly created laws (such as through the US EPA) and thus acting like dictators, why shouln’t we call them that. That is, by definition, what they are.
People who are ‘denialists” (scientifically minded) need to understand that the great mass of people out there have been show to NOT be scientifically minded. An appeal to their reason will not work. What is needed is to do exactly what the AGW crowd is doing, take the actual facts and couch them in suitable emotional language (and pictures and music etc). How hard should it be to do propaganda when what you are propagandising is the truth, one that people can see all around them?
The best propaganda would probably be to turn the whole AGW crowd into the laughingstock of the world. Considering the number of screwups this crowd has done and continue to do, how hard could that be? Make “denialism” show you as brave, anti establishment (always popular with the young crowd), a free thinker, one who doesn’t just go along with the crowd. Associate “consensus” with a herd of stupid looking cattle (or sheep, which can be fleeced), preferably one that can be made to stampede easily (the anti nuclear hysteria shows it to be true anyway). Make denialism popular, something you WANT to be called, and “consensus” a sign of weakness and stupidity (which it is).
In short, stop trying to appeal to peoples reason, and start trying to appeal to their emotions. It works for the AGW crowd, how much easier should it work when you have the truth? Just look at the anti nuclear hysteria out there, do you really think reason will work with those people?
The term,”climate change denier”, is not only meaningless except in a political sense, but is also a double-edged sword. There has been a succession of 3 coolish years in the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere is beginning to show signs of cooling as well. Another couple of similar years and “climate change denier” will be applied to a different group of people.
On the topic of offensive terms, it appears one politician put the protestors in the same category as the Ku Klux Klan:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshome/9057921/1000-rally-against-carbon-tax-in-canberra/
and directly
http://twitter.com/SteveGibbonsMP
http://www.stevegibbonsmp.com/
The phrase as used by the AGW lobby is designed to be abusive and a form of bullying.
Apart from the Holocaust connection it is not only offensive but grossly incorrect because no sceptic I know of denies natural climate change. The term “climate change deniers” more correctly describes the position of “believers” in the AGW religion!
The blatantly Left-wing ABC poll has only attracted 3688 votes which says a lot about the low esteem of the site in the eyes of most Australians.
It is currently running : Yes, it is offensive – 44% : No, it is not offensive – 56%.
What is far more significant is the MSN poll: Are you in favour of a Carbon Tax?
Currently running at Yes – 15,258 votes
No – 75,934 votes
Total votes 91,192
When I saw the story I had this lovely warm feeling as for the first time a tip I put in made tha page! Did Dr Burns beat me to it ? 🙁
REPLY: One minute apart, I conflated the two in the lines, I’ll add you to the h/t – Anthony
What’s telling about the ABC Poll results is that they are reflective of those who visit it: left-wingers
We are the Climate Change Moderates, they are the Climate Change Extremists . . . .
In the US it is the red counties that feed themselves and the blue counties, and it is the blue counties that make this a detestable activity. I don’t see it going on at this rate forever. Not even in Oz where cow poo is grounds for destroying a family’s livelihood. My interest in seeing Oz once before the long sleep descends upon me is waning. Life is too short to spend it in a blue funk.
Gillard is just blustering and refusing to answer Abbott’s perfectly valid question:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/23/3171775.htm?section=justin
“He told parliament the PM suffers from truth deficit disorder and is clocking up frequent liar miles.”
Got to love Abbott’s way with words!
I like the word denier for people who claim that anthropogenic greenhouse gasses don’t cause a greenhouse effect.
It gets across the point that their position is both unscientific and contemptible.
Mostly natural or mostly by man.
Sounds like the Nature v Nurture debate to me. I don’t think that was satisfactorily resolved over 100 years.
Hey Grumpy, wouldn’t it wonderful if Sydney or Melbourne got some snow, or at least a decent frost during winter.. That would be ‘Cool’ 🙂
KV, can you link to that MSN poll please, I haven’t voted yet. and can’t find it. Thanks.
The day the carbon tax is imposed on us, I will phone my energy supplier and stop buying 25% renewable energy. I will also tell them why, and I will also recommend that anyone who also pays for renewable energy does the same.
I see no reason to pay twice for the same thing. I don’t even have the faintest shadow of a suspicion that this carbon tax will ever be seen by anyone trying to build a renewable energy infrastructure, so renewable energy will actually suffer from it. TS, I say. We have enough coal and gas to last a long while….
[snip -off color]
Denial is the refusal to accept an unequivocal fact. You cannot deny a hypothesis, you can only disagree with it.
The choice of the word ‘denier’ was no accident. The whole thing has been a political project and smearing the opposition is standard operating procedure. In the runup to Iraq they used ‘unpatriotic.’ In the old USSR they used ‘mental problems’ and now that’s popping up from the AGW attack dogs.
I’m expecting them to reach new lows for a while yet.
Anyone here from Israel? Does the Team use the term “Denier” in local debates?
Barnaby Joyce talking about defeating the proposed Australian carbon tax of the tax infatuated labor party…
“…We will win because if taxes cooled the planet, the place would already be an icebox…”
Regards
Michael
Luboš Motl says:
March 22, 2011 at 10:48 pm
I agree that that 57% that said it is NOT offensive is offensive (down to 54% now).
The thing is that the ABC attracts rusted -on left wing viewers, listeners and bloggers.
Take the result of recent polls…..
“Is the Prime Minister correct in ruling out nuclear power”? Yes 60% No 40%
“Should Australia wait and see on Climate Change”? Yes 40% No 60%
You get the picture, so if this poll can be turned around and opened up to more responders, then they may get out of their ivory tower.
I was watching parliament when Greg Combet introduced the ‘D’ word. He did this forcefully and deliberately in an attempt to bait the opposition and to test the speaker. That the speaker made a ruling in favour of allowing this disgraceful, derogatory term represented a dark day on our National Parliament.
Anthony, in case you didn’t notice there is an orchestrated campaign by the Labor Government to stifle all opposition to a carbon tax in Australia by branding them extremists, deniers, rednecks, tea party clones, the lunatic fringe and any other abusive title except some-one with a case that opposes the Government’s intention.
The deeply ingrained left leaning ABC will be at the forefront of this strategy.
This is despite the fact that Julia Gillard stole the election by deception having promised on national television just prior to the election that there would be no carbon tax under any government she would lead. She did not WIN the subsequent election even under those terms as the number of seats won by Labor and the Coalition was equal but Gillard was able to form a minority government with the aid of the Greens and 4 independent members.
There is no doubt in my mind that had she said she would be introducing a carbon tax within 6 months of forming a government, she would have been decimated by voters.
As far as the ABC is concerned, as some-one said above, you can ignore any ABC poll. If you look at any of them, the questions will normally be slanted and the results will always be out of kilter to the left with national polls on the same subject.
I have said before on this blog, Gillard is a cunning and talented speaker and politician. Unless something untoward happens, she knows she has two and a half years to persuade the population that a carbon tax will be good for the country. She is now stuck with it and will fight to the death for it. The biggest weapon she has at the moment is that any-one that opposes it is a “denier”.
The task for Tony Abbott will be to convince the people that he is not a “denier” and that he has a long range plan to adapt from fossil fuel to alternate energy that fits the world view and that will not damage the economy. Even if he has one, his problem is that he does not have the power to implement it.
There is indeed a group of people out there who keep insisting that winters are becoming as warm as summers.
Are they not climate change deniers?
I believe the one he is refering to is the one that sits below the headlines on ninemsn’s homepage – it changes from day to day depending on the topics in the news. If you go to
http://ninemsn.com.au/
and look directly below the picture (which is currently Charlie Sheen’s kiss) the question and the option to vote should be listed – “Do you support the carbon tax”.
Strange, I used the offensive word in another post and had my comment completely removed, which conveniently meant no one had to try and answer my valid points, as far as I can see the only ones trying to link it’s use (rather desperately) to the Holocaust are those who it is used against, the word itself is a clinical term first used by Freud in the 1920, long before the Holocaust. I use it and mean it in that context, I have a number of Jewish friends and I have asked them about this and they don’t seem to have any problem with it’s use or make any connection between the two totally unrelated issues.
The Poll in question is in a subset of the ABC site called ‘the Drum’ so only those interested in polls would go there and for all the talk of honesty on this site, amidst the name calling towards your opponents (which it’s not hard to notice don’t get deleted), I do like that this forum is trying to skew the results of this poll by getting it’s U.S. follows (a much larger country) to alter the results of this Australian Poll, while comments in this very thread accuse the ABC of fixing the results, that is just classic [insert word that can’t be used here]
It says a lot about what you think the result might be if you don’t ‘pump up’ the results.