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.
==============================================================
Read Bolt’s piece here.
For our Australian readers, you can take ABC’s poll here if you wish.
==============================================================
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.
I think its perfectly fine if people want to call me a climate change denier. I’ve always said there is climate change, its called spring, summer, fall and winter. So since they changed global warming to climate change, yeah I think it’s a hoax. I think my definition of climate change is more accurate.
Living here in the U.S. , I’ve never met anyone who didn’t believe the holocaust happened, so the “deny the holocaust” is a non-issue with me. Having had a religious upbringing, I associate the ” denier” term with religious quotes like,
Jesus said, “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 10:33)
For me, the term puts the user in the position of a religious fundamentalist who is attacking all those who don’t believe in the one true religion of AGW as deniers.
I don’t get it: Is ‘denier’ a word that is now owned by the
holocaust industry?
Do you have a ‘taboo word’ database that you expect everyone to
honor?
The war ended 66 years ago; 50 million people died in it. Am I
supposed to worry or care in particular about a small subset of the
victims? I care about my own people first, including those who died in the war, and *then* about other peoples.
I recently had an AGW Warmist loudly declare that the AGW True Believers were the real sceptics while the rest were “deniars of the science”.
So there is an obvious attempt by the SGW movement to reclaim the term “sceptic”.
It’s a bit like claiming that the catholic church owned scepticism over the geocentric view of the solar system in the 1500s.
Mike McMillan says:
March 22, 2011 at 9:42 pm
“No more offensive than “climate change shill” or “climate change huckster,” though somewhat less accurate.”
I rather like “Climate Change Fascists” for the CAGW crowd – which is an accurate description of them…
From wikipedia…
“Fascism is a radical, authoritarian nationalist political ideology.[1][2]”
Can we talk about the little ice age, the medieval warm period and the roman warm period? Can we talk about 5000-6000 years when there was less ice around Greenland? Oh no, we have to deny these climate changes.
Ad hominem labels are not good descriptors. It is a somewhat successful but unworthy way of winning a debate in the short run.
How about “infidels” since a belief system is being questioned, a reverse ad hominem if that’s the way the game is being played.
Name calling is a last resort when the argument has run out.
The word is intended as an offensive put down to win an argument, to silence opposition with a slur, a common tactic of the left, but it no longer works and that has them frustrated.
I tend to refer to myself as a “climate science critic” rather than skeptic. I don’t think the science has proven anything one way or the other, due to poor data collection & analysis, lousy statistical methods (when used at all), biases from UHI, etc.
Re-boot the process, clean up the science, shake the charlatans out of the system, and show me what ya got. I’ll make up my mind then.
I have no problem with “climate change denier”, but how will they feel when they are called, “climate change alarmist”?
In reality, this is just word games and proves NOTHING. Let’s stick to the science:
(1) For now, the exact temperature change is unclear, but we will know later this year.
(2) Once we know the amount, it’s difficult to judge how much is due to CO2 and how much is due to something else. After all, we could be seeing a long term change that’s part of the natural cycle.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
March 23, 2011 at 8:25 am
I tend to refer to myself as a “climate science critic” rather than skeptic. I don’t think the science has proven anything one way or the other, due to poor data collection & analysis, lousy statistical methods (when used at all), biases from UHI, etc.
Re-boot the process, clean up the science, shake the charlatans out of the system, and show me what ya got. I’ll make up my mind then.
There is nothing to make up your mind about. You’re either a Believer or you aren’t. As you say, the Alarmist claims haven’t been proven. In fact, their conjecture has been shown to be mostly puffed-up nonsense posing as science. In the final analysis, the burden these past few decades has been upon them to show that they are right, and they have failed miserably.
I’d say that a religion class is pretty much where that movie belongs. Was the teacher perhaps making a subtle dig at the “science” in it?
Latest figures on ninemsn poll: Do you support the carbon tax?
Yes :- 24,335
No :-117,129
Total :-141,464 Votes
The following is my cross-post from Jo Nova’s blog on March 18th 2011:
It’s a sad commentary on the state of politics in Australia when the silent majority is finally driven onto the streets out of sheer frustration to protest nonsensical destructive policies of a Government clinging to power with the support of, and being held to ransom by, a radical minority party and a ragtag gaggle of self-serving “Independents”.
Worse is the fact that the tipping point has been the decision by Julia Gillard to deliberately deceive voters and lie before the election by promising “no carbon tax”, then figuratively give the voting public “the finger” and do a cynical backflip.
She and her Government have no mandate to now impose such a costly measure which will destroy productive jobs, force industries overseas, cause most if not all prices of consumer goods and services to rise, and open up more opportunities for con-men and rorters as has happened with every bungled scheme the Rudd/Gillard mish-mash has introduced in the last few years.
All for no discernible environmental benefit, with the whole charade based on fatally flawed self-serving computer-modelled pseudo-science backed by vast financial, UN and Government resources and almost complete compliance and assistance from all branches of the the Mainstream Media!
Though we know the protest will be characterised in MSM and “AGW believer” circles as a failure, I believe it will give great heart to those who see the folly of the Government decisions and will provide new hope and incentive for more ordinary people to make their views known in whatever way they see best.
“Scoffer is stronger than “skeptic” and weaker than denier”; it’s just right. I suggest we call ourselves “scorcher scoffers.”
How about greenshirt?
It’s not just that they’ll be shown to be wrong, but conceitedly wrong-headed as well.
Here’s a better term: Carbochondria!
If they want to use the denier tag from Nazi times, how about that other Nazi line?
“Tell a big enough lie often enough and get the government to back it up and most people will believe it.”
This so fits the runaway climate belief system proponents!
“Climate Change Denier” is of course nonsensical; in German the term used is “Klimaleugner” – “climate denier” – even more nonsensical. The deeper idea behind these labels is to own and redefine the term Climate Change and reprogram the population to automatically assume it is man-made and evil. This way, you get one more tool to scare the people. In Germany, “radioactivity” already serves this purpose. There are no attempts by the media or the school system to give people a rational understanding; everybody, especially the media and the politicians are interested in creating more of these scare tools, and using them as often as possible; it is their business. This includes our public broadcasters (who are controlled by politicians).
I don’t know who used “Climate change denier” and “Klimaleugner” first, but they smell a lot like PR agency creations; or PsyOp weapons.
DirkH says:
March 23, 2011 at 12:54 pm
“I don’t know who used “Climate change denier” and “Klimaleugner” first, but they smell a lot like PR agency creations; or PsyOp weapons.”
Thanks for suggesting this question. In the USA, the tracks are as clear as footprints on permafrost. The ancestor of “denier” and similar terms is the invention by Saul Alinsky of “homophobe.” In the Sixties, “homophobe” had become an accepted term widely used throughout academia in the USA. The psychology of the term is beautiful. The term pretends to be polite. After all, you are politely asked the question “Are you homophobic?” The appropriate time for the question is during an actual invitation to a professor’s house. If you answer “No,” then you have just committed yourself to not reacting badly when you see outrageous behavior at the professor’s house. If you answer “Yes,” then it is explained that it would not be wise for you to visit. Of course, the term embodies a political assault. But it remains blessed in the halls of American academia. The term “X denier,” where X stands for whatever, is a cruder version of “homophobe.” American academia is dominated by Political Correctness and one dare not reveal that he or she is a denier.
In another thread, I suggested ‘Carbophobia’.
The Global-Warming Nazis are unquestionably carbophobes.
/Mr Lynn
I notice my comment never made it through moderation yesterday; which part caused offense? My comparison of Bolt with Glenn Beck? My clarification that the term “denier” is not restricted to the Holocaust? Or that Abbott indeed does deny AGW?
Probably all, as none of it made it.
[Reply: Some posts were missing due to WordPress being shut down for several hours yesterday. ~dbs, mod.]
There are many of us in OZ who are of the pragmatic left who disregard the orthodoxy regarding man-made climate-change but have no time for Bolt and his general pronouncements. Hate being painted by a large brush !
As and when global temperature drops and the media acknowledge AGW hype for what it is, I wonder how many of them will deny that they were taken in by the scam?
I can’t say I like it as (a) there is in fact a climate, and (b) it does and in fact has changed repeatedly over the course of nearly four billion years and not just since the mid 1800s. So that would in effect be denying scientific reality. But then they also label realists as ‘flat earthers’ which is effect what they are given the fact once upon a time the concensus scientific opinion was the earth was flat, I think we all know how that argument worked out. Ahem…
I can’t understand how Australia can embrace climate change, specifically the harmful effects of co2, while exporting so much coal to China.
I have less and less objection to denier tag recently, i am really liking it specially by reaction i get from lefties and greens when they use it and i answer with Holocaust History . Everytime i get that i start talking about Holocaust and how Jews were murdered – i am WW2 story nut so i can talk about a long time- and all lefties start showing how they are getting uncomfortable.