We’ve known for sometime that there’s an underlying, sometimes overt display of hatred towards climate skeptics. However, it generally never made it into science publications. Unfortunately, the editors of the journal Nature Climate Change just made one of the ugliest decisions ever with the publication of the Bain et al letter. One wonders though, if this were a study about… say, attitudes about racism, would the Nature Publishing Group allow things like the “n-word” in the graph and text? I think not.
Lest you think this is just one entry, read on:
Nature Climate Change | Letter
Promoting pro-environmental action in climate change deniers
A sizeable (and growing) proportion of the public in Western democracies deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change1, 2. It is commonly assumed that convincing deniers that climate change is real is necessary for them to act pro-environmentally3, 4. However, the likelihood of ‘conversion’ using scientific evidence is limited because these attitudes increasingly reflect ideological positions5, 6. An alternative approach is to identify outcomes of mitigation efforts that deniers find important. People have strong interests in the welfare of their society, so deniers may act in ways supporting mitigation efforts where they believe these efforts will have positive societal effects. In Study 1, climate change deniers (N=155) intended to act more pro-environmentally where they thought climate change action would create a society where people are more considerate and caring, and where there is greater economic/technological development. Study 2 (N=347) replicated this experimentally, showing that framing climate change action as increasing consideration for others, or improving economic/technological development, led to greater pro-environmental action intentions than a frame emphasizing avoiding the risks of climate change. To motivate deniers’ pro-environmental actions, communication should focus on how mitigation efforts can promote a better society, rather than focusing on the reality of climate change and averting its risks.
According to wordcounter.com “denier” is used 41 times in the full letter, seen here.
Here are your results…
| Word | Frequency |
| climate | 92 |
| change | 88 |
| denier | 41 |
| action | 32 |
| study | 21 |
Further down in the list, “believer” was used only 12 times, about a 3.5 to 1 bias.
One wonders if any of the peer reviewers or even the editors of Nature Climate Change raised any questions about the use of the term? I wonder if any of them even broached the subject at all, or if they just accepted the word without thought? Did any of them suggest “skeptic” as a more acceptable replacement? Clearly the authors of this study didn’t think twice about the word. I’d love to see the peer review notes for this one.
In case anyone thinks the word isn’t rooted in offensiveness, I’ll remind you of the syndicated column that gave the use of the word the big push:
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
Comically, one of the worst offenders of use of the word, Sacramento environmental advocate Dana Nuccitelli, doesn’t like it when the shoe is on the other foot:
dana1981 Submitted on 2011/09/24 at 5:42 pmPlease, can people stop using the acronym “SS”? The correct acronym is “SkS”
REPLY: On this we agree, folks please stop using it. Now Dana, would you agree to stop referring to people here and elsewhere using that other distasteful WWII phrase “deniers”. You’ll get major props if you announce that. – Anthony
Of course, we’ve stopped using “SS” (another well known reference to Nazi Germany) to refer to the website Skeptical Science, but proving himself a hypocrite, Skeptical Science contributor and editor Dana Nuccitelli has not returned the favor, and continues to be snipped here at WUWT for using the word. The word also continues use at Skeptical Science on a daily basis. It seems this is a common problem with AGW advocates, they have no sense of fair play, only dogma and thinly veiled hatred for people who disagree with their position.
Bishop Hill tipped me off to this story and has decided to send a letter to the editor of Nature, Dr. Rory Howlett, which I’m reproducing below:
Dear Dr Howlett
I have written a blog post on the Bain et al paper you have recently published. I found it quite surprising that a reputable journal would publish an article that contained so much offensive language.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/6/18/potty-mouthed-nature.html
I was wondering if you would care to comment on your decision to publish the article in this form. Did the editorial team consider asking the authors to use less incendiary language? Do you view your journal as having a role in encouraging civilised debate? Do you have policies on offensive language?
Thanks for your attention.
I think writing to the editor of Nature Climate Change to ask why he found the use of the offensive word that describes about half the population today (according to polls) acceptable, is an excellent idea. Here’s the details, from:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/about/about-eds/index.html
Chief Editor: Rory Howlett
Rory graduated in zoology from the University of Oxford and was awarded his PhD in ecological genetics from the University of Cambridge. Rory joined Nature in 1987 and was for 20 years an editor with the journal, where he developed wide-ranging interests in the biological and physical sciences and their interfaces. Between leaving Nature in 2008 and rejoining the Nature Publishing Group, Rory spent three years as Media and Communications Officer the United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Centre in Southampton.
The Nature Climate Change team is headquartered in the London editorial office:
Nature Climate Change Editorial Team
Nature Publishing Group
The Macmillan Building
4 Crinan Street
London
N1 9XW
UK
e-mail: nclimate@nature.com
When sending email, please be respectful and to the point.
Here is the letter I have sent:
=============================================================
Dr. Rory Howlett
Chief Editor
Nature Climate Change
Nature Publishing Group
The Macmillan Building
4 Crinan Street
London, N1 9XW, UK
Subject: Bain et al paper
Dear Dr. Howlett,
I was shocked to learn that Nature has apparently endorsed the use of the word “denier” which is deemed offensive by many people in the climate debate due to it being associated with Holocaust denial thanks to a widely syndicated opinion column in 2007:
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
I run the most viewed blog on climate change and global warming in the world, and have written an essay questioning Nature’s apparent endorsement of the use of the word in scientific literature, seen at: http://wp.me/p7y4l-h7K
I question whether the peer review process even broached the subject of the use of this word. We know from experience that Nature does not allow other offensive words describing groups of people or minorities in their scientific literature, so I and many others wonder why this exception was made?
I would hope that Nature would realize that this word is offensive to many people, and ask the authors of this paper to substitute a less offensive term, such as “skeptic” or “contrarian”.
Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
Best regards,
www.wattsupwiththat.com
Chico, CA USA
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Oh, check this out from pp. 55-56 of the pdf. Some more hilarious, involuntary truth-telling by these clowns:
This sample was accessed through a commercial provider, who obtained a sample from
the general public across all Australian states [. . . .] This generated a total sample of 377. Nine participants (2%) were excluded for exhibiting convergent evidence of pattern and nonsense responding, e.g., completing the whole survey in less than 3 minutes with no variation in scores, and answering the text question with nonsensical responses like “nanananananananana”. We were particularly concerned about the need for participants to have the manipulation salient in their minds when making ratings, and gave prominent instructions to complete the survey in a single sitting. However, the time taken by some participants (up to 24 hours) indicated that some ignored this direction.
mfo says:
“They can’t see the contradiction in trying to manipulate or convert people to their way of thinking by insulting them.”
True. But they are not trying to convert scientific skeptics, who are only saying, “Convince me with testable, verifiable facts.”
Instead, they are deliberately demonizing those who question their agenda, which is based on an increasingly dubious conjecture.
“We’ve known for some time that there’s an underlying, sometimes overt display of hatred towards climate skeptics. However, [deniers] generally never made it into science publications…”
It still hasn’t.
Statistically speaking capital N refers to a population. Lower case ‘n’ refers to a sample. Since they obviously were dealing with a relatively small sample the lower case should have been used. This also makes a difference in the statistical methodology.
Beyond that nit-pick, the entire article is reminiscent of a tantrum by a 2 year old child.
blackswhitewash.com says:
I don’t deny the climate changes. Nobody does. So what is it exactly we are denying?
Do appear to be a group of people who “deny climate change”. Those who claim that any climate change must be down to humans are denying billions of years of climate change which took place before anything remotely human existed.
The term “climate change denier” is ridiculous because no one denies that the climate changes. The fact that the journal Nature now allows the use of this term proves that it no longer subscribes to scientific rigor and truth. I find it advantageous that they have provided unequivocal proof of their capture by political activists.
Personally I think that Nature “Climate Change” is a joke of a journal. They also published that crap on calculating how much money should be transferred from developed to developing countries to offset climate change. That is pseudo-scientific drivel. Nature Climate Change is barely a step beyond a far leftist sociology journal.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1548.html
I can see Bain et al. not wanting to use the “skeptic” term. I am not just skeptical that recent warming was mostly caused by CO2. I disagree. I deny it. But “Contrarian” used to be standard term for this position. See, for instance, Stephen Schneider’s “Contrarians” page. The only reason to substitute the “denier” term is to draw an intentional parallel to holocaust denial.
The dishonesty and/or scientific illiteracy of the authors is also seen in their failure to correctly state the contrarian position which does not “deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change,” but only denies that it rises to any dangerous level. Can the authors name a single prominent skeptic who thinks that the human increment to CO2 does not have some warming effect? They have no fact-check on their own premise, treating their ill-informed presumption as an article of faith, so I like they way they use the “believer” term for the non-skeptics. At least they know how to describe themselves.
I haven’t read the paper yet, but if they are showing any bias then the paper should not pass peer review. To take a side or show bias on a ‘scientific’ subject rather than point out the discovery is not science. It may be that they do not, but then they would have to define a denier and believer either term being subjective. Only MHO
Phil C says: There must be a lot of scientific findings in the IPCC techincal report (WG I) that that the authors of this website agree with, and those are the articles I’ve never read here. Absent any references to what they do agree with, it’s easy for someone to use the “D” word instead of the “S” word because skeptics accept some of what they read, while deniers dismiss everything. I think that’s the critical difference and it would be a wise move to publish some posts on points of agreement with the IPCC technical findings.
It’s an interesting idea, I’ll give you that… maybe a “[what we don’t disagree on]” write-up. I’m not sure if it would do much good to change any “believers'” minds but maybe.
Or… taken one step further, a thorough listing of issues or areas (i.e. a primer), what is common ground, what is contentious… maybe with pointers to further discussions on said topics. It would be an ambitious undertaking, and I’m not sure who would actually be qualified to speak on behalf of the “non-believer” community… but definitely an interesting thought.
I’ve always found it productive in situations where there are disagreeable parties, to focus on the common ground to start and work your way from there, so I definitely don’t find this a ridiculous notion.
No, I want to save forests, prevent the over exploitation of nature and continually bang on about clean water and sanitation, but I don’t accept CO2 as climate driver
Translation: Anybody who is slightly right wing is naturally a “denier”, whereas everybody who a raving leftie is correct
Translation: We have no evidence, let’s try something else
$268K (aus)! (Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant (DP0984678))
A bargain at half the price.
The obvious neutral / parallel term to go with “believers” is “disbelievers.”
Here are a few others I’ve come up with:
Climate {Contrarians | Cynics}
Dioxide {Dissenters | Dissidents | Deviationists}
Scorcher Scoffers
Hot-Air Heretics
I think that the publication of this article only ashamed his authors and the journal where it was published. It’s a complete nonsense and I’m starting to think that ant fart that comes from certain universities and anglo-saxon pseudo-scientists (such as the authors of this article) is half-way for success in scientific publication. I’m gobsmacked.
Google search finds more than eighteen hundred prior usages of ‘warmista(s)’ and/or “eco-fascist(s)’ on WUWT.
The context invariably is pejorative.
REPLY: Gosh you really have to learn how to use Google properly. http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=warmista
Feel free to run similar queries on other websites about WUWT, or would that violate your hater bias?
FYI,
P: 93.182.129.82
Decimal: 1572241746
Hostname: exit1.ipredator.se
ISP: ViaEuropa i Lund AB
Organization: Infra-trygg
Services: Confirmed proxy server
Type:
Assignment: Static IP
No comment about your fake identity then? Gotta love it when I get morally lectured from people hiding in the shadows – Anthony
The authors are simply a cog in the wheel to despotism. The formula has been used throughout history and is very simple. Most people (like the authors) have fallen victim to the formula. (The instigators prefer to let the converted do the dirty work.) Here is the formula:
1. Adopt a noble cause (climate stability)
2. exaggerate the threat to the noble cause (I hope I don’t have to spell this one out)
3. Offer the ‘one and only’ solution (immediate control and restriction of energy, alternatives, like adaptation, are not considered, even though it is clearly the wisest choice.)
4. Demonize those who oppose the exaggeration and/or solution as being against the noble cause (deniers, in the pockets of big oil, flat Earth’ers, and “they don’t care about the children”.)
5. Require the citizens to surrender wealth and freedom to implement the solution.
This is how leaders have convinced the masses to support a decline into despotism over and over again. Its like telling people to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip. The formula is being followed to the letter when it comes to global energy.
The ironic thing about the formula is that the more successfully it is implemented, the more damage it does to the original noble cause. Hitler’s noble cause was the preservation of Germany, and he very nearly destroyed it. Communism’s noble cause was the elimination of poverty and it made everyone equally poor. Pol Pot’s noble cause was the end of corruption, but what could be more corrupt than the murder of millions.
It is very likely that centralized energy planning would quickly result in a degradation of the environment across the planet. Decisions would be poorly made and the resulting inefficiencies would produce environmental problems. Failures would bring about tighter control to squelch the resulting unrest. Corruption would soar and a black market in energy would rapidly materialize; a black market that followed no environmental regulations at all.
How can I predict this? Simple…it always happens that way under despotic rules.
So if you want to do the best thing for the environment, fight environmental despotism.
(Noble causes are great, but whenever we start to see greatly exaggerated threats to the noble cause and solutions being limited to one, then we know it is not about the noble cause. It is about power. ‘Global warming’ is an attempt at a massive power grab.)
Phil C says:
June 18, 2012 at 9:25 am
If you’re going to quote skip/Timmy’s unproven assumptions,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/14/climate-models-outperformed-by-random-walks/#comment-1011230
at least give him credit for them.
Another neutral pair of terms would be proponent / opponent.
Their use of this term will make them look all the worse in the end. They’ve tied themselves to the mast–they won’t be able to scuttle to the lifeboats when their ship founders.
Jarrett Jones says:
June 18, 2012 at 11:31 am:
“The term ‘climate change denier’ is ridiculous because no one denies that the climate changes.”
Actually, Michael Mann claimed that global temperatures [AKA: ‘the climate’] remained steady and pretty much unchanging until the advent of the industrial revolution: that was the flat shaft of his hockey stick, before the upturned blade. Mann attempted to erase the LIA, and eventually the MWP, too.
Nature is employing the deceptive tactic of ‘projection’: imputing your own faults onto others. Some people use projection without realizing it. For example, thieves think everyone else is a thief. But it appears that Nature has made the conscious decision to demonize skeptics using the alarmist crowd’s own shortcomings.
The name calling and the condescence are trully repulsive but… we have now officially “believers” of the higher climate truth officially sancted. Hallelujah brother!
Interesting to see how this religion has placed its own values devoiding words and values of their true meaning and replacing them with their new understanding.
For example “science” is not what we skeptics understand by the word science. One cannot discuss science with a believer as for him “science” is the only and pure truth coming from a … guess what? “true scientist”. Which is again only a climate scientist which is not a fossil fuel shill – so again only a sancted scientist.
To illustrate it take a look at the recent discussion in North Carolina. John Droz approached the subject scientifically, he solicited inputs from 40 SLR experts. But that was not science in their view. How do “they” look at it? How do “they” report it? Not as science. Only their advocacy is “science” (policies to be based on history not on “science” – this is how “they” call it)
When reading history, years ago, I was shocked and could not understand how could christians in the 4th century behave so intransigent, so violent & aggressive against non-believers whilst christianity was the religion of love?
Now I got my answer. The parallels are amazing. We see and live the development of a new orthodoxy.
Frankly I am proud to be a denier. I do not associate the term with denying that carbon dioxide has a small radiative forcing effect. I associate denier with denying the bogus 300% positive feedback that Hansen, Mann, Trenberth and Schmidt all endorse.
Secondly, Anthony needs to get pissed off. Do not write to these editors of some hack journal that they used offensive language. Who cares what they write, mankind will not judge them, time will. And we can call the true believers deniers also, they deny that co2 is good for plants and they deny that there is a negative feedback. I accept the negative feeback as hard fact because it does not make sense to me that the earth has survived billions of years, while naturally amplifying, instead of reducing the effect of co2.
Listen up, global warming is radical left wing kook stuff that never should have entered into the mainstream. People allowed it to happen because really nobody cared…until they started trying to actually base policy off this nonsense. Remember back to the days of George Bush, most people did not care and most still do not. But the left has been able to place a bunch of enviro gyros into office and they are trying to base policy off of this crap.
MangoChutney says:
June 18, 2012 at 11:40 am
It is commonly assumed that convincing deniers that climate change is real is necessary for them to act pro-environmentally.
———————————————————
No, I want to save forests, prevent the over exploitation of nature and continually bang on about clean water and sanitation, but I don’t accept CO2 as climate driver
———————————————————
Mango here is where I see the problem. As they devoid words of their true meaning you do not understand that for “them” acting “pro-environmentally” means – which would be to reduce your CO2 output.
I fear that to save forests, prevent over exploitation of nature, bang on about clean water and sanitation is not regarded by them as “pro-environmentally”, only if it serves to reduce the CO2 output.
As an award winning ivy league Ph.D. chemist I firmly and professionally deny the legitimacy of contemporary climate science.
I wonder if the detoriating debating climate isn’t good for sceptisism against the UN version of the science. When scientists are so obviously agenda driven, using this kind of language, people will have much easier to overcome a certain sceptisism against the ability of the powers that be to be so agenda driven as they actually are.
I think it already been stated above but worth repeating that the more shrill and extremist the believers become the more ridiculous they sound and so more and more moderate people question or simply dismiss what they say. However I do support Mr Watts for attempting to correct the Nature Climate Change editor. What a great site this is.
We are denying them credibility, and they are acknowledging that by calling us deniers. What’s wrong with that? If anything, I see this Nature article as an indication that they are knocking off climate change from the environmentalist agenda.