UPDATE: 2/27 6:30AM PST It seems the person making the attack, Shelley Rose, is part of a climate activist group, see below.
UPDATE: 2/27 2:50PM PST, The ADL Atlanta website has deleted comments on the issue, and has closed the press release to further comments. See below.
Boy, this is ugly, and I hope this boils down to simply an error in judgement by a lower tier administrator because this is like some bizzaro-world episode; on one hand the Anti-Defamation League is coming down against the “…type of comparison diminishes and trivializes the Holocaust.“, while on another they are giving a “get out of jail free card” to the people who have repeatedly done that very thing over several years.
Two telephone calls and two emails today requesting comment from ADL’s Southeast Interim Regional Director Shelly Rose have gone unanswered. She’s aware of my calls. I asked for her directly, gave my name and affiliation, and after a pause on hold her assistant asked if it would be OK to “send you to voice mail”. Ms Rose did provide a copy of the press release below, after I queried the main organization in New York after receiving a tip about this release, but found no evidence of its existence on the ADL Press Center website. The press release below still isn’t on the website as of this writing at 6:15PM EST well after close of business there. All of my requests were done during normal business hours for both the Atlanta and NYC office.
I have to wonder if the main organization is endorsing this press release, or if this is some regional director who went rogue.
Here is the press release.
==============================================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shelley Rose (404) 262-3470 work; 678-938-1399 cell
ADL Condemns Spencer’s Nazi Analogy
February 25, 2014, Atlanta, Georgia … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today denounced remarks by University of Alabama – Huntsville professor Roy Spencer who wrote on his blog that those who refer to him as a climate change “denier” should be called “global warming Nazis” and that they “are supporting policies that will kill far more people than the Nazis ever did — all in the name of what they consider to be a righteous cause.”
He also claims those who advocate for policies to slow global warming are “like the Nazis” in that they are fascist and anti-capitalist. The post is also accompanied by an image of a swastika.
Shelley Rose, ADL Southeast Interim Regional Director issued the following statement:
University of Alabama Professor Roy Spencer’s analogy of proponents of global warming to Nazis is outrageous and deeply offensive. This analogy is just the latest example of a troubling epidemic of comparisons to Hitler and the Holocaust.
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.
Shelley Rose |Interim Regional Director
Anti-Defamation League | 3490 Piedmont Road; Suite 610 | Atlanta, Georgia 30305
Phone: 404-262-3470 I Fax: 404-262-3548 I Cell: 678-938-1399 I srose@adl.org
ADL website I our blog I facebook I twitter I youtube I pinterest I google+ I linkedin
==============================================================
I queried Ms Rose for a comment on the last paragraph, asking:
Wouldn’t that also apply to the use of “denier” to denigrate people, including Dr. Spencer. whose research has nothing to do with the holocaust or denial of it?
I also asked her to comment on the “green light” as a working title, asking if it was an accurate representation of their position. It was clear to me from the lack of response to two emails and two telephone calls was ” no comment”.
From their website, apparently slurs in major league football rate higher in concern than comparing climate skeptics to holocaust deniers for the purpose of denigration:
ADL Welcomes NFL’s Willingness to Address Hate Speech
The League welcomed reports that the NFL is considering how to discourage the use of offensive slurs during the course of games and said that “the question of how to address offensive speech and the best ways to counter it on playing fields and in locker rooms is an important conversation.”
And that’s why I think this is bizarre. The selective hypocrisy is stunning. I’m hoping the main office in New York will come to their senses and disavow the press release from the “Interim Regional Director”. Surely they must see the ugly conundrum they’ve manufactured for themselves.
Dr. Roy Spencer responds:
Hypocrisy at the Anti-Defamation League?
He asks exactly what I was thinking; where was ADL all these years when such ugly and hateful comparisons were being made:
Ms. Rose, where was your organization when journalists, politicians, and even some scientists, chose to call us skeptics “deniers”?
We don’t deny either “global warming” or “climate change”. Yet, we are called “deniers”. Ms. Rose, do you have any inkling why the term “denier” (which is a lie) might be used against us, rather than the term “skeptic” (which is accurate)? I think you know why.
I’d really like to know how ADL can turn a blind eye the use of “denier” for the purpose of denigration while at the same time calling out a victim of the denigration for fighting back after years of abuse.
There’s also a newspaper article about it:
UAH climate expert Roy Spencer calls critics ‘global warming Nazis’; Anti-Defamation League objects
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2014/02/uah_climate_expert_roy_spencer.html
UPDATE: The PR is now posted on the Atlanta ADL website here
http://atlanta.adl.org/news/adl-condemns-spencers-nazi-analogy/
Comments are allowed there. Be civil if you leave comments please.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that this person simply doesn’t know the history, and committed a terrible error in judgment.
UPDATE2: 2/27 6:30AM PST It seems the person making the attack, Shelly Rose, is part of a climate activist group, see photo and caption.
The caption reads:
Congregations Caring for the Climate – Atlanta, GA
Bill Witherspoon, from Congregation Bet Haverim writes: This was taken Friday evening before Erev Shabbat Services. We had about three times this many for services eventually, but these were the ones who arrived in time for the photo. As part of our second week of the Omer to Honor the Earth, Shelley Rose (third from right, just right of our Torah scrolls) gave the d’var (sermon) on acting with awareness that we all breathe the same air, and Tovah Melaver (second from right) led a breathing meditation.
April 13, 2007
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stepitup2007/464126698/
You can read all about this organization at http://stepitup2007.org
Of note is the list of “Friends and Allies” which reads like a who’s who in climate activism.
This whole episode makes a lot more sense now.
UPDATE3: 2/27 2:50PM PST, The ADL Atlanta website has deleted many comments on the issue, and has closed the press release to further comments. About an hour ago, I noted 90 comments were posted, now it is down to 50. See below.
Meanwhile I’ve drafted and sent a letter by email and by fax to ADL National Director, ABRAHAM H. FOXMAN asking if ADL plans to comment on the issue, and to ask id they plan to apply their condemnation equally, along with examples of what climate skeptics have been subjected to over the years. I think they simply have been caught unaware in a conundrum created by their Atlanta Interim Director.
I ask that if anyone makes communications with this organization, please be factual and respectful – Anthony
“I have no doubt that you do exactly the same with your “science””
that would imply the 1000’s of scientists around the world do that also. and somehow theonly real science on climatology can be found here?
as i take the position the vast majority of scientists working in the relevant fields take, this is a rather strange accusation.
you seem to imply that all those universities and scientific institutions around the world are massacring science.
sounds like a huge conspiracy. or are they all just incompetent and ignorant?
Aanthanur DC says:
hypocricity… i keep calling you people deniers… enlish… And so on. One or two mistakes is understandable, but Aanthanur’s comments are filled with similar errors. It’s hard to take him seriously. No wonder his mind has been colonized by the alarmist propaganda machine; he can’t think for himself. Instead, he just parrots what he’s been told. Aanthanur sounds like a moron, or a third-grader. Maybe both. If not, why doesn’t he use spell check, and grammar check?
I note that Aanthanur will never debate facts. He relies on assertion. His comments are based on simple-minded emotion — which is comfortable, but it is certainly not science.
Aanthanur responds to this comment: “I don’t think they understand how rabid the environmentalists are. They DO want to incarcerate and kill us.”
With this nonsense:
and somehow that post is not offending?
Grow up, Aanthanur, and quit being a crybaby. Look at the WUWT archives, and you will see that many in the alarmist crowd do in fact advocate murdering scientific skeptics, for nothing more than having a different point of view. Watch the 10-10 videos and others, you will see.
Aanthanur says: the evidence has been provided. the vast majority of experts , all major scientific institutions and all top universities around the globe are convinced by the evidence.
But Aanthanur never posts any evidence. How can skeptics debate baseless assertions?
Aanthanur is simply a hater. He needs to quit wasting skeptics’ time with his always-wrong assertions. Aanthanur is using this forum to express his juvenile hatred of people he cannot understand. If it were not for his hate, what would Aanthanur have?
@dbstealey – I had forgotten about 10-10!
here you go Anth – more proof that you find the truth offensive:
http://youtu.be/JfnddMpzPsM
I hate to do this, but BAN AANTHANUR.
To bring people like that withering rose down to normal I do propose a
Climate Sceptics Day
or call it CSD (pun intended) to be held on February 12th each year. On that day in 1979 the first World Climate Conference assembled in Switzerland. And that might well be considered the starting point.
It shall remind the sheeple all over the world that
scepticism is more scientific than consensus.
Here is a useful list to show CB next time he tells you
______
Abstract
Thomas J. Crowley et al
Reconciling Late Ordovician (440 Ma) glaciation with very high (14X) CO2 levels
The most dramatic exception to this correlation involves the Late Ordovician (440 Ma) glaciation, which occurred at a time when CO2 levels may have been much greater than present (14–16X?)….
DOI: 10.1029/94JD02521
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/94JD02521/abstract
—————–
Abstract
Pascale F. Poussart et al
Late Ordovician glaciation under high atmospheric CO2: A coupled model analysis
The analysis of the geologic record has revealed a question concerning how the Late Ordovician glaciation could have occurred simultaneously with high CO2 levels (10–18x)….
DOI:10.1029/1999PA900021
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999PA900021/abstract
—————–
Abstract
Thomas J. Crowley
Toward reconciliation of Late Ordovician (∼440 Ma) glaciation with very high CO2 levels
Although Phanerozoic glaciations usually coincided with times of estimated low atmospheric CO2, the Late Ordovician (440 Ma) glaciation is a significant exception. CO2 levels during that time may have been as much as 10 times greater than present….
DOI: 10.1029/91JD02449
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/91JD02449/abstract
—————–
Abstract
Hubertus Fischer et al
Ice Core Records of Atmospheric CO2 Around the Last Three Glacial Terminations
High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 ± 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations. Despite strongly decreasing temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations can be sustained for thousands of years during glaciations;…
Science 12 March 1999: Vol. 283 no. 5408 pp. 1712-1714
DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5408.1712
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/283/5408/1712.short
Scum bags
Take your blinkers off!
More executions for sceptics
http://www.climatedepot.com/2009/06/03/execute-skeptics-shock-call-to-action-at-what-point-do-we-jail-or-execute-global-warming-deniers-shouldnt-we-start-punishing-them-now/
Do you know about how science works. Authority does not mean a thing. One of the oldest scientific institutions has a motto.
That experiment is happening now in our atmosphere with our ever rising co2. Global surface temperature has grounded to a halt. Observers of this or any other experiment would now be scratching their heads and waiting to see if this continues. The longer it continues the more likely we will have to throw away our original hypothesis.
PS Please look at the temperature projections of the IPCC from their first report to the last. You will notice that after each report the projections to 2100 go down. That is a troubling sign for the IPCC authority is it not?
Aanthanur DC, what are you trying to achieve? Make sceptics more determined to be sceptical? You come to sceptic central and throw insults. You ignore the site host. You try to tell others what to do in a language you are not familiar with, which indicates you are at the least naïve and at the worst, as dumb as your writing comes across. Why would anyone listen to you?
And no, your side has not won a single thing until CO2 starts to level off. So it seems you can’t distinguish between wishes and real world evidence either. Another reason to ignore you.
teapartygeezer says:
February 27, 2014 at 9:24 pm
“Did I mention … he’s nuts?
A few hours ago, I received notification that “CB” is now following me on Disqus. I have no idea what that means or if I can make him ‘unfollow.’ I hope he’s not stalking me … he is decidedly unstable.”
Disqus is the service provider enabling comment discussion on many sites. If you click on their “privacy policy” there should be a link to alter your privacy settings, or hopefully to unsubscribe?
Good luck
Richard (Hot under the collar)
As I said, the evidence has been presented. you do not accept it. so there is no use in posting it. you know what the scientific community and pretty much the rest of the world accepts as supporting evidence, you do not accept that. so what use is it to post it?
its like posting the evidence for evolution to creationists. it has not convinced them in the past nor will it when you post it again and again.
and I do not hold the position I hold merely because the experts say it is as they say. no because I looked at the evidence they presented and I got convinced by it. my argument is rather that when people say I know nothing about science , they claim basicly the same about the vast majority of experts on climatology.
and no I don’t think the climate projections bring the science in any trouble.
because even thous the SAT has flattened and not risen as was expected. the world as a whole has still kept warming up, wich can be seen clearly in the OHC for example. or in the ice mass loss that was measured. those are also parts of the planet.
and yes , the experiment is happening right now, and the evidence so far shows, AGW was indeed correct. increased CO2 from human activity does indeed warm up the planet do to an enhanced greenhouse effect.
but only looking at the SAT and ignoring the rest is intellectually dishonest and very unsceptical.
and there might be people that want to kill the AGW not accepters. I have never and will never advocate anything of the sort. nor is that the stated goal of any environmental group I know of. sure one can then claim yeah not stated, its their secret agenda, but that is conspiracy theory land.. and I doubt people with sceptical thinking skills would go there 🙂 or would you?
“You come to sceptic central ”
nope. this is not a sceptics central. at max an AGW “sceptics” central.
you maybe should go visit one of the many real sceptics forums on the net. they often also have a section dealing with AGW. and there you can see how real sceptics deal with this topic.
its completely different from here. you seem to have mistaken [snip] with scepticism.
stan stendera . for what reason?
“. Aanthanur sounds like a moron, or a third-grader. Maybe both. ”
and this post does not “clearly violates this site’s Policy ” ?
no im not crying , just pointing out hypocricy.
Aanthanur DC says:
February 28, 2014 at 2:09 am
Mr Green Genes
why should anyone take notice of what you say? oh right, most don’t 🙂
===================
The difference between us is that I don’t post on here so that people can take any notice of what I say. I do it for amusement, interest and also to ask questions of some of the many experts in various fields who regularly appear. Therefore I don’t really care if most people don’t take any notice of me.
Oh, and btw, almost every language on earth starts sentences with capital letters and uses punctuation so my point about your illiteracy stands.
Aanthanur DC
“As I said, the evidence has been presented. you do not accept it. so there is no use in posting it.”
I put it to you that the reason you refuse to post it has nothing to do with the fact that it has been presented already, but rather that you don’t know what it is and/or don’t understand it. That is why you cannot enter into debate and argument, because you are an ignoramus.
However, here are a few things to get you started:
1) Global temperatures have been higher in the past without catastrophic consequences.
2) CO2 levels in the past have been above 1000, 2000 and even 4000 ppm without catastrophic consequences.
3) Global temperatures have in the past declined while CO2 levels have increased
4) Both the holocene optimum and medieval warm periods were warmer than today.
5) Climate models were unable to account for the current stasis in global warming.
6) Cloud and water vapour feedbacks have a low level of scientific understanding (IPPC).
7) Without understanding cloud and water vapour feedbacks it is a false assertion to claim high and dangerous levels of future warming.
Go ahead and prove me wrong by debating some of these points..
Please explain the “enhanced greenhouse effect.” and how it continues to warm the planet? Please tell me which is the most important greenhouse gas in our atmosphere?
Why has the IPCC’s projections been constantly lowered in its 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th reports? Could it be that it’s just not going to get as warm as they thought in 2100? Have you ever thought that you might be wrong? What if you are wrong, will you come back here to apologize? Right now you cannot tell sceptics they are wrong because we don’t know where global temperatures will be in 2050. You talk of ignoring global surface temperatures. Before the prolonged temperature hiatus they kept pointing to the surface temperatures and made projections. Why now go deep sea diving? That is the intellectual dishonesty you should also be looking at.
The first fourteen of the comments on the ADL site, all of which which the ADL deleted, are captured along with their press release in this archive:
http://archive.is/3DLfj
This is the current version:
http://archive.is/6lfyX
I regret not archiving anything in-between.
BTW, those are archive.is archive links. The new archive.is site has some very nice features. One is that, unlike WebCite and archive.org, both of which I also like a lot, archive.is manages to capture Disqus comments along with the page.
Also, archive.is adds some clever javascript to the archived page, so that if you select some text on the archived page, the URL in your browser address bar instantly changes into a URL which links directly to the selected text, like this:
http://archive.is/6lfyX#selection-5239.0-5311.33
It’s kind of like CiteBite or the defunct AwesomeHighlighter, except that you can link to any part of the page you wish!
If you want, by tweaking the URL to make the start and end of the selected range identical, you can link to any point on the page without selecting anything, like this:
http://archive.is/6lfyX#selection-5239.0-5239.0
Is that cool, or what?!?
BTW, that URL links to Barry Woods’ comment, in which he re-posted some of my deleted material about the “Seinfeld Soup Nazi” Internet meme, after the ADL deleted it but before they closed comments. Thank you, Barry!
I “subscribed” to the comments and managed to get 45 of them.
~sigh~
Insane, I know, but there are days I honestly miss Jan Perlwitz around here. At least he put up a good fight.
Spencer’s approach on the issue, his reference to the holocaust and the National Socialist party of early 20th century Germany, has pro and con points.
But I like the approach of Lindzen much better wrt ‘denier’ usage in climate discourse. I interpret his thinking to mean we should deny the validity of the unscientific exaggeration of the IPCC centric biased view. We should be proud to be called deniers in that context.
I am a proud denier by that interpretation. : )
John
Aaranthur ( I have my own idea as to what “DC” stands for), has set about to prove Ant’ny’s post correct. He has done so with fine form. Congratulations is in order. WTG Aaranthur!!
Hi Guys,
Just got off the phone with some young kid in the ADL national office (212-885-7700). He was quite rude. He wanted to know how much I give to the ADL, and I had to give him a lecture on how inappropriate that question was. He did not take down my information. Now I need to try and get a supervisor on the line.
Conversely, the young woman who answered Shelley Rose’s line was very polite. However, it’s clear that the folks at ADL feel they have already had way too much response on this.
I do recommend calling the national and Shelley Rose’s office if you have the time, just to get your complaint logged in. They keep statistics on the responses they get.
Still may have to cancel my membership. I hope Abe Foxman has a migraine by now.
Hot under the collar says:
February 28, 2014 at 4:20 am
——————————————–
I like Disqus. Especially for the way that they allow you to see each and every comment made, which the is placed in your personal library. I wish that WordPress had a similar function. As for the following concept, I have stalkers who have been following me for the last several years. A good example just happened 2 days ago. I was at CNS reading a post. I had also opened 3 other posts to read. This is from using Disqus that they are able to do this. I can even sense this as in the case of miss McDaniels from 2 days ago. I went to my Disqus dashboard and saw her name and that she had just left 3 comments in reply to me. I knew right away that I was going to see the ” I earned x dollars comment’. When I looked there was a fresh comment by some woman, avatar showing a big breasted beauty, who said ” I earned x amount by………’. I flagged her comment. Then I went on to the next page. Once again there she was with the same advert, which I also flagged. The 3rd page she left an actual comment related to the post. This has been happening for some time now. It is their way of letting me know that they are listening and following me. All 3 of her comments came in at the same time after I had opened the pages, but before I started reading. Then when I clicked on a new post she was no longer there. I also see that after I leave a comment at different websites, a person will come along shortly after and leave an advert underneath my comment. That is life in the climate change circle. This all started when I angered the warmists at newsvine with my devastating ‘how can co2 be the main driver of the warming when for the last x years temps have gone sideways, despite the huge increase of global output for co2?’. This was in 2010, if I remember right. In the last year or so, the msnbc fanatics started alluding to me as Darth Vader and gone over to the dark side, plus similar remarks related to my being evil and so on. Recently, I permanently gave up going to msnbc. It isn’t worth the bother, and I have more important things to do with my time. Now I am making good use of my time by reading here and a few other spots to spark my mind, and make full use of the gift that I was given.
– – – – – – – –
philjourdan,
I am not of your consensus. I think namecalling by saying someone is a troll is counterproductive to valuable discourse.
I offer instead to describe the nature of commenters like ‘Aanthanur DC’. I often describe them in terms such as auto-aggressive anonymous authoritarians (AAAAs).
It gets to the point of their actions. Using the word ‘troll’ is meaningless in most cases.
John
@John Whitman – I agree Troll is over used. However, when someone comes in and starts throwing around inflammatory rhetoric for the sole purpose of disrupting the discussion at hand because they cannot refute the facts presented, THAT is a troll. And Art is a troll. he not only threw the pejoratives around, but he also denied every fact (sourced) presented to him. He added nothing.