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
Can’t we just settle on Climate Eugenicists? That should be ok for everybody; leftist hero economist Keynes was after all president of the Eugenics sociecty; and Obama science czar Holdren detailed his eugenicist approach in his 1970’s bestseller EcoScience. And the WWF was founded by eugenicist Julian Huxley.
I’ve made the following comment at ADL (includes some useful references/quotes)
http://atlanta.adl.org/news/adl-condemns-spencers-nazi-analogy/#comment-1262678665
YES, the victims of the holocaust deserve better, which is why, the equating of climate sceptics to being the moral equivalent of holocaust deniers, is so distasteful and it has been going on for over a decade.
Sceptics have been equated to holocaust deniers for years. Spencer is pushing back and is not referencing Jew[s], but the conduct of the NAzi’s who suppressed(killed)all political opposition and freedom of thought (book burning, remember)
The Guardian explained 4 years ago:
“We have been discussing such terminology, and some of my colleagues have suggested that Guardian style might be amended to stop referring to “climate change deniers” in favour of, perhaps, “climate sceptics”.
The editor of our environment website explains: “The former has nasty connotations with Holocaust denial and tends to polarise debate.” – Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/com…
Here are some very high profile examples, in the international media, by journalists and activists and politicians calling sceptics names (equating them to somebody as low as a holocaust denier)
Hari 2005:
“The climate-change deniers are rapidly ending up with as much intellectual credibility as creationists and Flat Earthers. Indeed, given that 25,000 people died in Europe in the 2003 heatwave caused by anthropogenic climate change, given that the genocide unfolding in Darfur has been exacerbated by the stresses of climate change, given that Bangladesh may disappear beneath the rising seas in the next century, they are nudging close to having the moral credibility of Holocaust deniers. They are denying the reality of a force that – unless we change the way we live pretty fast – will kill millions.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/o…
2006: monbiot “Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm…
2006: Lynas “I wonder what sentences judges might hand down at future international criminal tribunals on those who will be partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths from starvation, famine and disease in decades ahead. I put this in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial – except that this time the Holocaust is yet to come, and we still have time to avoid it”.
http://web.archive.org/web/200…
2007: fed Ellen Goodman : “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.”
http://web.archive.org/web/200…
then there are others saying ‘climate treason’, and others saying ‘Nuremburg trial’ for climate – and I’m sure very many other USA, examples could be found (in the main stream media (Hari, Independent, Monbiot – Guardian) very politicized and a huge deterrent to speak up at all.
2008 – Grist Climate Nuremburg (quoting monbiot)
http://grist.org/article/the-d…
2008: Hansen -Crime Against humanity:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi…
2009: Krugman – Guilty of treason
http://www.alternet.org/story/…
20011- Chris Huhne – UK Minsiter Enrrgy & Climate Change– “Defying climate deal like appeasing Hitler-
http://www.reuters.com/article…
The Guardian Newspaper wrote 4 years ago, about the linkage of ‘climate deniers’ with ‘holocaust deniers’..
shame nobody spoke out against all the above at the ADL
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.
Having spent the last hour reading every comment (some quite vociferous), I cannot be alone in admitting that I am reasonably comfortable with someone calling me a denier. In fact I am proud to be a denier.
For me, it is far more important to believe in our cause, vis-à-vis; that the miniscule amount of anthropogenic CO2 in our atmosphere cannot cause our world to heat up to unprecedented levels or influence natural climate. End of story. Similarly, the same pride applies to personal religious belief in so much as ‘they’ choose to call me an agnostic – simply because I believe in something which is different to what the Christian church and the bible tells me. But I do not completely deny that there is an ‘existence’ of some kind, because if I did, then I would be an atheist.
So maybe, I’m a climate atheist. Whatever.
Perhaps, let’s face it, we are all becoming over-sensitive with what ever ‘name calling’ the melodramatic warming fraternity throw at us – and appreciate that there a far more offensive terms we could be called like “F..k..g Climate W..k.r”. It’s only when bricks start coming through our windows will I help protect our pride and go and kick someone’s ass – starting by asking every climate atheist to grab a fire extinguisher, empty it completely of all the manufactured CO2 and ask the high priests of the warming faith if they observe any changes to the earth’s climate. We’ll save the lemonade, inflatable life vests, beer and sodium bicarbonate for next week. Ok?
Have fun.
GeeJam
ref [something] nazi
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/grammar-nazi
Notable Derivatives
As more and more people began embracing the term “Grammar Nazi,” the once taboo word “Nazi” became associated with fanaticism in general, spawning several derivative compound nouns in which it is used as a suffix to denote overzealousness.
Music Nazi: A person who believes that his or her music is better than everyone else’s and thus entitled to decide who is a poser and who isn’t.[29]
Network Nazi: A person, usually male, who runs the Office IT in a ruthless fashion.[30]
Facebook Nazi: A person who goes out of one’s way to report suggestive and offensive material posted by others on Facebook.[31]
Health Nazi: A person who constantly provides one’s own opinions on dieting, exercise, and weight loss in an arrogant and pushy manner.[33]
Food Nazi: A person who insists on dictating what others should call themselves based upon their diets.[34]
Wikipedia Nazi: A Wikipedia editor who subscribes to a ridiculously strict set of standards and frequently removes well-written articles submitted by others.[35]
Door Nazi: A retail business employee who checks your receipt upon leaving the store.[36]
Heat Nazi: A person who micromanages the home thermostat in order to maintain a budget-friendly temperature of 65 Fahrenheit degrees or less.[37]
Language Nazi: A person who is culturally-intolerant and complains when someone speaks in a language other than one’s own.[38]
Computer Nazi: A school faculty member in control of the computer lab who sets strict limits on what you can use or what you can bring into the room.[39]
Enviro Nazi: An environmentalist who habitually shames others for their lack of dedication.[32]
Forum Nazi: An Internet forum moderator who takes it upon oneself to remove posts without any forewarning or explanation.[41]
Mark Steyn: Tiptoeing on ever-thinner eggshells
Instead, the relentless propagandizing grows ever more heavy-handed: The tolerance enforcers will not tolerate dissent; the diversity celebrators demand a ruthless homogeneity. Much of the progressive agenda – on marriage, immigration, and much else – involves not winning the argument but ruling any debate out of bounds
http://tinyurl.com/cfmnxon
The legacy of Julian Huxley – ‘Evolutionary Studies’ edited by M. Keynes and G. Ainsworth
JULIAN HUXLEY was born in 1887 and he died in 1975. From the end of the First World War through to the early 1960s, he enjoyed a formidable reputation as an evolutionary biologist, a science writer and broadcaster, and as something of a political activist. His creed was humanism, while his medium was the Eugenics Society and, for a time, UNESCO.
With incredible energy, he helped to found the World Wildlife Fund, IUCN, the Ecological Society and the Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour. He received numerous awards and other honours for his services to science and to society. For example, he gained prizes for popularising science, for writing English verse, and for contributions to planned parenthood, conservation and evolutionary biology.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12617155.100
The New Divinity
By Julian Huxley FRS
Hardtalk – James Lovelock – Population reduction (max 1 billion)
http://judithcurry.com/2013/08/31/open-thread-weekend-30/#comment-373005
1. The word “Denier”insinuates that someone is denying the Holocaust;Spencer does not .
2.The Nazis wanted to destroy Christianity and replace it with a new religion.
3. The Nazis developed an adoration for “Nature” and a denigration for industry and urban living.
4.. There was a movement in Germany which supported or perhaps one should say idolised a back to Nature attitude which was rapidly absorbed by the Nazis.
5. If one looks at Hitler’s worship of nature, dislike of industry and capitalism; the various groups and philosophies which fantasised about a back to Nature living which originated in Germany from the late 19C; which grew rapidly after the WW1 and which influenced and were absorbed by the Nazis ; then I would say Spencer was correct.
6. The word Nazis comes National Socialist and many members were former communists. The Nazis also supported groups such as which grew up around Rudolf Steiner.
7. There is good argument that the roots of the Nazi movement lay in the German Romanticism of the mid 19C which rejected capitalism and intellectual movements which developed in cities such as Viennna. Jews lived in cities , not the countryside : therefore the rural idyll also rejected Jewish influence.
8. The fact that Nazis absorbed former members of the communist parties and Neo Pagan Nature loving rural fanatics and suppressed dissent which is similar to what has happened since the late 1960s. Many members of violent communist groups such as Baider Meinhof and R2 have joined the Green movement. In, the UK Monbiot who comes from a Conservative background and Lord Melchett have joined the Green movement. Many of the post 1960s hippies have joined the Green Movement( similar to the back to nature groups of 1920s and 1930s Germany who were absorbed by the Nazis). Many socialists , such as Ken Livingstone , former Mayor London have aligned themselves with the Green Movement.
9. Like the the Nazis of the 1920s, many of the Green Movement lack the engineering and applied science skills to solve the World’s problems.
ADL is very left wing and pc.
The ADL is right.
calling deniers deniers has nothing to do with comparing them to holocaust deniers. the word denier is and never was exclusive to holocaust denial. there are many forms of denial.
AGW denial is merely one form of denial. and as asceptic myself, i simply cannot call people that are in denial about climatology sceptics. they are clearly not. they are deniers.
[Reply: It was tempting to just delete your intolerant, hate-filled comment because it clearly violates this site’s Policy page. But maybe it’s better to let other readers deal with you. —mod.]
@ur momisugly Aanthanur DC
And should someone call you a bung hole, that would just be descriptive?
Your comment reeks of ignorance. You do not even have a conception of what is being denied. But you do know the pejorative power of insulting words, so you use them to intimidate others you do not agree with. And the reason you do is because you do not know how, nor do you have the knowledge, to debate them honestly.
So we can honestly say you are dishonest, Both in your use of the term, and in your posting.
ADL are a bunch of scum bags. Don’t take any notice of them. Their main purpose is to stifle criticism of Israel by linking any criticism of Israel to criticism of Jews and to punish congressmen who do not support increased funding for Israel or who object the Israel’s treatment of its victims or who do sell out the American people in favor of Israel and the huge campaign funding which comes from the multitude of Jewish interest groups in the US.
In any event, Israel is the Jewish state and they do only allow Jews to move their (make Aliya) and most Jews do support the state of Israel as being the Jewish state. Ergo, it may actually be somewhat legitimate to blame the actions of Israel on Jewish people in general. [snip] I mean, can a group of people act badly as a general group and escape criticism of the group? Jewish people are always quick to grab *credit* for anything any Jewish person of note ever did in the past. Usually Einstein and Intel and claiming that Israel invented cell phones. But they are not so keen to take responsibility for the negative behavior of their group in general.
I think some Warmists are afraid that the term “Climate Nazis” might stick. I won’t use it because I don’t want to end up in spam all the time, but Climate Nazis is what they are. If they had their way (as some of them have made clear) we would be blown up, stabbed in the heart, put on trial, executed, face smeared in asbestos and so on. Is this the language of people who are certain of their science? Their voodoo science is doomed by observations which explains the desperation.
PS it has little to do with science now. It’s now about getting their policies and structures in place before the voices of dissent grow louder (see the temperature hiatus, increased NH winter snow extent trend since mid 196os, Antarctic extent trending up since 1979, Arctic volume and extent up 50% in 2013 etc).
Aanthanur DC,
You really don’t understand, do you?
Scientific skeptics [the only honest kind of scientists, which would leave you out – if you were a scientist] know that CO2 has a minuscule effect. But that aside, what, exactly, are skeptics supposed to be denying?
Or are you such a miserable person that you call people inappropriate names for no other reason, except to feed your hatred?
Jimbo says:
February 27, 2014 at 3:46 am
“…but Climate Nazis is what they are.”
Discredited Climate Nazis will give us an even better leg up. Make it so.
Aanthanur DC, You have all the traits: spittle flecked anger at those who disagree with you, smugness, ignorance (in abundance), shallowness, unoriginality. I think what people like you miss is your “good ol’ days” when you could call certain people ni**er without fear of consequence.
Not surprising.
The ADL defends the truth of the Holocaust against unbelievers, alarmists do the same for CO2 hysteria.
The midterms are coming, and the lefties are in a fighting mood obviously. I think we’re going to see a lot of this behavior over the next 6 months or so, as they openly demonize the right.
• Professor Richard Siegmund Lindzen is an atmospheric scientist
• He is Jewish.
• His father fled Nazi Germany.
• He was a contributor to Chapter 4 of the 1995 IPCC 2nd Assessment.
• He worked on Chapter 7 of 2001 IPCC Working Group 1
• He is an AGW skeptic.
There are other examples of how easy it is to point out inconvenient facts to the ADL. Zero out of 10 – must try harder.
Let me assist you with your reading difficulties. Click and read all my references. I wait for your reply as you did use the word “NOTHING”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/26/bizzare-anti-defamation-league-apparently-gives-a-green-light-to-defamation-of-climate-skeptics-by-comparing-them-to-holocaust-deniers/#comment-1577619
To add a useful English word like ‘denier’ to a list of taboo words to be used only in a hushed, religious way is outrageous and should be laughed at by anybody who has his head screwed on right.
If a tiny group of people want to revel in their holocaust religion, let them, but do not expect the other 99.99 percent of us to bow and scrape to them and their bizarre cult.
re: dbstealey says February 26, 2014 at 11:24 pm
Thanks to Ric Werme for the link to the newspaper.
Pls check the chronology in the thread above for who ‘landed’ that link first …
Just sayin. (If the wheel doesn’t squeak it’ll never see the grease.)
Note also who first ‘found’ the webpage where the press release was posted (and no h/t!). Maybe if I posted as Gail Combs’ long-lost brother I could get the h/t … eh?
.
@DirkH says:
February 27, 2014 at 1:58 am
Dirk,
You’ve made an important distinction. After WWII, one great perceptual problem involved in effect giving the impression that the filth and horror of the Eugenics movement was some sort of specifically and uniquely German/Nazi problem.
This of course was completely untrue. Eugenics was the creed of the elites all over the Western World pre WWII..
In effect the Eugenicists on the winning side absolved themselves of blame which left them free to rebrand themselves as the human hating environmentalist elite we have today
Bio-Ethics IMO is the New Eugenics. And whereas the Eugenics movement is now recognised as having targeted part of the human race, Bio-Ethics is going Full-Monty, and targeting the “Human Race As A Whole”.
Global Warming as Faith
http://blog.heartland.org/2013/08/global-warming-as-faith/
The environmental elite regard the mass of humanity as vermin, despoiling divine Gaia.
Something on Fox News the other day that some of the warmist-handlers had issued orders to push CAGW “deniers”, prb’ly to deflect attention from the O’bumbler’s negative issues. The media/NGOs have quickly responded in lockstep.
the ADL attempts to squash free speech often when it doesn’t agree with them, sort of like what a political party in germany in the 30’s did.
if a nazi comparison is valid then its valid and doesn’t demean holocaust victims.
forbidding people to use comparisons hurts them more than it helps them. it also tends to blur the political happenings back then and risk them happening again.
dbstealey says:
February 26, 2014 at 11:24 pm
> Thanks to Ric Werme for the link to the newspaper. There are plenty of good responses posted there.
Better thanks go to _Jim’s 4:59 pm comment. I just reposted the URL to increase the chances of it being seen.
The story was up before 0900 EST. I imagine there’s a fair amount of talk at the office now. I’ll be mightily unimpressed if they don’t react, and even more unimpressed if they react the wrong way.
“I have no patience for climate change deniers“
Barack Obama – June, 2013