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
One problem here is that people who experienced WW2 are almost all gone (last holocaust survivor passed last week, for example), and those who learned anything useful about WW2 are aging. To the current generation, WW2 doesn’t matter. Nazis don’t matter. All they are is grainy black and white people wearing funny uniforms and speaking in horrible fake German accents.
A picturesque description like “death trains” won’t have the same sting to a 25 year old as it does to a 70 year old. While I was born in the 60s, I still grew up with a steady diet of WW2 movies, Hogan’s Heroes, and more than one teacher who fought in the war.I still vividly remember the day our school janitor was brought into our elementary school classroom to tell us about what he experienced. He wept when they played “White Cliffs of Dover”.
So a part of this is generational. Calling someone a Nazi is more reminiscent to a younger age of either Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi or the Grammar Nazis we see in all online forums or facebook groups, and will not summon vivid images of an entire country bent on world domination, by force, and elimination of Jews, Gypsies, and various other identifiable groups via wholesale murder by government sanctioned jackbooted thugs.
The thing is, this mostly renders the ADL’s claims completely moot. Nazis are no longer the horror that they were. In fact, they are perceived in an almost cartoonish light. S&M fanatics will often own a Nazi uniform style leather outfit, neo-white-power groups will fly a Swastika without really understanding the history and meaning of it, and my age group will always see them as Col. Klink and Sgt. Shultz.
To me, any group that endorses the use of public mocking, wishes their ideological opponents could be slaughtered in particularly gruesome ways, thinks it would be good to consider anyone who disagrees with them as mentally ill and subject to institutionalization, or fantasizes about how wonderful the world will be once they are in control and have eliminated their perceived enemy is acting as the Nazis did. There were many times in the rise of Nazism that they could have been stopped or critically wounded by strong opposition. The people who are doing the same must also be stopped before they gain the kind of power they crave and are actively attempting to gain.
Aanthanur DC says:
February 27, 2014 at 3:30 am
“the (sic) word denier is and never was exclusive to holocaust denial. there (sic) are many forms of denial.”
You are in denial as to the connotation of the word within the context of Climate debate. If you read the Ellen Goodman piece referenced above that was the genesis of the Climate context connotation, you will have the opportunity to accept the reality.
Organizing for Action
http://ofa.barackobama.com/climate-deniers/#/
Call Out the Climate Change Deniers
Climate change is real, it’s caused largely by human activities, and it poses significant risks for our health. Some members of Congress disagree with this simple, scientifically proven fact. We need to work to curb climate change, and a big step is to raise our voices to change the conversation in Washington. Call these deniers out. Hold them accountable. Ask them if they will admit climate change is a problem.
The Climate Liars ARE fascists. If the truth hurts, so-be-it. They’ll destroy our democracy if they get the chance. I’m happy Dr. Spencer called a spade a spade. I’m tired of the climate realists sitting back and taking abuse from people who are as immoral as any World War 2 fascist.
The Nazis were fascists and therefore anti-capitalists. But you can’t point that out. The new rules are that the term Nazis may only be applied to anyone who is not on the left-wing of American politics. You must never point out that the Nazis, as fascists, were socialists, championed the state over the individual, that the Nazis were anti-religion, anti-traditional family and were seeking a “new world order.”
Nope all that is verboten. I think these rules are clearly explained in the new College Student Handbooks and the AP Style Guide.
Sticky post until ADL Atlanta settles out
It appears that Ms. Rose’s particular brand of activism is not limited to warm-mongering attacks on “deniers” under her “Interim Regional Director” ADL banner. She apparently dabbles in a little old fashioned progressive political “education” as well. From Georgia Public Broadcasting…
Aanthanur DC says:
February 27, 2014 at 3:30 am
“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.”
You are not a sceptic, you are a Believer: you “believe in” the Truth of CO2CAGW hypotheses which have a 100% prediction failure record and are therefore falsified=scientifically false. Thus these “hypotheses” have now become Dogma for anyone who still uses them, especially in that they no longer relate to the scientific/empirical world. Whether you will also remain a denier in that respect is up to you.
Checking Google news at https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=spencer+nazi I found that Dana Nuccitelli couldn’t refuse the siren call of attacking Spencer, see http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/feb/21/nazis-climate-contrarian-credibility-gap
He didn’t include any of his own Nazi SkS imagery….
From Pop Tech:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/02/skeptical-science-smear-skeptics-as.html
Skeptical Science: Smear Skeptics as Holocaust Deniers
In March of 2012, the climate alarmist website Skeptical Science had their forums “hacked” and the contents posted online. In a forum thread titled “Advice on engaging the public”, John Cook posts enthusiastically, “Here is an excellent email from Greg Craven…”
Here’s my two cents on engaging the public:
The biggest obstacles you need to understand are that the public doesn’t understand the nature of science, …they aren’t rational decision-makers, […]
Be aware that the press is very defensive about being called “liberal” by the heartland. So they will always give a denier equal weight under the guise of “We just report and let the reader make their own decision.” The hell they do. Ask “When the press does a story on the Holocaust, do they give equal time to the revisionists?”
———————-
I’ll add a bit more of Craven’s thoughts to John Cook below:
———————–
Ask “When the press does a story on the Holocaust, do they give equal time to the revisionists? When they do a story on spacecraft or astronomy, do they give equal time to the flat-earthers? When they do a story on the extinction of the dinosaurs, do they give equal time to the Nessie fans?” Call them on it. In your interviews–trying to avoid making your interviewer defensive and thus not publish your point–point out that it’s their job to evaluate what is credible and what’s not, and only give a small acknowledgement to the less credible stuff.
Be willing to sacrifice precision in the interest of brevity. The assumption that the press is looking for the truth is completely incorrect. What the press is looking for is a story they can tell, with a hook–and, if they can get it–something provocative (like a manufactured controversy). I know it grates, but give sound bites:
“This level of agreement in science is unprecedented.” As you can see from the effectiveness of the denial machine, a striking statement– even a wrong one–becomes truth to the public, even if carefully taken apart later. The unengaged majority only hears sound bites and headlines. They NEVER read the careful and thorough rebuttal. They’re simply too busy with life to do any research. Especially since they’ve heard environmental doomsday stories their whole life, and we’re still here, right? So start taking a page from the opposition–not in their dishonesty, but in their mode of communicating.
Some specific talking points:
Re: Climategate. Acknowledge that cries of “It was quoted out of context!” always strike the listener as weak excuses of guilty parties because it’s always in the context of politicians, and the public distrust politicians. Therefore the public distrusts anyone who sounds like one. Instead, highlight how the unprecedented agreement in science about human-caused climate change (avoid fancy-schmancy words like “anthropogenic” because of the anti-intellectual sentiment out there) cannot be undone by a few emails, papers, signatures, or papers.
Re: “It’s a natural cycle.” (Now the most common denier position. If you have any doubt about how serious the public debate issue is, remind yourself that Bjorn Lomborg’s “Cool It” is now in theatres.) GHG nature of CO2 is well-established physics for the last 100 years. If you want to demonstrate it’s wrong, it will take a revolution in the laws of physics, with thousands of peer-reviewed studies. Stolen emails, thousands of signatures from non-specialists, or a dissenting scientist or two can’t do that.
Re: “How can we predict the climate when we can’t even predict the weather a few days in advance?” At the beach, no one can predict exactly where the wave five minutes from now will break. But we can predict with great confidence the moment of the high tide 3 months from now. It’s about noise vs. trend, chaotic systems vs. the basic laws of physics.
Ask the rhetorical question “What would it take to convince you? What would you need to see?” If the answer is “No single statement from a scientist dismiss AGW,” then even if it’s true, you’ll never get such statement, because science always has some dissenters, even about the most established conclusions! That’s just the nature of science. So waiting around for unanimity is a lost hope. Pragmatically, got to go with “This is good enough to go on.”
All the major national academies of science in the world, as well as most all significant scientific professional organizations, have issued official statements saying essentially the same thing:
1) Climate change is real.
2) It’s largely caused by us now.
3) It’s going to be bad, not good.
4) We’d better do something about it fast.
In the couple instances when the executive committee issued a skeptical statement, the membership rebelled, until the executive committee changed it to be non-committal. There are really only three options for explaining that.
1) All those scientists, whose entire careers have been devoted to understanding the physical world, have got it so horribly wrong that they’re not even in the ballpark. [Question for you scientists–is there any example in modern science where there’s been this much evidence along so many lines, and turned out to be wrong? Highlight the rarity of that. -GC].
2) All those scientists are perpetrating a giant hoax to gain control and wealth, a hoax a hundred times larger in scale and complexity than any other in the history of the world.
3) The general conclusions of all those scientists (the weather is going to get more wacky, the seas will rise, and all sorts of systems– from growing seasons to insect cycles–will be disrupted) are about as certain as we can get about how anything will behave, including predicting the tides. #1 is unprecedented, and#2 is so unprecedented that it can’t be dismissed because of a few emails or scientists behaving poorly. Which leaves the third.
ALL science is inherently tentative and uncertain. Nothing can ever be proven for certain. We haven’t even proven the Law of Gravity yet– we’re still running experiments to test it (Gravity Probe B)! The best we can do is amass large amounts of consistent evidence from multiple directions and calculations, and say “This is good enough to go on.”
This isn’t a talking point, but perhaps it will serve as motivation to get more scientists out into the fray. I’ve long said that the American public will only be convinced of the urgency of the climate change threat when they see large amounts of climate researchers quit their jobs and move to New Zealand to homestead, preparing for the worst. The CCRT and the AGU 700 aren’t quite that, but they are a tremendous (and long overdue) development. But we need more.
What we really really need is a mirror of the denial machine that Prof. Oreskes so capably details: an established network of blogs, organizations, spokespeople, press-releasers, and media contacts so that when an issue pops up, the rapid-response team pounds out the most effective talking points, and then gets them out into the network, exploiting the exponential nature of address book pointing to address book, to spread a consistent message. The CCRT can be the source of the talking points, but the distribution network needs to be established beforehand. This is largely why the deniers are so much more influential than the scientists. It’s time to take a page from their playbook and come out fighting.
Public opinion has nothing to do with rationality or reality. Like it or not, it’s determined by emotion and perception. We need to stop thrashing against the tide, and instead start riding it. We are losing the great unengaged majority more and more each day. That is where the war will be one or lost.
You will have a greater impact if you spend your time convincing scientists to enter the fray, rather than trying to influence individuals of the public.
So let’s muster an army.
Guess who else is involved in ‘Step it Up’?
From their Donations page; http://stepitup2007.org/article.php?id=714
Currently, Bill McKibben and the Step It Up team are putting together a new plan to take Step It Up style climate activism international.
Where do you make your donations to? 1Sky of course……the NEW 350.org!!!!!
http://www.1sky.org/
On the Friends of Science facebook page, someone posted that my father (Dr. Tim Ball) was a “child abuser”. I kindly pointed out that I was one of Dr. Ball’s children, and that he had never abused my brother or myself. In fact, he was the best father anyone could hope for, and put a happy face. 🙂
I was raised in a home filled with science and wonder about our incredible world. The moderator removed the libellous statement, and I stated that I wished it to be left in the thread (they removed it). It shows clearly the mindset of those who want to silence us. It also shows clearly that they have zero defence. They know it, and we are coming like a juggernaut now.
They fling poop like primates. I say let them, and I thank Anthony and the mods for leaving Aanthanur DC’s post intact.
Further to the Friends of Science facebook page; there are a number of alarmists that keep flooding the posts with all the usual spin (apparently they have all the time in the world to do this). The moderator is overwhelmed as I am sure he/she can not monitor full time. I post as much as I can, but it would be helpful if anyone has the time to keep an eye. If you are on facebook, “like” the Friends of Science page, as it is a good forum that tries to keep it civil and moderates similar to WUWT? moderation style. Give it a perusal !!
Social dysfunctions like AGW corrupt every area of thought and work.
ADL’s mission is being hijacked by a climate kook using her position to act out on her climate obsession.
I’ve been to that congregation. They’re definitely lefty oriented and so, without knowing her personally, it’s no surprise that she’s a master of hypocrisy. Others there are rabidly anti-Republican, anti-right, etc., etc. Very few people like that apply a principle even-handedly and condemn without fear or favor when it’s warranted. They wait for their own ox to be gored before noticing the offense and reacting, but still don’t acknowledge the previous offense. The press release is a shining example of that.
An impressive find. And I agreed with everything.
http://motls.blogspot.co.il/2014/02/gestapo-like-adl-raid-on-roy-spencer.html?m=1
(I chose a more appropriate national domain suffix.)
Unfortunately, not just the ADL but the bulk of universities, corporations, institutions, organizations, movements, NGOs, mainstream parties etc. are peppered with similar prickly “Roses” who are in a clear minority but thanks to their excessive activity, whose concentration has exceeded the critical mass needed to make the life of pretty much all skeptics harder.
Here she is Anthony.
Shelley Rose with her photo
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/shelley-rose/3a/305/70a
More photos of Shelley Rose to compare
http://www.bjf.org/daily-updates/977-scarlett-johansson-s-israel-super-bowl-ad-adl-coming-to-bham-for-anti-semitism-discussion.html
Far right (no pun intended)
http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs171/1101532851599/img/454.jpg?a=1112278129989
{ We had about three times this many for services eventually, but these were the ones who arrived in time for the photo. }
Real popular group…..
36 people in Atlanta. Someone work out that percentage…
Shelly Rose is a feminist. Everything else stems from there.
Feminists are impervious to almost all substances, except maybe bricks of logic. And they operate mostly in substance-free environments, so naturally – “climate” is next.
There aren’t many true deniers of the entire scam, in the world.
Most people are Luke Warmers: they believe the whole spiel they just don’t see anything wrong with it.
A Luke Warmer is a Warmer who isn’t alarmed. He’s skeptical of the claim of alarm, but he believes almost the whole thing.
A denier says the first word to the last was faked computer model research and that not a single word of it will hold up to experimental check.
Wow. So now what?
What do you do when a so-called anti- nazi jew puts on a eco-nazi uniform and starts goosestepping and pushing eco-fascism. And we’re not supposed to say anything.
This is a weird world full to the brim with BS!
Amazing breakdown and accurate historical references to climate change “denial” as it pertains to historical events. Crowd sourced information from all corners of the internet, quickly assembled in one accurate blog post on WUWT. This entire post and comment section should be referenced in the congressional record for valid content.
I am simply amaze at what the Watts Up With That community can put together at a moments notice. If only government worked so efficiently, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in.
Am I being deleted outright? WTF? I was on topic, I was not harsh. What gives?
[no, but sometimes posting comments simply fails or comment gets sucked into spam filter based on words, phrases, links – chill, Anthony ]
While I feel Global Warming Nazis, gives these narcissistic wanna bees way more credibility than they have earned, Dr Spencer has scored a major hit.
The parasitic bullies are tripping over their tongues.
This dummie from ADL rushing out to protect her poor wee cause, has scored a own goal of major proportion.
Where have you been baby?
If this is what you do, monitor society for defamation, why have you blessed, by omission, the likes of Presidents, Vice Presidents, Senators, Congress critters, UN functionaries…??
So are the staff at the ADL incompetent? Or just Biased?
So sad about your funding, but why contribute to an organization so inept?
It is over.
Cause, the great cause was the creation of persons willing to lie, smear and steal for their faith.
Intolerant, Eco-Nasties, clad in their certainty, conviction and smugness.
Ain’t that as shame. shot down in flames..
The terror that is causing these vile outburst from the Cult of Calamitous Climate, is easily understood.
Having been absolutely intolerant in their zeal, having abused and alienated the public, they have no climb down plan, hop escape.
Too many slow to anger, but now seriously annoyed persons such as myself, now wait with that question.
Answer yes or no, Have you stopped beating your wife?
As with CAGW,being willing to ignore all empirical measurements and human history, are you a fool? Or are you a bandit?