From the AP Blog: (h/t to Thomas Hogg)
An addition to AP Stylebook entry on global warming
The AP Stylebook editors today informed AP staff about a change to the entry on global warming. In addition, they described what goes into keeping the Stylebook up-to-date, including their outreach to experts.
AP science writer Seth Borenstein was among those who provided guidance during the discussion that resulted in today’s change, which adds two sentences to the global warming entry.
Here is the staff memo from Stylebook editors Sally Jacobsen, Dave Minthorn and Paula Froke:
We have reviewed our entry on global warming as part of our efforts to continually update the Stylebook to reflect language usage and accuracy.
We are adding a brief description of those who don’t accept climate science or dispute the world is warming from man-made forces:
Our guidance is to use climate change doubters or those who reject mainstream climate science and to avoid the use of skeptics or deniers.
Some background on the change: Scientists who consider themselves real skeptics – who debunk mysticism, ESP and other pseudoscience, such as those who are part of the Center for Skeptical Inquiry – complain that non-scientists who reject mainstream climate science have usurped the phrase skeptic. They say they aren’t skeptics because “proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.” That group prefers the phrase “climate change deniers” for those who reject accepted global warming data and theory. But those who reject climate science say the phrase denier has the pejorative ring of Holocaust denier so The Associated Press prefers climate change doubter or someone who rejects mainstream science.
To describe those who don’t accept climate science or dispute the world is warming from man-made forces, use climate change doubters or those who reject mainstream climate science. Avoid use of skeptics or deniers.
Read more: https://blog.ap.org/announcements/an-addition-to-ap-stylebook-entry-on-global-warming
Statement from Anthony Watts:
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” (non-paywalled here)
One day they will all call us realists.
Tony,
Being a doubter, I doubt it.
They will never admit they were wrong, just like now. Instead, one by one they will silently go away, and never mention or admit that Planet Earth herself debunked their belief system.
Agree.
We will have to run them down one by one and grab them by the neck and shove their face in it…or else just let it go.
IMO, referring to “doubters” as “those who don’t accept climate science” is not exactly a precise use of language. You may well accept “climate science” without accepting a set of conclusions you think are incorrect.
Then there is the object of the doubt – which really isn’t climate change. It’s the adjectives they fail to include (catastrophic anthropogenic)
It was and is a mistake for any CAGW skeptics to use the term climate change.
How about Climate Visionaries? We see where this is going and when the wheels fall off the climate cult bandwagon the rest of society will be in awe.
Definitely a good thing, and others should follow suit.
As far as skeptic goes, people on both sides of a debate can be skeptics or ardent believers.
And yet the “Climate Change Doubters” do not doubt that the Climate changes. They just don’t think that we are causing damage with CO2.
I am extremely certain that 2 degrees of warming (should it occur and that is a big if) will not be problematic on a planet with huge swaths of perpetually frozen wastelands, and much of the habitable surface too cold to survive on without large stores of food, warm clothing, and adequate shelter.
There is simply no evidence that warming is dangerous, which is one of the three legs of the CAGW stool, and the most important.
If it is not dangerous, it does not matter one single bit if it happens.
Sorry… too cold to survive on for much of each year, without…
Have you seen David Friedman’s back-of-the-envelope calculation of the possible effects of a temperature rise of up to 10 degrees C?
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2015/09/if-we-burned-all-our-fossil-fuel.html
Mr Lock,
Thank you very much for the link. Very interesting post by a person who seems like a very good thinker.
Interestingly, I had earlier today respond in a similar tone to a post on WUWT on this same catastrophic prediction. You can read my comments here , which are very similar to the one you linked to, even though I only read this one hours after writing my own similar thoughts.
One reason I love coming to this site and reading and writing here is that so often I hear others voice what I myself was thinking, which helps me to have confidence that I am on the right track with my ideas, thoughts, reactions, and opinions.
We have it on good authority here that the tropics will never warm by enough to make them uninhabitable. It cannot happen on a planet with so much water…and never has happened in all of Earth history. The tropical regions would become very much more wet and rainy than they already are…which would lead to an explosion of life, rather than an uninhabitable zone. Hot air rises, and space remains cold, and rising hot humid air will always have the same result…thunderstorms and rain, and transport of massive amounts of heat energy to the upper atmosphere. Where it will dissipate into space.
Much of the heat will also be transported polewards by the same mechanisms which do so today, and these mechanisms will likely become more efficient at doing so, leading to a more uniform global temperature pattern.
One thing I am sure of, life will remain as it has always been…highly tenacious, incredibly resilient, amazingly adaptive, highly diverse, and very well suited for the various ecological niches and biomes that the world provides.
They *always* leave out the catastrophic anthropogenic part of it.
Any term requiring three words or more is bogus pc on the face of it and just pushing bafflegab.
I am a Skeptic pure and simple, and I deny any assertion the Warmistas have clue about real climate at all. They are a political movement, not scientists. You can’t be that consistently wrong by accident.
I am not sure if I am a skeptic…..
This may be the single most Warmista-free comment section I have ever seen!
What up wit’ dat?
They are too busy looking up Sandinista.
🙂
“Our guidance is to use climate change doubters or those who reject mainstream climate science and to avoid the use of skeptics or deniers.”
This just sounds like “belief in climate change is a religion” because that is something people doubt or reject. Its religion. Just like Doubting Thomas, its about belief. Nothing to do with science. So stick it to them….
Don’t get offended by it, just keep asking them why they are using religious terminology in regards to science? Or you can put it in a meaner setting and ask them: when did you join the cult of global warming?
Sometimes the less you say will have more effect. And I have seen the trolls spasm and whirl when confronted by their own projections….all along they thought we were heathens and religious fruit-cakes when the truth was the opposite all along.
If they want to get it right they need to include “catastrophic anthropogenic” in it. No one doubts, rejects, denies, or is a skeptic that climate changes. Everyone knows climate changes. It’s the proverbial elephant in the room.
Does this mean the “Skeptical Science” website will become the “Doubtful Science” website?
The activists on the other side of the fence are really people who want to limit anthropogenic CO2 emissions. That’s the hidden agenda behind all the CAGW alarmism isn’t it? Maybe they should be referred to as ACAs – Anti-anthropegenic CO2 Activists….
Actually AP should keep the term denier and use it for those that believe man made global warming is a significant factor in climate change. These alarmist, the promoters of man made global warming, are the deniers. They deny the fact that all their models have gone bust. They deny the fact that the only reliable measure of the global temperature ( satellite data) has shown no warming for almost 20 years. They deny the benefits of CO2. They deny the fact that the oceans are not rising at an alarming rate and storms are not getting more frequent or more sever. In fact they deny everything that is true and exaggerate everything that gives them a glimmer of hope that their doomsday scenarios could happen. The term that should be used for those that oppose this madness is realist. Seriously those that oppose these Nuts should be called ” Climate Realist.”
Excellent!
This change is also a reflection of the status of the debate. No longer can responsible news organizations feel comfortable with the cliSci status quo with the events starting with climate gate and followed by clear failure of models, the ‘pause’, failure of MetOffice of the UK on virtually all seasonal forecasts, record cold winters and snowfall, IPCC errors and backpedaling, Mark Stern’s ” Disgrace to the profession… ” etc.
Newspapers don’t want to find themselves on the wrong side of the question. They’ve sensed the change in confidence in the mainstream theory. The Agenda masters have even revealed their real motivations in candid comments – getting rid of democracy, free enterprise, freedom of speech, civilization itself…. Others will follow suit.
Jimbo Sept 23, 6:05 post
“Our experience with nutrition science over the past half-century should arm us with doubt about climate science too. The point is not to ignore scientific data but to treat all studies, models, and predictions with a degree of skepticism. Don’t accept the argument from authority: That the entire medical establishment endorsed the war on saturated fat did not make it true.”
Excellent post
Many wiser and more mature professions than the current mainstream climate scientist make healthy use of skeptics and blockers in their group to flush out irrational ideas and solutions from their studies . It is unfortunate that the current crop of mainstream climate alarmists have never heard of this approach. Their negative attitude toward any form of questioning appears to me a case of fear and worry that the inherit flaws in global warming science will be exposed to the public . Why would anyone else who is absolutely sure of their science not step up and openly debate their science in public instead of hiding behind RICO type of investigations to hush their fellow scientists. Or is this a case of scientific arrogance . As the climate cools over the next many decades , the public will finally come to realize that the current version of global warming science has a little bit of truth in it but much of it may have been over-exaggerated and discoloured by worst case scenarios to make it look legitimate and the threat more imminent. Unfortunately a lot of money will have been wasted by then as the solutions that the alarmists urged on the public will have had negligible effect on the climate which may be cooling rather than warming for the next many decades.
“real skeptics – who debunk mysticism, ESP, global warming, and other pseudoscience,”
FTFY, AP.
BTW, note this is hardly worth celebrating, AP not only says AGW skeptics aren’t “real skeptics,” they also accuse them of not using “scientific inquiry, critical investigation and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.”
The junk science AP publishes every single day on the subject is an integral part of the global warming scam and frankly I’d prefer they just keep calling us deniers rather than adopt a pretense of objectivity.
I do not share the moderator’s joy over the term ‘doubter.’ To be honest, it should be ‘realist’ or what I’ve used: ‘normalist.’ AP isn’t going to stop publishing the word ‘denier’ and neither is anyone else. The new term is almost worse, save that it lacks the Holocaust innuendo.
I agree with these comments: Phillip Bratby September 23, 2015 at 1:25 am ~ latecommer2014 September 23, 2015 at 1:43 pm ~ John Silver September 23, 2015 at 2:20 am for humor! ~ menicholas September 23, 2015 at 5:11 am ~ dbstealey September 23, 2015 at 8:37 am ~ RockyRoad September 23, 2015 at 6:03 am* ~ markstoval September 23, 2015 at 12:57 am ~ menicholas September 23, 2015 at 5:17 am ~ emsnews September 23, 2015 at 5:48 am ~ Kevin Lohse September 23, 2015 at 1:00 am** ~ G. Karst September 23, 2015 at 6:43 am -p ~ Samuel C. Cogar September 23, 2015 at 6:23 am ~ Jake September 23, 2015 at 7:35 am
Is there an exception for weekends, holidays, or Earth Day? After all, jabs and demonizing sells as a basic underpinning of the industry.
The Associated Press did NOT “drop the ugly climate term ‘denier’ in their AP stylebook.”
The headline on this blog article is at best misleading. The AP did not “drop” anything. They added the two controversial sentences.
Here is the full AP Stylebook entry for global warming, with the added sentences in bold:
Do the added sentences improve the original?
Strictly speaking, the AP didn’t drop the “D” word from the Stylebook, they added it. This appears to be a case of prigs pressuring AP to justify censorship.
Dear Anthony,
Your decision is WRONG. (I am sad to say this).
“Doubters”,
The term “doubters” implies pathos. It is completely inappropriate: it is also misleading and weak.
“Mainstream climate science”.
This expression describes the two-faced cowards who perpetuate the Great Global Warming Gravy Train.
There is no such thing as climate science: there is no such thing as mainstream science: there is only science.
IMAGINE
Just suppose the entire myth is finally EXPLODED and all of a sudden WUWT becomes the leading website on “proper science to show you how you’ve all been conned”.
Please, I ASK YOU to imagine that this is possible.
Your very own WUWT website could then become known as “mainstream climate science” but in order to accept such a massive, public following and public approval you would have to swallow your own censorship rule.
I ask you to think again.
Regards,
WL
What ever the reasoning at AP, the ploy has worked a treat at WUWT.
I’m at a bit of a loss here as to why you think this is a good thing, Anthony. They specifically stated why they were dropping it…
” They say they aren’t skeptics because “proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims.” ”
In other words, using the term skeptic legitimizes you and makes people think you might have a good reason to doubt the assertions being made. Instead they’re just going to go with “doubters” which could be a bunch of hillbillies that doubt the earth is round too.
The fact that they stop using the word “denier” at the same time is window dressing… the phrase just makes THEM look bad for the mud slinging.
The AP Stylebook didn’t “drop” the “ugly climate term.” They were NOT using it until the change they made actually ADDed the word to their section on “global warming.” The headline on this blog article is wrong.
https://blog.ap.org/announcements/an-addition-to-ap-stylebook-entry-on-global-warming
What bothers me is that those who oppose CAGW are not a monolithic group. I can think of 5 major groupings off the top of my head:
1) The low sensitivity group.
2) The high feedback group.
3) The solar group.
4) The pressure group.
5) The 2nd law group.
I can support 1 and 2, and I think that most of those active here who I can respect scientifically fall into one or both of them. One might be called GW Lite. Two could be called doubters as the question is if the negative feedback is sufficient to basically eliminate any global warming based on CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. 3-5 are rather sui generis (sp?) but I’m not sure “doubter” really describes any of them.
To the AP:
Correct guidance to support scientific method and civil discussion.
Your guidance “to use climate change doubters” is an ad hominem denigration of people who recognize that climate has been changing for 4.5 billion years. It is an EQUIVOCATION used for the ad hominem denigration of being scientifically illiterate against all who challenge that model and logically and scientifically unsupported.
The AP also uses Conflation: See “Conflation means the mixing up of two or more ideas or terms which might at face value appear to be about the same underlying thing.”
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/conflation-confusion-and-conditioning/
e.g., by supporting the UNFCCC’s 1992 political redefinition of “climate change” from the scientific definition of a statistical change in climate to:
2. “Climate change” means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”
https://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/background_publications_htmlpdf/application/pdf/conveng.pdf
The AP’s “dispute the world is warming from man-made forces” is similarly used to accuse people of being scientifically illiterate and anti intellectual. The technical issue is NOT “warming from man-made forces” but the MAGNITUDE of the anthropogenic contribution to climate change. In particular, whether humans cause the MAJORITY of observed global warming since 1950 as asserted by the IPCC.
The AP’s recommended phrase: “reject mainstream climate science” is pejorative to all scientists applying the scientific method regarding climate. E.g. Those who show that the model predictions of “main stream climate science” violate the scientific method.
I recommend the AP ensure that all terms comply with Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman’s description of the scientific method.
i.e., if the model predictions do not match the evidence, “they are wrong”. E.g., See climate scientist John Christy’s May 13 testimony to Congress that shows that “main stream climate science” model projections from 1979 to 2015 err by 400% for predictions of the tropospheric tropical temperatures. Testimony at:
http://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II00/20150513/103524/HHRG-114-II00-Wstate-ChristyJ-20150513.pdf
Thus the IPCC’s CMIP5 climate models simply fail the scientific method since their predictions differ dramatically (400%) from the evidence and are “wrong”.
I recommend the AP use terms that neither denigrate persons nor destroy the scientific method.
Best would be to use neutral statements relating to “climate PREDICTIONS”, or “climate PROJECTIONs”. Similarly, refer to questioning the “Consensus” rather than the “Science”.
as “test climate models”.
Instead of “reject”, I recommend “question”, “challenge”, “expose”, or “dispute climate predictions” or “challenge IPCC projections”, etc.
Far better would be to describe those who
“question majority human climate change”
or who are “climate degree questioners”
Correct “reject mainstream climate science”
to “question climate consensus”
or “challenge climate predictions”
See discussion at Framing the Debate by Pointman
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/framing-the-debate/
Richard Feynman, Cargo Science, 1974, Caltech. http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/3043/1/CargoCult.pdf