When Climate Rhetoric Becomes Offensive
Of all the rhetorical excesses associated with the climate debate, I find the overt Nazi/fascist/Holocaust allusions the most offensive. Both sides are guilty.
Christopher Monckton, the darling of climate skeptics, has become notorious for his Hitler references and use of swastika imagery. It almost seems like a tic he can’t shake.
In a similar vein, those who are passionately concerned about climate change have made unseemly Holocaust comparisons. For example, several years ago, James Hansen coined this metaphor:
The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.
A variation on this was made yesterday in the comments section of a Climate Progress post. A regular commenter at the site, referring to fossil fuel companies, wrote:
This is war, baby, and we have to stop letting them load us onto the cattle cars.
Another regular commenter, referencing the actual post, which is about the media’s shortcomings in reporting on climate change, responded:
And the MSM [mainstream media] are the prison kapos.
The warped nature of the climate discourse never ceases to amaze.
Extremism in the defense of
A. Liberty
B. Economic growth
C. Higher living standards
D. Saving the planet
E. All of the above
is no vice……..
I suppose that I will be the one who beings up the use of the term “deniers”.
Aside from the entertainment value, what’s the point of talking about these bozos?
Since you linked to Mike Roddy’s comment, let me footnote that Andy Revkin reached his new all time low yesterday by censoring out my comment where I dared to contradict him.
Yes, reducing every policy debate to a fight between good and evil gets tiresome. It must be wonderful to live in a world where that level of intellectual clarity is possible.
The only label I find offensive is ‘denier’ for obvious reasons. Perhaps what makes it worse is that knowing how it is received, it seems to get used with all the more frequency and glee. Anyone been to Tamino’s recently?
Denier is a useful term for the politically charged “skeptic” that does not believe in basic radiative physics and swallows whole the typical cheerleading WUWT comment. Therefore, the second paragraph should be changed to
Christopher Monckton, the darling of climate skeptics, deniers…
Anteros: A word that is used intentionally to incite and inflame is only powerful when people are offended. Your response is exactly what Tamino and Wolfe are shooting for… and you willingly give them the full measure of what they seek. Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Monckton got invited to lecture Congress. Ponder that, all of you clutching your pearls over ‘denier’.
I agree with #2 and #5 about the term ‘denier.’ Even for those who want to pretend that that term is not used because of its convenient ‘holocaust denier’ implications, it is simply not an accurate or appropriate term for people who question a THEORY. And the Big Scary AGW Story is just a theory, not a fact.
The correct term for those who question theories is ‘objective critical thinker.’ When they do this professionally they are often called objective scientists.
Now what is the proper term for someone who accepts a theory and call anyone who doesn’t a ‘denier’?
As to this whole ‘Nazi’ thing, take a look at the culture we live in. We are constantly reminded of WW II – the last nice simplistic good v evil war story – so tooooo many references to that are predictable. Moreover, anyone familar with the details of that history knows about the parallels that make some comparisons very valid.
Looking at the current propaganda wars in the US, I’m just surprised that nobody has figured out a way to inject the race card into the AGW debate. Or did I miss that?
Also, KK, you do realize that Hanson is talking about actual plants and actual trains, right? Producing/carrying a product that Hanson thinks spells death for a livable climate?
Are only factories that incinerated people and trains that carry people to them, in WWII, ever allowed to be called ‘death factories’ and ‘death trains’? Is that how we are supposed to honor those murdered in the Holocaust?
Ed #8:
“The correct term for those who question theories is “˜objective critical thinker.'”
LOL. *If only* that were necessarily true. The ‘skeptical’ voices in the climate debate demonstrate conclusively that it isn’t.
Not to mention that your understanding of the scientific meaning of ‘theory’ seems shaky at best. But this tends to be true of mainstream science deniers (e.g., the anti-evolution crowd) generally, IME.
(Whether AGW constitutes a scientific theory at this point is an interesting question in itself, but not the sort of thing C-A-S threads are about. )
#10 – Well, “theory” is close enough to describe the AGW hypothesis, or whatever you would like to call it. Personally I see the Big Scary AGW Story – you know, the ‘end of the world’ version with disappearing islands and hellish heat, droughts, floods, pestilence and all that – as a fear-mongering fairy tale of Biblical proportions.
In any case, model-based speculation is not a fact. Therefore, anyone who questions something which is not a fact is not a “denier.”
But, again, what do you label someone who chooses to accept a theory/hypothesis/fairy tale while calling those who do not ‘deniers’?
To be very charitable, how about an ‘ideologue.”
Then there’s this parallel smear of calling people who do not accept the establishment orthodoxy as ‘anti-science’ – when in reality those who attempt to end questions represent the true anti-science mentality.
And then there’s this other smear where people try to link the Creationist crowd with those questioning the AGW story.
It is all very lame, and it is obviously not working. Crying wolf has inevitable consequences, particularly when every day the wolf looks more and more like a poodle.
Hmmm, that doesn’t sound like the ordinarily sensible and nuanced views of Mike Roddy.
Ha! Too funny. Menth, I love you, man.
The media will free themselves of deserving the term ‘kapo’ when they actually aggressively investigate what climategate revealed and when Hansen, Trenberth, Gore and others who either use science or politics or both combined to promote their social agenda are called out by journalists.
As tot he over hyped language the AGW community adopted by choice, let that community suffer the consequences.
The warped nature of the climate discourse never ceases to amaze.
Check out the latest blog post at Climate Etc. One side screaming about the fate of their grandkids, the other about the errosion of their freedoms…meanwhile, around the world over 900 million shrug their collective shoulders and ask “Could we possibly receive a wee bit of food?”
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm
Doesn’t matter the number of studies that attest to our innate tendency toward confirmation bias, it is always an affliction inherent to our opponent.
Quite frankly I am sick of deniers who like to call themselves skeptics, or make supposely rational statements like “questioning the theory” etc.
They are not skeptics. They never have been and never will be. The reason they are called deniers is because that is exactly what they do – deny. It has nothing to do with holocaust denial, although there are similarities. Both deny facts and evidence for ideological reasons.
The reason the rhetoric is offensive is because deniers are offensive. They offend my sensibilities with their twisted distortion of evidence. They offend my sensibilities with their denial of well understood scientific principles. They offend my sensibilities with their cherry picking. And they offend my sensibilities with their hypocrisy.
Quite frankly, the only ‘offensive’ thing in the climate debate is the opinion of a denier.
Howard @6 –
There may be something in what you say, although I think you misunderstand the nature of emotional reactions, and the way certain terms become unacceptable. I can walk down my London streets and nobody is going to call me a nigger – which is not because of the possibly knee-jerk ‘pavlovian’ response, or because people learned not to respond emotionally. And in fact nobody has recently called me a ‘denier’ to my face, so I think to say all the attention should be on the response of the person insulted slightly misses the point.
I think if someone is using an abusive term on the internet that they would be too cowardly to use in the flesh, that says all we need to know about both them, and the term.
16 Anteros:
I think the comparison of denier with the n-word is a gross exaggeration. You are correct that is says something about the users of “denier”, however, not all we need to know.
As you say, the blogs give license to say things that would not be said face to face. If you want to get offended by it, fine. However, being thin skinned tells quite a lot about someone as well. If a Tamino jerks your chain by calling you a denier, it is important to know that you placed the chain around your own neck to be jerked.
Cheers
Howard @17: I agree with Anteros. “Denier” is a beyond-the-pale term of abuse.
Those who use it, as far as I’m concerned, advertise themselves as advocates seeking political advantage by any means necessary. They are not engaging in honest, rational discourse.
I don’t exercised about it, but anyone who uses the term loses several points of my respect. It is not congruent with the mantle of reason and science which the climate orthodox claim.
That the term is in widespread use in orthodox circles doesn’t surprise me. It is yet another indication that there is something irrational and rotten about the climate change movement, and that the orthodox can’t make their arguments on the merits, but must resort to propaganda tactics.
Howard @18
I don’t think is a gross exaggeration – perhaps a small one. How about faggot? Do people put chains around their necks when they get upset by that?
There is another point which is that ‘denier’ is counter-productive. If you have any sincere intention to engage with people you would wish to convince about the importance of climate change, using the word ‘denier’ hardly spreads confidence about your intention to use reason [perhaps because that is not your intention] Even more importantly it shows that you demonise dissenters because you have a fundamentalist outlook – you advertise merely your closed mindedness.
I don’t go to Tamino’s echo-chamber because it is offensive to me. I think other people will avoid it because of its closed-minded fundamentalism. If that is what grant Foster wishes for, so be it.
In a pragmatic sense, being thin-skinned is not something people DO to themselves. It is something that they are. I think the use of abusive language is much more amenable to change, and being ‘thick-skinned’ about words we find offensive is not the way that usage changes.
Perhaps it’s different where you live – if Tamino called me a denier in the flesh, he could take his busted up face to the local magistrate and they’re just gonna say “what did you expect?”
And you’re right – I also have to live with the internet being the way it is.
“Denier” advertises weakness.
You would think that people who believe in AGW ( like me) would be smart enough to realize..
1. the term denier doesnt win the debate
2. the oxygen in the room gets sucked up whenever the term is used.
3. The unconvinced find your unwillingness to use a different term childish.
We;ve been using the term without any measureable benefit.
Is the term offensive? who cares. Does it work to convince the unconvinced? probably not.
I stopped using it, because it didnt work. Silly me, I think people can have their minds changed and that the unconvinced can be won over.
But you all go on wasting time arguing about how the term is not offensive. clock’s ticking. lemme know when you are done testing your stupid ass approach to winning hearts and minds.Tweet it a billion times. morons.
I don’t (often) use the term denier for similar reasons to Steven Mosher – less the third reason – but let’s be absolutely clear about it, the outrage about the term is entirely artificial. You can find one or two examples on the internet where it has been used in connection to Holocaust denial, but if you try hard enough you can find anything on the internet. The ‘sceptics’ have created a sense of victimhood about the term and suggested it is being used in a way that it isn’t. To my mind this is the more offensive action. Complaining you are being compared to a Holocaust denier, rather than trying to explain why your position is not one of denial, exposes the weakness of that position.
20 Anteros, It’s very pathetic when you talk of a violent confrontation in your dream of a denialist real life encounter with Tamino. You sound like a wannabe Rosa Parks with a Steven Segal left hook.
I hope Steven enjoys winning over your heart and mind. Silly me, I thought the science did the talking. I need to keep up with the marketing team to adjust my talking points. I keep forgetting that paleoclimate does not matter.
OPatrick @23 –
You’ve just done exactly what a lot of people have been saying on this thread – that trying to get people to explain why their position doesn’t entail denial is a simple display of your rigid fundamentalist thinking. You think your imaginings of the distant future are so ‘true’ that not to be able to see then is ‘denial’ ? That’s not actually offensive it’s just laughable.
That’s nothing to do with reason or science – it is faith. It is a religion.
Howard. Pretty much the same. If you think it is science talking to you about the certainty of a disastrous future, you have a hearing problem. And if you’re not certain then there cannot be a place for denial – only disagreement. And like OPatrick, if you still see denial, it is because your thinking has morphed into faith and imagination. From there on the process is simple – faith leads to fundamentalism, fundamentalism leads to the demonising of dissenters, and that usually ends up with using words like ‘denier’.
Anteros, if you can’t see denial in many comments from people who claim they are sceptics then you are in denial – this does not mean that all ‘sceptics’ are in denial, or actively promote denialism. If you are not in denial then when you are accused of being a denier explain as patiently as you can why you aren’t.
I wonder if you can spot the irony in your comment, becoming irrate about the use of ‘denier’ yet accusing those you disagree with of faith and religious fundamentalism?
OPatrick –
There is something in what you say. And I certainly see people who do not wish to see reality all around me. Places like WUWT are dripping with them. But of course they are much less evident to me than you – that is the way of things.
Sadly the opportunity to patiently explain why I am not a ‘denier’ is one that doesn’t come around too often. If you were Italian it might be theoretically possible to explain why you were not a fascist but it might be pretty unpleasant to have the term thrown at you all day long – just because you were Italian.
To be honest the thing I find irritating about the denier meme is it’s like someone sticking their fingers in their ears and saying ‘nya nya nya’ but insulting you at the same time. It’s less the insult than the refusal to acknowledge. And as Steve Mosher says, it’s just a rhetorical device that doesn’t help anything.
hehe.
nobody gets the object lesson in me using offensive language to convince my own side to not use offensive language when trying to convince .others.
sheesh I’m going back to coding. effin machine knows how to take instruction. humans suck. tell me when human 2.0 is released
Steven Mosher: Yeah, go back to your code hole. That is what you are good at. When you get done, please be sure to report back and tell us all about it in a guest post on WUWT
Before you go, please tell us if your human control issues are actually another object lesson that us untermensch don’t get? How about your “bad day” rant excuses?
Cheers