A Damning New Epithet: "Climate Change Denier"

The whole world in Al Gore's hands

I had intended to bring this to your attention last week. This is from Brendan O'Neill, a British writer, in response to the creation of a new category of humanity (which just so happens to include me!)--"CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER." This is the beginning of Brendan's article:

Whoever thought that serious commentators would want it made illegal to have a row about the weather? One Australian columnist has proposed outlawing 'climate change denial'. 'David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial', she wrote. 'Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.' Others have suggested that climate change deniers should be put on trial in the future, Nuremberg-style, and made to account for their attempts to cover up the 'global warming...Holocaust.'

The message is clear: climate change deniers are scum. Their words are so wicked and dangerous that they must be silenced, or criminalised, or forced beyond the pale alongside those other crackpots who claim there was no Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Perhaps climate change deniers should even be killed off, hanged like those evil men who were tried Nuremberg-style the first time around.

Whatever the truth about our warming planet, it is clear there is a tidal wave of intolerance in the debate about climate change which is eroding free speech and melting rational debate. (Read the entire article here)

That rational debate on this issue has melted much more quickly than the polar ice caps is beyond doubt. Even this "climate change denier" epithet is a loaded label. It attempts to lump together those who deny any warming whatsoever (which our very limited data seems to confirm the slightest of warming) and those who grant slight warming but deny that it is caused by man (whether humans are to blame is the crux of the debate). So, you are either a normal, sane person who says that there is man made global warming, or you are a Nazi climate change denier who should be tried war crimes style. Such is the nature of public discourse. Don't fall for it!