IPCC author and climate change expert hits "skeptics" hard

Rex Murphy castigated the use of the word 'denier' since it was redolent, he said, of 'holocaust denial'. Some of us objected against this statement as it suggests that 'contrarians', 'sceptics', 'deniers' are unduly vilified.

But Paul G. wrote: "Don't shoot the messenger. Rex pointed out the rhetorical trick GW alarmists have been using. Don't blame him." Messenger? Yes, but the message concerned the association that the word 'denier' evoked in Murphy’s own mind, probably after he had read some recent articles providing a hint here. It seems a bit odd to take the figments of one’s own imagination as established semantics of the derivatives of the verb ‘to deny’, a verb that predates the holocaust by many long years (as indeed the original meaning of the term holocaust predates its present monopolization for one particular historical event by many long years).

Jim Hoggan has already commented on an article on this topic by Brendan O’Neill in ‘Spiked’ of the 6th of October this year. O’Neill also laments about the alleged ‘demonisation’ of climate change denial and quotes, to buttress this charge, a certain Richard D.North who asserted that it was “deeply pejorative to call someone a ‘climate change denier’. It is a phrase designedly reminiscent of the idea of holocaust denial…” This statement by North appeared on the 30th of June last year on the website of a British “think tank” , the “Social Affairs Unit” (as regards its ‘colour’: its most recent article has the title “Break times for NeoCons. Break Times for Freedom”). What particularly bothers me here is the term “designedly reminiscent”. In the wake of the article by O’Neill, Pielke Jr. came up with a similar accusation on his blog. “The phrase ‘climate change denier’ is meant to be evocative of the phrase ‘holocaust denier’” he declared. When somebody challenged him to substantiate this he came up with a vague reference to threads around 2001 on his own blog where allegedly the phrase “climate change denier” was used explicitly “as an allusion to the holocaust” according to those who introduced the phrase, he said.

I am not convinced. I am aware that climate change denial has been compared to holocaust denial by people whose opinions I respect (notably Monbiot in the Guardian of the 21st Sept. this year)) but that usage is more recent than the lament by North, as indeed is Jim Hoggan’s similar comparison in December last year (happily since removed).

Somebody on Pielke’s blog did a Lexis/Nexis search and traced the first use of the term “climate change denial” to a 2002-article in the Toronto Star and a few sources in the UK and New Zealand dated the same year. He does not report that it was then linked to holocaust denial. I tend to believe that this association was first slipped in by somebody who saw an advantage in picturing deniers as an unjustly vilified minority. North is the oldest source along this line I have found.

Arie Brand