To verify spelling, I started to enter “swa….’, in the Google search box on my Firefox screen when Google’s auto-complete feature suggested “Lord Christopher Monckton displayed on the giant conference screen a large Nazi swastika”.
I kid you not.
So, it appears that rascal Chris may have managed to get himself more strongly associated with “Swa….” than Hitler himself! I guess that’s what saying things like “Heil Hitler, on we go,” while standing by a Swastika can do for your image.
Hat tip to Anthony at WUWT for finding a story with that ran the swastika image along with the text. Image from news.com.au
Note: The autocomplete happens when I use the searchbox on Firefox but not when I visit “http://google.com”. I don’t know why this is.
Lucia, that looks like Google’s “personalized search” at work. It just suggests you are more interested in Monckton than Hitler. Which is good, I think …
Paul–
I’m still rather amazed! (Both by personalized google search and by Monckton addiction to argument ad hitlerium.)
Lucia, compared to me, you seem to attend cocktail parties with more-interesting guest lists. Google-monitored parties, anyway.
Here are Google’s suggestions to me for:
swa -> swamp people
swas -> swashbuckler
swast -> Swastika – Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
AMac–I don’t know. Swamp people and swashbucklers might be pretty interesting.
For those of us at work, mind putting the swastika image below the fold?
Also, Monckton seems to be the subject of a classic example of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” oversight common among ideologues. The guy is clearly not all there at times (he did discover a cure for HIV, after all), but gets a lot more credence from folks when talking about climate than, say, politics (his party, UKIP, is pretty fringe, and he is prone to spout various vacuous NWO conspiracy crap).
Zeke (#77785),
Yes, and the same applies to climate scientists in bed with enviro-loon organizations. It does not help their cause or their credibility.
Yes, I get ‘swamp people’ too. I must lead a very dull, and somewhat damp life. Sigh.
Out of curiosity, I tried Bing. I had to enter swas before swastika was suggested. Then searching on swastika didn’t produce the Monckton article in the first several pages of search results. I retain my scepticism about the honesty of Google search results.
I also get ‘swamp people’. I think lucia must be doing some questionable searches…
As a followup test may lucia should type ‘hor’ in the search box and see if ‘horoscope’ comes up instead of ‘horst wessel’.
your results are personalized by google. each of you will get different results based on 57 variables that google collects about you, where you live, what you’ve searched before,
On Google, after typing “swa” I got “swatch.
“swas” gave me “swash”.
“swast” and “swasti” gave me “swasti eco cottage”.
“swastik: gave me “swastik tiles”.
“swastika” didn’t give me any suggestions but the top of the lost was the “swastika” Wikipedia entry.
I got “tundra swan,” “swarovski,” “swastica in the forest” and “swatch”
If I type ‘hor’ in the firefox google search box, I get “horn of africa”. “The offspring of horses” and “wordpress the_author()” as first choices.
I get much weirder auto-completes in firefox, which suggests firefox must be storing information that google is not. (I actually know why “The offspring of horses” is coming up and has to do with a search arising out of the great “Obama birth-certificate controversy”. I’ll leave it to all of you to wonder about that.
When I typed “Lucia” Google suggested “Luciano.” I had never heard of him; he is an entertainer with bad hair.
swa get’s me:
Swamp People
swagbucks
swarovski
swag
swas:
swashbuckler
swash
swason
sawbuck (???)
swash plate
swast:
wasted (???)
swastik kopparty (someone’s name, apparently a mathematician, MIT and Princeton)
swastik tiles
swastik pipes
Zeke (Comment #77785) June 23rd, 2011 at 8:53 am
“The guy is clearly not all there at times (he did discover a cure for HIV, after all), but gets a lot more credence from folks when talking about climate than, say, politics”
Senior Republicans seem to like him – ironically I think his British upper-class manner must impress them – or something. Also he is quite effective when paired against an academic climate-expert on TV who hasn’t done their homework properly. He is an effective discombobulator.
In terms of the actual sceptical case as a coherent and rational position he is manifestly a liability – a living strawman 🙂
@Lucia
Okay, so we just had the Lindzen paper rejected for no reason. Now, we find out that Michael Mann had a pre-selected reviewer for his bogus sea level paper. Do you realize this to be a major problem or did you avoid listening to anything about it?
I’m going to do some discovery on how these journals PNAS and Nature are funded. If there is tax payer money going to them, they need to be defunded immediately. This small group of scientists that is trying to uphold the hoax should also be prosecuted. Michael Mann owes me a written apology, along with Gavin Schmidt and all the rest of his superfriends.
Furthermore, I also submit that the majority of scientists in the world today do not believe in global warming. We know for a fact now that most meteorologists don’t believe it and I would suspect most physicists share the same opinion. The result of this has been predictable. The team has declared that none of these specializations are qualified to address global warming.
I’ve got an upcoming global cooling conference coming up this December and I am wondering Lucia, if you will kindly look the other way when I open the windows and turn the air conditioner on. Additionally, if a Republican wins the next presidential election and fires James Hansen, I fully expect you to keep your mouth shut.
@NYG only
“Also he is quite effective when paired against an academic climate-expert on TV who hasn’t done their homework properly.”
Thats because he knows more than almost all the climate scientists. Take a look at them. Heidi Cullen, Ray Pierre Humbert, Hansen, Alley, Santer, etc. They are all extremely far left hacks that no nothing. The debate is rather simple. The above mentioned scientists believe that feedbacks in the system (clouds, water vapor) are going to enhance the greenhouse effect by 300%. Anyone with a brain should no this is extremely wrong. Common sense tells us the feedbacks have to be negative. Otherwise, you’re basically arguing that the earth has no mechanism to cool itself. Obviously, it has to have negative feedbacks because it cannot account for extreme weather events like a volcanic eruption. It is also important to mention that the earth is below the historic GAT, which these scientists have intentionally tried to hide. I should note that nobody has done an adequate job explaining this. Lucia, I want you to ask your friends if the earth is above GAT or below, just to prove it to you. I anticipate 90% will say it is above historic GAT. It isn’t complicated. Heidi Cullen claimed a flood in Tennessee was a 1 in a thousand year event. Lord Monckton couldn’t say something dumber if he tried. Furthermore, NYG, do you think anyone here is even close to as qualified as Monckton? I think not.
In my opinion, Lucia got that result because google is actively trying to ruin Lord Monckton’s reputation. I’ve noticed strange things in my searches as well, like google burying tons of articles that contradict global warming on page 20 or so. Also, wikipedia recently edited the paleo climate page they had up. It has been changed in the past 3-4 weeks or so. The following information was deleted. There was probably more but this is the most important.
“The establishment of CO2-consuming (and Oxygen-producing) photosythesizing organisms in the Precambrian led to the production of an atmosphere much like today’s, though generally much higher in CO2 than today. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has been gradually decreasing from a concentration of 7000 ppm 530 million years ago. In fact, only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm (see article “Climate and the Carboniferous Period” (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html|) Earth’s atmosphere today contains about 370 ppm CO2 (0.037%). To see a graph of the world’s average temperature and and the CO2 levels throughout the Phanerozoic, [Click this Link (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif)]
The Earth’s temperature during the Phanerozoic has been either ~12C or ~22C, but it has seldom stayed at an intermediate value for any significant length of time. For most of the past 600 million years the world’s average temperature was about 22C. The exceptions to that are as follows. For a short period at the end of the Ordovician (~440 mybp) there was a drop to about 12C that lasted a few million years. In the Upper Devonian through most of the Mississippian (~370 mybp to ~310 mybp) the temperature dropped to about 20C. Then, during the Pennsylvanian and Permian (~310 mybp to ~250 mybp) there was a protracted period when the world’s average temperature again dropped to about 12C. For a few million years around the end of the Jurassic and the beginning of the Cretaceous there was another drop, but this time only to about 17C. For the last 40 million years or so the world’s temperature has been dropping and is now again hovering around 12C.
@Lucia
Why do you think they deleted this? I can’t wait to see how you try to blow this one off, by the way. The fact is there is a concerted effort to alter the historic temperature record and so the grand dragons of global warming have themselves become the deniers.
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd.
The word you are trying to use is spelled “know”.
Maybe they’ve already written it but can’t seem to locate your real name and address.
Shoosh: 4 comments in a row? Without waiting for someone else to responde? I’m seriously considering putting your IP and sock-puppet handle back into the slow-down plugin.
In case you can’t tell I’m furious. Also, I have been booted from pretty much everywhere. I’ve haven’t been able to comment at realclimate for over 3 months now. I tried yesterday but I still get an error message. Skepticalscience was okay, I lasted for a few weeks but that jerk Albatross took a fit every time I posted so the moderators there booted me. Now, I’ve recently discovered you live in San Fransicko which explains a lot to me.
This is ot but I think I have a better chance of you answering this question. I’m predicting California is going to ask for a giant financial bailout sometime between now and next year. The bailout will come in the form of increased taxes and probably money that the government will simply print. Do you think it’s fair that the rest of the country is going to have to pay for your state’s mistakes? Not your individual mistakes ( I don’t know who you voted for). But collectively, California’s voting record reflects that some of the dumbest people in the world live in your state. Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi and Arnold have been disastrous. 33% of all welfare recipients live in California and most of them are white. Can you tell me one thing any of them has done that lowered prices or was some form of a pro business policy? Did you hear what Barbara Boxer said when she won reelection?
“We beat the oil companies in Texas!”
Google:
swa
Swarthmore (absolutely no connection with me that I can recognize)
Swarovski (see above)
Swamp People (see above)
Dr. Jay Cadbury
You’ve learned wrong.
“My” state is heavily in debt but I doubt we will manage to get the rest of the country to pay for our mistakes. FWIW: I don’t think it would be fair to ask the rest of the country to bail us out.
No. I don’t follow California politics. I’m currently more interested in the Blagojevich trial and watching the back and forth between Rahm and the unions.
Wow!
Dr. J keeps on dribbling.
Guessing Lucia is from CA shows he hasn’t been here much.
Difference he’s a Phd anybody else around here?
This is why I stopped using Google search. I do not want personalized results that reflect my opinion. I want real results representing what is really out there.
“booted from just about everywhere”??
Doc, there must be a message in this.
Dr. Cadbury PhD,
I think the climate scientists know that the climate has changed in the past, and probably exactly how it has changed. More importantly they probably have a pretty good idea of why it changed (you know well-defined orbital forcings, volcanic activity, etc.)
I don’t think they somehow missed that fact and were caught in utter astonishment when they read your posts.
WUWT quotes a public apology by Moncton:
“I have been a very bad Lord. My remarks about Professor Garnaut were unparliamentary and unstatesmanlike. Mea maxima culpa. I have apologized to him unreservedly, and I deserve the criticisms that Anthony and many commentators have posted here. Sorry to you all. I shall try to keep my cool in future. – M of B”
Sounds sincere to me and even if it is not he is showing that he is big enough to admit error.
Now let’s hear some apologies from James Hansen, Michael Mann and their lackeys. I am not holding my breath.
gallopingcamel
I had to search for it:
Looks sort of like a notpology to me.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/06/monckton-stirs-the-pot-with-a-cheap-shot-and-the-media-obediently-perform
gallopingcamel (Comment #77853)
June 23rd, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Now let’s hear some apologies from James Hansen, Michael Mann and their lackeys. I am not holding my breath.
——————————————
What does Hansen have to apologize for? All the abuse he’s taken from people like you?
I guess Dr Shooshbury is cleverly trying to enhance Lord Monckton’s credibility, by making him look almost reasonable (in comparison to Dr Shooshbury’s antics). 🙂
“the Australian Government’s climate economist, as ‘fascist’. I apologise humbly.”
He labled him a nazi, which is different to a facist, falangists in Spain, Musolini in Italy and even O Duffy’s blueshirts in Ireland were all fascist. A fascist is basically a mode of one party state while the NSDAP was genocidal.
Still who really cares.
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. (Comment #77818) “Furthermore, NYG, do you think anyone here is even close to as qualified as Monckton? I think not.”
I think you a more qualified than Lord Monckton in the particular area of human thought in which he appears to be specialising. For example I have, at times, noticed some lucid and coherent arguments from Monckton – which suggest his standards might be slipping. He might need some pointers from you in this regard.
lucia,
Thanks for the full quote. The second paragraph suggests that some apologies might be appropriate from his opposition.
He has a point.
Owen,
All I am asking for is for people like Hansen to grow enough to admit their errors publicly. If that should happen I will be much more inclined to regard them as real scientists.
Lord M’s apologies have been getting more unreserved. The story has been quite prominent in the media here. This latest is the current lead on our ABC news website.
Lucia,
Notpology or not, M has a very valid point. Also, he forgot to mention another kind Australian commentator’s recommendation that skeptics be gassed -with excess CO2 mixed with CO, no less. As long as that is allowed to be published without a reaction from the “mainstream” media/commentators or other “upstanding” citizens, I think Godwin’s Law no longer is meangful. Said in passing, I’ve always had a problem with Godwin’s Law applying only to the Nazis. Maybe someone should suggest to Godwin that he update his Law to include references to Stalinist or Maoist Communists. Those two regimes register at least as high -and some well informed observers would argue, higher- on the “History’s Attrocity Meter’s” red zone than the guys who ran Germany from 1933-45.
tetris–
The correct way to criticize someone for suggesting that skeptics be gassed is to criticize that person for suggesting that skeptics be gassed. The incorrect way is to start calling everyone with whom you disagree a Nazi.
Arguing by calling your opponent Lenin, Trotzky, Mao etc. is also bad. That fact doesn’t magically make it ok for Monckton to argue ad Hilterium.
The first few letters gave me variuos autocomplete options with no swastika anywhere to be seen. I typed swastika, and suddenly the auto-complete options emptied, and there were no search results. It seems google has decided swastikas are too scary for me unless I hit the search button to confirm that yes that is really what I want to search for.
Michael–
I wonder if google does that for things that have gotten google-bombed in the past? I get a similar things for the ‘f’ word.
Lucia,
Please note I never indicated or intimated that I agreed with what Monckton did. I don’t.
It would indeed not be good to call your opponents any of the names you mention. If Godwin purports to “measure” a debate in terms of level of insult/degradation on the basis of who first refers to National Socialists, his law is missing out on something by not including the other monsters as reference points.
Lucia,
The problem I flagged is that NOBODY is telling the commentators -some of whom freely operate in what is referred to as “mainstream” media- who call me and fellow skeptics, and “lukewarmers” too, deniers who should be tatood, gassed, etc., etc., to crawl back under the rocks from where they came.
Any suggestions by anyone as to how you actually do tell those upstanding citizens to can it, so they listen?
tetris– Godwin’s law wasn’t trying to measure anything. It was merely an observation.
Is it true that NOBODY is chastising commenters like Jill Singer? It seems to me plenty of people have criticized her. Her viscious little outburst is already noted on her wikipedia page, and one hopes that the news outlets in Australia will realize she’s not someone to move forward. As for me: I’d never heard of her before her stupid offensive statements and I hope she falls into obscurity so that I never hear of her again.
tetris #77946
“Any suggestions by anyone as to how you actually do tell those upstanding citizens to can it, so they listen?”
Jill Singer (gas) is a columnist for Rupert Murdoch’s Herald-Sun, so I suppose you could start there. But RM generally knows what he is doing.
Nick Stokes
That’s an interesting inference. There is no evidence whatsoever that RM is a friend of AGW/ACC dogma. He is very good at selling copy, though.
Lucia
That’s why “measure” was in quotation marks. I understand that it is the “observation” that someone at some point will degrade a discussion/thread by invoking the brown shirts.
What you wish with regard to Ms Singer, I would actually wish with regard to all who with impunity continue to slur skeptics of all stripes as “deniers”. The fact that this implication is grossly insulting and denigrating -and is meant to be precisely that- has worn off, because the MSM have adopted and use the smear in their coverage as if they were talking about cornflakes/oatmeal or popcorn.
News Corp is “carbon neutral”
http://www.newscorp.com/energy/index.html
“What you wish with regard to Ms Singer, I would actually wish with regard to all who with impunity continue to slur skeptics of all stripes as “deniersâ€.”
Who calls skeptics OF ALL STRIPES “deniers”? Surely you can acknowledge that there are many, many people who simply are deniers?
tetris–
I don’t think calling someone a denier is even close to putting up a swastika, with the words “Australian government economist” while discussing Garnaut, or responding to Garnaut’s words with zig Heil (or whatever it was). It’s not like calling people “Nazi Youth”.
As you only insinuate, I’m going to guess what “implication” you find grossly insulting. The reason I object to being called a denier is simply that I don’t deny climate change. That is: it’s inaccurate. But I don’t find it grossly insulting for anyone to be merely mistaken. I don’t believe for one minute that the term is meant to suggest the holocaust, but I do agree it is meant to be perjorative. It’s use makes people angry and derails conversations so I don’t like it to be used here, but get real: the word “denier” does not really invoke nazi’s.
Tetris,
Is someone who calls global warming the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humanity a skeptic or a denier? When does one slide from being an honest skeptic to being a outright denier?
Are there holocaust skeptics as well as deniers?
“Is someone who calls global warming the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humanity a skeptic or a denier?”
I’d call them awake. I would quibble with “greatest” though. It’s actually a pretty lame hoax at this point.
Andrew
Owen
Ok.. maybe this changes my mind. Maybe people who use denier do want to imply “holocaust”.
Re: Owen (Jun 27 06:05),
We can enlist Google auto-complete to help answer the question of what “denial” is associated with.
When I start with “Holocaust”, the first suggestion is “museum”.
Then: facts, survivors, pictures, timeline, movies, quotes, poems.
At #9 is “denial”. The list ends with “concentration camps.”
So it’s there, but doesn’t lead the pack (my pack).
I also tried “evolution”, “climate”, “deny”, “denial”. Nothing relevant. #7 for “denier” is “deniers of the holocaust”. Right after “de niro” (sic).
Andrew,
Are you a skeptic or a denier? Whichever label you wear, I’m sure you wear it proudly!
Owen–
Andrew_KY can only reply after some amount of time. (Otherwise, he start to go on and on about “wiggly lines” or post endless rhetorical questions.)
But I can answer that one: Andrew_KY has said he’s a denier.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2010/maybe-rapp/#comment-55106
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/joe-romms-offers-a-bet/#comment-20549
‘
But I would like you to clarify the point of your rhetorical question:
Until you asked that, it seemed to me I had never seen a link to suggest that those who use the word “denier” are referring to the holocaust. But I can’t see any ‘point’ to that rhetorical question unless you are suggesting denying global warming is similar to denying the holocaust.
Lucia,
I have always thought that denier applied to (and I hate to use this wording) “consensus” or well-established or positions. Because the actual occurrence of the holocaust is an established consensus position (backed up by actual survivors and a ton of evidence), there can be only deniers (or put another way, holocaust skeptics are in fact deniers).
For aspects of global warming on which we have consensus (i.e., the average global temperature has risen in the past 40 years) as indicated by both satellite and surface measurements, I would say that there can be only deniers (like Andrew, who is proud of it and who rejects all temperature records based on lack of trust in the institutions or scientists collecting the data). For the issue of climate sensitivity, especially on the issue of the magnitude of that sensitivity, there are skeptics.
A further elaboration of my position. I would say that someone who has little or no knowledge of climate science, but rejects it on the basis of mistrust or ideological issues is a denier. A person who has carried out their own study of climate science data (and admittedly, there will be a wide range to the quality of such individual “studies”) and on that basis articulates disagreements with the consensus view is in my mind legitimately a skeptic.
(Otherwise, he start to go on and on about “wiggly lines†or post endless rhetorical questions.)
More exaggeration and misrepresentation. My comments (about any subject) are usually short and my use of “rhetorical questions” ended when the hostess asked me to stop using them.
Andrew
Owen:
I think it is disingenuous to say that it is temperature records being “denied”. Those may be debated or questioned but “denialism” is more about rejection of the ideological and theoretical context being applied to that data.
A “denialist” is pretty much anybody who steps out of the politically-defined (as opposed to scientifically-defined) fold for any reason. Examples of people who have got the heretic/denialist label at one time or another:
Roger Pielke Sr (who does not deny or question the physics of greenhouse gases) for pointing out that it has not warmed as much as predicted and that other human influences on climate can’t be ignored or minimized.
Mick Hulme who does not deviate from the orthodox East Anglia view on warming but who openly questions the efficacy of “climate porn” exaggerations in pursuit of a narrowly defined policy agenda.
Roger Pielke jr for studies that show claims of increasing storm frequency and damage costs are seriously flawed–and for helping Hulme spread heresy.
lucia for aiding and abetting denialism by regularly produced graphs that show warming at or below the bottom end of the IPPC-predicted range.
Steven Moshera warmist/lukewarmist who has dared to point out the inescapable fact that the behavior seen in the climategate emails was not good for climate science.
Bjørn Lomborg who does not question the science but makes a very substantive argument that adaption is better than mitigation.
“warmists” invariably claim that they are solely and dispassionately motivated the science of the science. But that facade drops anytime anybody (a) dares to question even conspicuously lousy work or arguments offered in support of The Consensus (e.g., hockey sticks, almost any comment by Pauchuri or Al Gore, etc.) or (b) departs from the preferred political narrative, namely scary scenarios offered in support of massively governmental control over energy and economic policy.
There is considerably more intellectual diversity and substantive thought and judgment among the range of “denialists” than among those who like to use the word “denialist”.
Andrew_KY–
I didn’t say the posts were long. “On and on” can be achieved by posting numerous repetitive comments.
As for rhetorical questions, here are some from June 2011:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/post-to-discuss-sunspots/#comment-77222
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/hmm-what-do-climatologists-have-to-say-about-that/#comment-76979
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/equilibrium-climate-sensitivity-and-mathturbation-part-1/#comment-76874
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/romney-climate-change-is-occurring/#comment-76603
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/manns-email-to-be-released/#comment-76384
Digging back to May
Now, I admit that it’s difficult to argue any other way once you are on a word count limit. But it seems to me you still argue by rhetorical question.
Owen (Comment #77971) :
The label “denier” is not used as you suggest (at least not all the time).
In fact, many people (like me), who accept that .8C of warming have occurred since 1850, and accept the non-feedback additional warming of 1 degree C by 2100, but are skeptical of the magnitude of the climate sensitivity number are often called deniers.
It is a terrible label and is intentionally pejorative.
I is nothing more than name calling and is childish.
I would recommend not using it in the future.
Lucia,
I thought I had made it clear enough on this blog and elsewhere that I am a skeptic who has no problem with the physics that tell us that CO2 contributes to the temperature mix on earth. What I and most other reasonable skeptics do question is the IPCC/ENGO scenario/models that tell us there exists a linear relationship between CO2 emissions and temperatures. Your own work here has put some serious questionmarks around that contention. I likewise question that -by extension- there will be cummulative, runaway consequences if we do not immediately severly curtail ou use of hydrocarbon fuels. That is junk science leading to irrational policy decisions with highly negative economic outcomes.
If that makes me a skeptic, fine. Proud of it. True to my academic training and my natural bent. But it is no excuse – for anyone or for any reason whatsoever – to label me a “denier”. Because as you appear to realize [@ 77965] the word “denier” truly is a vicious slur -intended as such- meant to brand [also used in lieu of tattoing] anyone who questions the IPCC/ENGO dogma.
If anyone on this thread still doubts that “denier” in the AGW/ACC context is a direct reference to the Holoicaust Demier accusation, maybe another careful re-read of Jim Hansen’s diatribe about the [coal] “Trains of Death” should clear things up. He could not have been much more straightforward.
It should be clear by now to anyone not deprived of their faculty to reason that there is a growing body of evidence that there exists NO linear causal relationship between CO2 emissions and temperature; the climate system is by far to complex for that. We do not have anything approaching a meanful understanding of actual climate sensitivity, a key issue because for the IPCC/ENGO alarmist scenarios to hold, sensitivity MUST be positive.
George
I don’t think it’s disingenous to say Andrew_KY denies the temperature record. He sure as heck seems to deny the temperature record– I can’t think of a better verb.
I agree with you that people who use the term often don’t use it the way Owen says.
I do agree with RickA that the term is intentionally pejorative.
I’m just not convinced people who use it intend to make a Nazi allusion and I’m not convinced listeners hear one. I think people who claim a Nazi allusion is being made are mistaken. Possibly egregiously. 🙂
tetris
I agree denier is a slur and usually intended as such. I agree that Hansen made a Nazi allusion and linked people-with-whom he disagrees to the Holocaust. I disagree that the word denier itself makes a holocaust link.
I disagree with this. But our positions on this are irrelevant to the question of whether the term “denier” is used to suggest “holocaust”. I think it doesn’t convey that notion. I think it is a slur because it conveys the notion that someone thinks that “there exists NO …. causal relationship between CO2 emissions and temperature;” and that their belief is so utterly unhinged from reality as to suggest they are psychologically imbalanced.
This implied accusation then substitutes for any discussion of the evidence that a link does exist. (Note: I left out linear. I’m not sure people think the link is linear.)
Lucia,
All I know is that we have a good body of data that tells us that CO2 emissions are not only going up, but are going up at an accelerating rate. Said in passing, strangeluy enough this accelerating trend does not appear to be reflected in the current Mauna Loa data. Meanwhile temperatures are NOT going up in tandem, and certainly do not reflect the accelerating rate part of the equation. So there must be a least one other variable at play.
If anyone on the basis of that info still wants to argue that there is a linear relationship between CO2 and temperature, I give up, because that is simply not what a linear relationship is about.
tetris–
1) Large systems don’t have the short response times you expect in test tubes.
2) Who says the response is linear?
Lucia,
Agreeing that Hansen did indeed make the Nazi allusion, but then argue that the word denier does not make the holocaust link is -with respect- one of the more intricate exercises in sophism I’ve seen in a while.
tetris–
How? I’m sure Hansen has also used the words “the” and “and”. His making a Nazi allusion has not caused those words to become inextricably linked to the holocaust.
FYI – The questions about listing places where the climate has changed and what ‘global ice caps’ means, were questions that I hoped someone would answer.
So that leaves 3 “rhetorical questions” in a month. I also observed that DeWitt Payne, Science of Doom and Steven Mosher also asked such questions in your examples.
Andrew
This discussion started out as a ritual flagellation of Monckton who admitted that he had been a “Bad Lord”. (He probably enjoys the flagellation thing).
It morphed into a discussion of the “Denier” label that is often attached to people who challenge the idea that CO2 has driven climate warming since 1850.
The majority here recognises that the use of the term “Denier” is what Lucia calls “argument ad hitlerium”.
I can agree with that, so when will “Denier” be proscribed to the same extent as the term “Nigger”