Posted on 05/15/2015 5:42:04 AM PDT by HomerBohn
A grass-roots offshoot of a progressive, “social changemaker” nonprofit is petitioning newspapers and other media to begin referring to climate change skeptics as “deniers” by default.
Forecast the Facts, a climate change activism project of a larger nonprofit called the Citizen Engagement Laboratory, argues that media types who use the general term “skeptics” are “misleading the public” on climate change:
Some members of the media are still misleading the public by wrongly using the term “skeptic.” The New York Times, for example, recently called Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) a skeptic — even though he believes that climate change is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated.”
Scientists should practice and promote scientific skepticism, and encourage informed citizens do the same. But those who reject the facts on climate change are not skeptics — they’re deniers.
That statement comes attached to an online petition that asks signers to agree with an assortment of North American and European scientists (and Bill Nye the Science Guy) in calling for the change.
From the scientists’ (and Nye’s) open letter:
As scientific skeptics, we are well aware of political efforts to undermine climate science by those who deny reality but do not engage in scientific research or consider evidence that their deeply held opinions are wrong. The most appropriate word to describe the behavior of those individuals is “denial.” Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science and scientific inquiry.
As the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard pointed out this week, Forecast the Facts is even petitioning The Associated Press to “Establish a rule in the AP StyleBook ruling out the use of ‘skeptic’ to describe those who deny scientific facts.”
For a variety of reasons, many of the elected officials who have expressed doubt at the efficacy of enacting a costly and aggressive environmental policy would not describe themselves as actual “skeptics” when it comes to the question of whether mankind’s activities have played a role in altering the environment. Some do dismiss manmade climate change outright, while others accept it as a truth.
But what nearly all of them have in common is a shared skepticism of the progressivist rallying cry to get the government involved. A lot of lawmakers who may be “skeptical” of climate change are far more “skeptical” of the politics of climate change, of its policy implications. They’re “skeptical” of whether such change poses the sort of cataclysmic threat that climate eschatologists assure them it does.
They’re “skeptical” of the proposed cost, and the predicted efficacy, of any action mankind might take to curb, or reverse, anthropogenic climate change. They’re “skeptical” of those who seek to mobilize private resources — under the force of law — to solve a “problem” that not everyone agrees is a problem.
Even if there were such a thing as “settled science” when it comes to the phenomenon of manmade climate change, there can be no “settled science” on whether that change is a harbinger only of catastrophe. That part’s interpretive, not empirical.
Except that Forecast the Facts and other climate change activists want to make the interpretive part — especially the interpretive part — empirical. By attempting to draft the concept of scientific skepticism into a service for which it isn’t equipped, Forecast the Facts appears more interested in codifying, once and for all, the ideology of its climate change policy goals into a generally accepted truth.
In other words, it’s about surreptitiously folding opinion into the generally accepted, apolitical definition of a commonly used word — and hoping no one will notice.
They have legions of these active termite groups. We have squat. Until we start undermine them the way they do us we don’t stand a chance.
When we as tea partiers took to the streets and raised hell and got in politicians’ faces they feared us. Unfortunately that was a “one and done”, whereas the other side never ever stops pushing their agenda.
Winston examined the four slips of paper which he had unrolled. Each contained a message of only one or two lines, in the abbreviated jargon -- not actually Newspeak, but consisting largely of Newspeak words -- which was used in the Ministry for internal purposes. They ran:
times 17.3.84 bb speech malreported africa rectify
times 19.12.83 forecasts 3 yp 4th quarter 83 misprints verify current issue
times 14.2.84 miniplenty malquoted chocolate rectify
times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling
With a faint feeling of satisfaction Winston laid the fourth message aside. It was an intricate and responsible job and had better be dealt with last. The other three were routine matters, though the second one would probably mean some tedious wading through lists of figures.
Winston dialled 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of The Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, as the official phrase had it, to rectify.…
I used to think being skeptical about claims of anthropogenic global warming was akin to being a phlogiston denier. It seems it’s more akin to being a Piltdown Man denier.
undermine them the way they do us
Some ways noted by many in this thread. Also, defund them the way they do us.
hoaxsters BUMP!
Why not use heretic as climate change is a cult religion with an absolute dogma? This is the beginning of a climate change Inquisition.
Inquisition
Please the Monty Python pics?
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