The purpose of the term “climate change denier” is to disparage and dismiss dissenters without a hearing and without grappling with the rational arguments against human-caused climate catastrophism and the proposed “solutions” put forth by the catastrophists. “Climate change denier” is also a not-so-veiled smear attempt to lump rational dissenters in with neo-Nazi holocaust deniers.
The “denier” charge is used liberally throughout a New Jersey Star-Ledger guest column by Doug O'Malley, the director of the advocacy group Environment New Jersey. What’s interesting is the way O’Malley starts his article, Trump is leading the Republican party into dangerous game of climate change denial:
In 1988, a presidential candidate argued that critics who said we're powerless to act on the "greenhouse effect" had forgotten about the "White House effect." A year later, a New Jersey governor issued an executive order calling on New Jersey to recognize the "scientific consensus" of climate change and prepare for rising sea levels and intensifying storms.
Consider that, since 1990, “world temperature has increased only half as much as climate models predicted,” according to Reason. As Matt Ridley & Benny Peiser report, there is “great uncertainty” as to the pace of global warming and as regards the severity of the negative consequences, if any. In fact, since 1988, we’ve had one failed prediction of climate change catastrophe after another. The very record of the climate catastrophist movement should be enough to give even a village idiot enough reason to at least pause and question, let alone deny, the case for catastrophism. It seems that the more the case for climate catastrophe collapses, the more hysterical the catastrophists and their predictions become. And the more uncivil their discourse.
One thing is certain. It’s 2016, and still no sign of catastrophe. Just the opposite, in fact. Environmental living conditions have never been better for human beings, thanks to both spreading global trade and free market reforms but also to reliable fossil fueled energy production, which now supplies some 87% of the energy that drives industrial progress.
Terms like “climate denier” are catch phrases intended to smear dissenters by equating them to holocaust deniers for the purpose of stifling legitimate debate. But the shoe belongs on the other foot. The O’Malleys of the world are the ones who have something in common with German Nazism.
The Nazis turned eugenics “science” into a dogma to be treated like an infallible authority not to be questioned. The result was the Jewish holocaust. Likewise, today’s climate catastrophists have turned climate science into a scientological authority akin to a god. If the climate catastrophists get their agenda implemented—outlawing fossil fuel energy even though no viable replacement exists or is likely to exist for many decades—the human catastrophe brought on by the resulting energy privation will dwarf the German holocaust.
Climate catastrophists ignore the big picture, to the extent of engaging in outright fraud. For example, the much-touted 97% “consensus” is only a general acceptance of the fact that climate is changing, and the humans may be a contributing cause. The figure is meaningless, because only 0.5%—1/194th of the alleged consensus—actually believe the earth faces a climate catastrophe and that humans are definitely the cause.
I call these climate catastrophists witch doctors for their blind worship of the climate, to which they are willing to sacrifice human beings. These witch doctors hold unaltered “pristine” nature, not human life, as their moral standard of value. Man survives and thrives by altering the environment to his benefit through technology and industrialization. If we value human life, we’d realize that fossil fuels have made life longer, healthier, safer, more prosperous, and happier than ever before. Fossil fuels, in nations that use them, have turned the danger-filled natural environment into a comparable human paradise. Climate change, to the extent it is a human-caused, is a very minor side effect. Without liberty and abundant energy, life for man in any climate—changing or stagnant—is miserable. Fossil fuels didn’t create a climate crisis. Fossil fuels ended it.
Contrary to O’Malley’s dogma, opposing views are important and shouldn’t be silenced. The climate catastrophists never address and answer the opposing arguments. They just smear and trot out appeals to authority. Anyone who values their lives should take an objective view by reading the many informed works of the alleged “deniers.” Works like Alex Epstein’s The Secret History of Fossil Fuels, the free chapter one of his book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.
Related Reading:
Ad Hominem No Substitute for Reasoned Criticism
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