Eli Is Getting Impatient
Those who deny climate change are very sensitive little snowflakes who dislike being reminded that they are deniers. MT has a nice thread about denial being a denial of service attack, but, reacting with hurt when denial has been pointed out has always been part of the denial toolbox. Recently Marc (C) Morano got into it with Mark (K) Boslough
oh. OK. So it's OK to use word 'denier' and smear link them to Holocaust as long as your specific enclave is not labeled the same.— Marc Morano (@ClimateDepot) May 24, 2019
Now Eli is not one to avoid calling a climate change denier a denier but this time, the Bunny came up with a good defanger
And, that being Twitter, Marc (C) came back for another round. He should not have thoWhy are you stealing the sacrifice of those who died in the Holocaust?— eli rabett (@EthonRaptor) May 24, 2019
So here are Eli's suggestions the next time some anti-Vaxxer, climate change denier or whatever starts bleating about being accused of denying the Holocaust and how mean you are for pointing it outYou use the sacrifice of others to deflect criticism of your duplicity— eli rabett (@EthonRaptor) May 24, 2019
Why are you stealing the sacrifice of those who died in the Holocaust?
You use the sacrifice of others to deflect criticism of your duplicity
Another bunch who wants to steal the suffering of the Holocaust victims for themselves.
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28 comments:
This strategy works very well in Germany. Gratuitously comparing something to the Holocaust is a very efficient way to end your political career. No surprise that morally challenged people like Morano have no problem cheapening these atrocities.
Every meme requires an effective counter, and Eli is the Bunny you need. Thus whenever someotherbunny writes, CO2 is plant food, point out that CO2 is garbage, recycled by photosynthesis using renewable solar.
This is another, when deniers start whining that you are libeling them as Holocaust deniers, tell them to stop trying to steal the suffering of others for their own ends.
You may have learned it from me (and forgot), Mr. Meme Machine.
Isn't a climate science denier, by opposing action to prevent it, enabling the climate holocaust not simply denying it? It seems to me that, on that basis, it is holocaust deniers who have cause for complaint if the comparison was to be made.
@Andy
Don't use the term climate holocaust, for the same reason that Eli and Victor mentioned. Use another term
Isn't holocaust an appalling enough word for the deaths of possibly billions of people?
@Andy
It's not that the holocaust is or isn't appalling enough. The holocaust has a very specific meaning, and applying it to something else distracts from the point you are making.
I agree with this guy:
http://climatechangefork.blog.brooklyn.edu/2012/04/22/first-post/
Holocaust --- see the Oxford English Dictionary entry. This will surprise most; I certainly was.
I get called "climate change denier" by ding a lings all the time. When I was in Cuba the dictatorship called me "worm". I think the use of such insults comes from the feeling of immunity abusers have when they think they can get away with it. But i'm not too worried about it. Carry on, dudes.
I was going to make an observation similar to Andy's. Holocaust deniers are abhorrent scum because they deny the mass murder of millions of Jews in the second world war, whereas climate change deniers are, through their denial and the resulting inaction to mitigate emissions, denying and thus actively causing the deaths of millions of people in the future. In my mind this makes deniers of climate change not only as equivalently culpable for disrespect of the dead as are Holocaust deniers, but actively culpable in future deaths that could otherwise be prevented. This culpability is worse than negligence, it is a deliberate choice to sacrifice future lives for present ideologies and self-interest.
As someone who had a relative killed by the SS during WWII, I have no problem with using the term 'holocaust' to describe the impacts that will manifest as a consequence of climate change through this century and in coming centuries. We are burning the planet, and if people today cannot understand the context of the awful horror of the loss of millions of innocent lives (and biodiversity...) through the irredeemable evil of self-interested ideology then - should they not stand in defence of those future lives - they are at least as evil themselves as were the Nazis.
"I get called "climate change denier" ... I think the use of such insults".
How funny. Your posts here indicate "climate change denier" is an accurate description for you. And yet you regard that as an insult. Imagine what your feelings will be when people are calling you far worse names.
Why is it that only climate change deniers think that "denier" is a reference to the holocaust? What about a company that denies liability for past CO2 emissions? Incidentally big oil is supporting the carbon tax but only because of the fine print, which absolves them of any liability.
The thing that irritates me about the use of the term (climate) denier, is that you these vast, complex fields of climate, science, energy, politics, ... , and you're polarizing and simplifying it all into us vs them. If your going to call someone a denier, you ought to be specific about what you're accusing them of denying.
I don't think it's illegitimate to accuse someone of denying some sort of basic set of facts, but in the case of climate, the term often is used to conflate people with holocaust deniers, as demonstrated by Bernard J's comment above. who's the real "bunch who wants to steal the suffering of the Holocaust victims for themselves"?
"you're polarizing and simplifying it all into us vs them"
"Them" are people who put their indolent lifestyles and/or fossil fuel industry profits above the welfare of future generations. I would not like anyone to think I was anything other than totally opposed to and utterly scornful of "Them".
Andy M, that's very principled of you to stand up for and own your defense of polarization and simplification, but I don't think it's clear that people are putting "their indolent lifestyles and/or fossil fuel industry profits above the welfare of future generations". I also note that a lot of climate activists don't seem to be making very many sacrifices when it comes to their own "indolent lifestyles".
Canman, I'm not impressed. Using the word 'denial' is perfectly sound as a description of people like Mr. Morano, who have done all they can to deceive, bury the lead and misdirect attention when it comes to what we're doing to the climate. Just because some other idiots who use (interestingly similar, and similarly deceptive) rhetorical maneuvers put them to use in denying the holocaust doesn't make it inappropriate to use the word 'denier' in describing Morano and the rest of his ilk. And for Morano et al. to put on hair shirts and lament their mistreatment is beyond the absurd. I won't have it, and Eli is right not to have it either.
"I also note that a lot of climate activists don't seem to be making very many sacrifices."
According to the most pessimistic carbon calculator I have found my annual emissions are about 2.5 tons of CO2 with the government emitting a similar amount on my behalf. I am not aware of any sacrifices, unless remaining fit and healthy into my sixties because I walk and cycle rather than driving counts. I am aware that my contemporaries prefer to develop diabetes and other health issues, but I have never followed fashion.
Canman, in no way do I want to "steal the suffering of the Holocaust victims."
I called deniers of climate change science "climate change deniers" for years before that group of vested interests and ideologues started using the artifice of conflating climate change denial with Holocaust denial. I try to use language to say what it says, and denial is denial is denial. If the climate change denial lobby wants to guilt the scientists into not using the word, so that the lobby can instead camouflage themselves in palatable terms such as 'sceptic' (or 'skeptic'...) and 'questioning the science,' then I am going to point out that they are engaging in the logical fallacy of conflation.
And why are the deniers of climate science so hell-bent on putting guilt onto people who call them deniers? Because they feel (no matter how subconsciously) the guilt of their own very real denial, and they've witnessed the opprobrium that Holocaust deniers receive, and they are using that opprobrium to insinuate that their accusers are instead guilty of something and that they should stop using the term that makes deniers feel guilty in the first place. It's a manufactured and deliberate conflation. Had Holocaust denial not been a Thing at the time that climate change denial was recognised, their PR people would instead have accused scientists and their supporters of conflating climate change denial with rape denial, or racism denial, or vaccine efficacy denial, or whatever.
Denial of any sort is appalling. It's a deliberate intellectual exercise to refuse to accept facts that upset one's internal world view. In doing this it goes beyond lying. Deniers are (tautologically) deniers and I want them to know that they are deniers, no matter what they are denying. I don't claim that climate change deniers are Holocaust deniers, but I also don't resile from the fact that their denial is potentially as profoundly serious as Holocaust denial. And when I say this I am NOT "stealing the suffering" of the 6 million Jews - including my great uncle - who were murdered by the Nazis, I am pointing out that the impending ploss of 6 million lives (or 60 million lives, or 600 million lives...) from a planet warmed 3-4 °C or more is as grave a crime, as it results from the inaction that follows denial of the problem at a time when acceptance and action could have prevented these deaths.
When this conflating meme first gained traction I took to calling climate change deniers 'denialists' instead, to emphasise that they were engaged in denial and that their opposition to the term 'denier' is a confection, an artifice to reverse responsibility. I still use that term in certain contexts, but I will emphasise for the umpteenth time that conflation with Holocaust denial only occurs where people allow it to occur. I for one will not allow it to dissuade me from calling any type of denier a denier, because doing so would lead to an Orwellian situation wher certain words can no longer be used in any context and the capacity to describe the underlying concept is lost.
I know my great uncle's reputation. He was a dissident who stood up to the Nazis, and published against them. For this he was executed. He'd have as strenuously resisted the people who are harming the planet by encouraging inaction on mitigating fossil carbon emissions, and he bloody well wouldn't have thought that calling out climate change deniers was somehow "stealing the suffering" of Holocaust victims.
I have read that some tRump sycophant has likened demonization of CO2 with the Holocaust.
Coal re Stalan's gulag?
Methane re Pol Pot's massacres?
We have exhausted our fossil fuels. What next?
The vernacular happens, and the loss of the H word to those writing about wildfires, recalls the radio broadcast after the 1938 hurricane in which a Governor lamented that:
"Many lives and homes were lost last night, as the Connecticut River rose twenty feet in a terrible conflagration."
I ran into this lame defense (“you are comparing us with Holocaust deniers, when using the word ‘denier’”) a few times. But actually I encountered more often the other defense: “I’m not denying climate change; the climate is changing all the time.” Of course additionally: “denier is an insult, I’m a sceptic.” In all cases I found it more helpfully to just state the facts. I defined “denier”: “A person who denies something, e.g. facts. The full word is: denier of the scientific knowledge about climate change.” When people are new to the discussion I usually introduce the full definition to stop short any self-victimization and diversion.
We can’t win rhetoric and will certainly lose, when it comes to who will make the strongest comparisons – we risk to look just like them. But we always win when we come back to the facts.
And I like the comment of Bernard J...
B: "I called deniers of climate change science "climate change deniers" for years before that group of vested interests and ideologues started using the artifice of conflating climate change denial with Holocaust denial."
To be sure, but you still may have missed the boat on the war against cliche'.
Andy, please find anything I ever wrote denying climate change. Feel free to visit my blog, read what I write in my triumphant twitter account, or ask Eli if we ever tangled over whether the climate exists, changes, the properties of CO2, or whether we should keep burning whatever we find as if there's no tomorrow. Go on, I double dare you.
Oh here we go:
"Andy, please find anything I ever wrote denying climate change."
I said you were a climate change denier. Are you pretending to not know the difference now?
Fernando’s Greatest Hits, Volume 1
“Fernando Leanme 26/11/15 4:03 AM
My analysis shows 2016 will be cooler than 2015 by 0.3 degrees C. This will mean the temperature is dropping as i predicted, starting on December 3 2015, thus making 2016 the coldest year in the last trienium. Extrapolation of the cooling tendency I am predicting leads to 2017 also being cooler than 2015. At that time we must start a campaign to save African elephants from the coming little ice age.”
(2016 was the warmest year on record.)
Fernando’s up there with JC’s “2018 won’t break the top five” as far as climate projections are concerned.
And he’s EXACTLY as relevant.
Thanks for doing that: there was no way I'd spend a moment going through Fernando's stuff. I was merely going to point out how, from memory of what I have seen of him here and in other places, his behaviour conforms to Freud's description of denial and then add how puzzled I am how somebody who claims to be abused by people calling him a denier apparently has never bothered to discover what a denier does.
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