Especially ultra-Warmist Eric Holthaus
Words matter, and in journalism, what the Associated Press says matters the most. Thousands of publications around the world use its style guidelines, so last week, when AP announced it was scrapping the terms climate deniers and climate skeptics to refer to those who don’t accept human influence on climate change, the decision immediately became controversial, and for good reason.
Instead of denier or skeptic, the news outlet now prefers the term climate doubters, or, for the long-winded: those who reject mainstream climate science. The problem is, while this terminology is well intentioned, this change is a step backward. And the choice ofdoubters, specifically, is wrong.
As Denise Robbins, a researcher for Media Matters for America, a progressive science advocacy organization, pointed out on Twitter, the people who deny climate change “are NOT doubters. They are VERY certain that human-caused global warming isn’t happening.â€
Wow. Who new that Media Matters is now a “science advocacy organization”? But, yes, we are very certain that mankind is not mostly/solely causing global warming. The argument is not over warming, but causation. As I’ve said many times, and, heck, you’re welcome to check my Twitter feed from the past couple days, those who say there has been no warming since 1850 I’ll refer to as deniers, or, better yet, idiots. There has been warming.
Most of the Republicans running for president are opposed to any effort to slow America’s emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Climate-denying conservatives have tried for decades to deliberately change public perception on the issue while at the same time raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry. This is not “doubt.†This is vested interest. (ThinkProgress has a good overview of the background of the AP’s decision, and Science magazine has a roundup of other reactions to the changes including, notably, praise by noted climate science deniers Anthony Watts and Marc Morano.)
Vested interest, eh? The COC has tens of billions on the line yearly. They receive massive funding from government, NGOs, left wing orgs, etc, not mention all the glowing support from government and the media. Yet, for all that, they still haven’t proven that Mankind is mostly/solely responsible for the current warm period, in part or whole.
