As the Anthropogenic Climate Change debate gets ever more heated and desperate it is worth perhaps commenting on the oft-used derogatory term ‘Climate Denier’ and its place in the global discussion. Commonly used to describe people who refuse to accept the scientific community’s belief that climate change is human driven and heading for disaster, this label is about to be turned on its head and come home to roost on the vitriolic heads of those who have thrown it around so carelessly.
As the years have gone by, the climate has steadfastly refused to toe the IPCC line of imminent disaster and has instead done what it has always done - normal climatic conditions interspersed with regular droughts, floods and storms. In other words, a normal day on planet earth.
One of the most telling events in this debate occurred in 2012 when a newspaper journalist reported that the UK METs data revealed that there had been ‘no statistically significant increase in temperature for 16 years’. He provided a graph based on their own data and probably had good reason to think he had discovered something important. What he didn’t realise is that he had actually discovered who real Climate Deniers are. The MET responded furiously, disputing his claim and saying that the earth was continuing to warm and there was no pause, despite their own data saying the exact opposite. This went on for about a year before the MET quietly accepted the indisputable truth of their own data and started putting articles online that ‘explained the pause’. But the damage was already done. People were already seeing that supposedly intelligent scientists were following an agenda and not the science. The climate was saying one thing, but they were saying another. They were in essence, Climate Deniers - the very term they had used so disparagingly for years.
And so as the earth refuses to warm and the shreaking cries of those defying the observations of a thoroughly disinterested natural climate grow louder and sillier, the term Climate Denier has found a new home, on the heads of ACC evangelists everywhere.
Climate Denier: a person who refuses to accept what the natural climate is doing and instead presumes a hidden agenda based on faulty data and preconceived beliefs. Also known as a religion.