Denial of Thought

Saturday, March 30, 2008

 

I've come to really hate the word "deniers".

I sometimes read an astronomy blog called Universe Today. They recently had an article on February's Antarctic ice shelf break up. All of their articles allow comments (which I usually find silly). This time one of the comments had some sound wisdom. Some poster named "thatdevguy" wrote:

... the only reason to use the word "deny" is to demonize someone. That has a chilling effect. It's group think. It makes people afraid to ask questions for fear of being labeled.

I couldn't agree more.

In the beginning of this debate I assumed most of the stories put out by the media were valid. In hindsight I realize just how gullible I was. Yes, if all of Greenland and a huge chunck of Antarctica melted then we'd get a 50 foot sea level rise. What's the probability of that happening in the foreseeable future? Practically zero.

While I was gullible, the media which put out those stories was patently irresponsible and sensationalist. As evidence of their sensationalism note that nearly every documentary on Global Warming is accompanied by dramatic pictures of icebergs calving off of a glacier into the sea. Such an image actually demonstrates the opposite of what the show is typically talking about. A calving glacier is a HEALTHY glacier. A dying glacier looks like a pathetic snow pile amidst some rocks - very UNdramatic. Even Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" had such misleading imagery. It's pandering at best.

It's tempting to use this year's strong winter as evidence that man made global warming is a myth. However, any climatologist will recognize that one year does not make a trend. But I think this year's first time legitimate usage of the term "unprecedented" (as in this year's unprecedented Antarctic ice extent as measured by satellite image) is sufficient evidence that the word "denier" is wholly inappropriate in this debate.