The "mainstream media" came under attack at Salon.com on Tuesday. Paul Rosenberg raged against the Associated Press for refusing to use the term ‘climate denier’ after activists on the Left demanded that. However, when the AP admitted that "denier" sounded too much like a Holocaust denier, Rosenberg went unhinged. “This is, quite simply, wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Rosenberg claimed that "denier" was the more scientific term, because skeptic or doubter gave “an undeserved air of legitimacy to something that is simply not legitimate.” He continued to attack the AP’s decision on vernacular, suggesting they could also use "denialist," also popular among the progressives. Rosenberg felt the association with Holocaust Denial is worthwhile, and even that an approaching Climate Holocaust will be much worse:
[I]it’s conceivable that global warming could cost twice as many lives, or more, the equivalent of a Holocaust every decade from 2030 on. And global warming denial is a contributing cause to all those millions of deaths. This is what the best available science is telling us. But AP says we shouldn’t use the term “denier”, because it has a “pejorative ring.” Which begs the question: isn’t a pejorative ring precisely what’s called for? Isn’t it both morally necessary and empirically accurate? The problem isn’t that “denier” has a “pejorative ring,” it’s that it’s not nearly pejorative enough.
“Climate holocaust co-conspirator” would be more apt. AP’s “climate doubter” stylebook decision is a telling example of how the media itself is sleepwalking into this oncoming endless holocaust, by failing to assimilate important scientific information, critically reflect on the role it is playing, and change accordingly.
Rosenberg quoted the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives finding that the climate-change news is too negative and discouraging, “that the media can breed cynicism about climate change when reporting emphasizes ‘the failures of climate politics’.”
