sceptics or deniers?

Sorry, forgot to paste in

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/20/global-warming-study-climate-sceptics

I thought it was accepted that global warming is happening. Just doubt as to whether we are causing it.

Good to see city hotspots are doing minimal damage.

I think its best to be on the safe side and keep our carbon footprints down.

But thats the problem, its not accepted. Not accepted by most Americans and not accepted by some gransnetters!

jingle is right. It is accepted that global warming is happening but there is still doubt as to what is causing it. The Guardian 'report' is not a good one and misses a very important aspect of the study, namely that it says that "the human component of global warming may be overstated."

I would like to ask GNHQ to remove the word 'deniers' from the title of this thread. As carbon must know, people find this an offensive term because of its association (deliberate or accidental) with holocaust deniers. She should also know that scepticism in science is a good thing, always.

I will ask elsewhere too so they see the request.

There are shades of opinion surely, from those who say "there is no rise in temperature and there is no harm being done to the environment by our consumption of carbon" to those who raise specific questions about the extent to which temperatures are rising or the extent to which our consumption of carbon is harmful to the environment.

I am aware that the phrase "climate change deniers" is in wide use. That does not mean it is not insulting. As I think I've said elsewhere, I have yet to meet anyone who denies that climate change happens. The debate (when one side stops calling the other side names) is about what causes climate change. On the one hand there are people who think the planet is doomed by human activity and on the other there are people who are studying the effects of all kind of things (as yet poorly understood) that affect global climate and who say, just a minute, what about this, and this, and this, and this....?

I personally am not insulted by any names people wish to call me, but I know some people are insulted by the implications in the phrase "climate denier." The fact that mainstream journalists use the phrase does not make it OK, just as the fact that "nigger" was at one time in mainstream use did not make that OK either.

On second (or third!) thoughts, though, it was this name-calling that set me off investigating the truth behind the global warming panic. I reckoned that anyone who had to resort to name-calling had lost the scientific argument. And so it proved.

Maybe you should just leave the surely intended insult (and George Monbiot intends it too, don't kid yourself) in place. You never know, it might wake up a few more people to reality.

It took a long time before "proper" people accepted that nigger was an offensive word too.

It's a question, again, of semantics. Just as I objected in another post to the connotations of the words "twee" and "mumsy", so Bagitha is questioning the connotations of this word. "To deny", to me, suggests that it is an absolute truth that is being denied. I am discussing just the word here, by the way!

I am trying SO HARD not to mention tights.

Sorry!!!

Its got to be the elephant in the room though.

???? Lost it here, I'm afraid!

Why does your elephant have tights jingly ? Is it so that it will not be ignored ? Are they coloured ones? Stripy?

oooh! Ariadne you walked right into that one! A classic Jingly provocation!!

Yes. Its wears 40 denier ones, to keep warm.

bags, I note that the article makes the distinction between climate change 'deniers' and climate change 'sceptics'. One scientist refers also to 'contrarians'. Would you prefer to be described as a sceptic or a contrarian?

Get the grans on the knitting thread busy, jingly that would use up a few odds and ends. Don't forget a fifth one for his trunk.

Am now wondering if jinglej is, in fact, the 'elephant in the room'. Metaphorically of course - not casting aspersions on your shape, J.

They should spell it 'deny-ers'.

Would make more sense. And distinguishable from the hosiery kind.

annobel -

he he he! That got you worried!

Oh get me off of here. I got spare beds to do and a chocolate cake to make.