Global Warming Denialist: What's in the Name?

Those who deny the validity of climate science -- in particular the Nobel-prize winning IPCC work -- and deny the need for urgent action, like to call themselves "skeptics." I recently wrote about why the most accurate label for these people is "denialists," and have encountered push-back from two quarters: from the denialists themselves, who bristle at the implication that they are in some way equivalent to Holocaust deniers, and from Climate Progress, which makes an argument in favor of the term "delayer" instead.

I still think denialist is the most accurate and damning term and here is some further thinking.

1) Denial is the fundamental psychological defense mechanism that makes inaction on global warming possible.

Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence.

The subject may deny the reality of the unpleasant fact altogether (simple denial), admit the fact but deny its seriousness (minimisation) or admit both the fact and seriousness but deny responsibility (transference). The concept of denial is particularly important to the study of addiction.....

The theory of denial was first researched seriously by Anna Freud. She classified denial as a mechanism of the immature mind, because it conflicts with the ability to learn from and cope with reality. Where denial occurs in mature minds, it is most often associated with death, dying and rape. More recent research has significantly expanded the scope and utility of the concept. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross used denial as the first of five stages in the psychology of a dying patient, and the idea has been extended to include the reactions of survivors to news of a death.

Denialism seems like a pretty accurate definition when you consider addiction to oil and the impending death of an economic system might be what's provoking global warming denialism.

2) Denial is embedded in the economic theory that justifies all pollution -- including global warming pollution.

The economic justification of pollution is embedded in the concept of "negative externality," which is a euphemism that allows accountants -- and the CEOs they report to -- to ignore the true cost of a business activity.

An (negative) externality occurs when a decision causes costs to third party stakeholders, often, although not necessarily, from the use of a public good. In other words, the participants in an economic transaction do not necessarily bear all of the costs....

For example, manufacturing that causes air pollution imposes costs on others when making use of public air.

When GE dumped PCBs into the Hudson river, was that not a colossal example of denial? Are not the 1300 federal superfund sites around the country monuments to denial? And are not objections that climate action will "wreck the economy" based on the fundamental denial that our prosperity is based on one-sided transactions with the environment?

3) Denial has become the characteristic agent of moral infection afflicting the body politic.

Look at the Roger Clemens show in Congress over the steroid scandal. It's a textbook example of how to run a denialist campaign. Look at Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. (Need I link to the clip?) Look at the White House plumbers and Watergate. Cover-up, denial, call it what you will -- the tactic is the same.

Internationally, the same disease is epidemic. The Holocaust deniers are doing their work with some success in the Middle East. Japan still officially denies its role in creating a network of sex slaves for its army in China. Turkey denies the genocide of the Armenians. And so on.

The denialist skill is something that has become a sinister specialty. It lives under the roof of the public relations profession which is in charge of the crafting, dissemination and consumption of public communication -- not for the purpose of establishing the truth, but to serve the interests of its clients by manipulating perceptions.

The denialists who attack global warming are tapping into a deep, cynical and sinister reservoir of rank opportunism, technical skill and negative precedent. If what they do and the name they bear is reminiscent of the Holocaust deniers -- so be it. They share space on a strategic continuum characterized by a similar immature psychology and social infection.

As for delayer, it doesn't have much resonance for me, except as the epithet of a Roman politican and general who faced down Hannibal's fabled invasion. Cunctator, they called him, "delayer" in Latin. Strikes me more as a title worthy of a blogger!

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