Turning Up The Heat On "Climate Change Deniers": "Nuremberg-style" Trials

Urging "Nuremburg-style" trials for "climate change deniers" (=holocaust deniers):

Grist Magazine’s staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the “bastards” who were members of what he termed the global warming “denial industry.”

Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

The use of Holocaust terminology has drawn the ire of Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. “The phrase ‘climate change denier’ is meant to be evocative of the phrase ‘holocaust denier,’” Pielke, Jr. wrote on October 9, 2006. “Let's be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system,” Pielke, Jr. explained.

Roberts responded to what he labelled an "attack" by "right-wing hacks" on The Huffington Post:

I think I've finally arrived.

I have now joined the august ranks of journalists -- including such luminaries as Tom Brokaw, New York Times environment reporter Andy Revkin, and AP science reporter Seth Borenstein -- publicly attacked by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works. They hate me!

They really hate me!

Some background: EPW is chaired by everyone's favorite flat-earther, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Mongo). A while back, Inhofe hired Marc Morano of CNS news -- famous (if that's the word) for writing this piece questioning whether war veteran Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) faked the wounds that got him two purple hearts -- to head up his communications operation. Morano wasted no time firing off press release blasts attacking various reporters and public figures for "bias." (Remember, in the right-wing dictionary, "bias" means a stubborn insistence on distinguishing truth from falsehood.)

Today, I have the dubious honor of being the target of one of these attacks.

Roberts then goes on to denounce the tobacco shills he claims as being the same as those who now refute "climate change". He also flippantly excuses his "rhetorical excess":

Nuremberg trials? Eh, whatever. Sue me for rhetorical excess. But let's not forget that a moral crime is taking place under our noses, and nothing is to be gained by being polite about it.

Perhaps Roberts didn't really mean the Nuremberg trials--which served justice to true criminals--but actually mistakenly confused those proceedings with the patently offensive injustice of the Moscow show trials that preceded them, where the outcomes were predetermined and the accused, innocent (extorted confessions, torture). In Roberts' world dissent is the true crime, and must be dealt with accordingly.

technorati: global warming climate change holocaust inhofe al gore senate committee environment public works