British journalist David Rose is not a global warming denier. He said it is his belief that the world is warming and “that carbon dioxide produced by mankind IS a greenhouse gas, and IS partly responsible for higher temperatures -- and [I] have repeatedly said so.”
Yet, ever since Rose dared report on the Climategate scandal in 2009 he has been the victim of hatred and vitriol from the environmentalist left, in part because he is skeptical of some environmentalists’ pet remedies for climate change. For example, his views on wind power and biomass is that they are “ruinously expensive and totally futile.”
“Some would say this makes me a 'lukewarmer' – the jargon for someone who is neither a 'warmist' or a 'denier'. But true believers don't recognise such distinctions: to them, anyone who disagrees with their version of the truth is a denier, pure and simple. The result: vitriol directed my way, the like of which I have never experienced in 34 years as a journalist. Lately, it's become worse,” Rose said in the Jan. 31, Daily Mail (UK).
He’s been bullied online and experienced a “climate of hate” that has included commenters at The Guardian (UK) “urged my own children to murder me,” other commenters who compared him to Adolf Hitler.
Rose said he didn’t take those comments seriously, at least not until now: “But last week on Twitter, someone else wrote that he knew where I lived, and posted my personal phone numbers.”
The haters have called him a “climate change denier,” and as he pointed out, “since I happen to be Jewish, has particularly unfortunate connotations for me,” Rose said.
Rose knows hostility has also been directed at other journalists willing to deviate from established climate alarmist talking points.
He wrote of another “lukewarmer” columnist, Matt Ridley, who was attacked in print by The Guardian’s climate bloggers. Rose said this piece was illustrated “with a grotesque image of a severed head.”
Someone commenting as Bluecloud said it should be Ridley’s severed head in the illustration and added “Why are you deniers so touchy? Mere calls for a beheading evolve [sic] such a strong response in you people. Ask yourself a simple questions. Would the work be a better place without Matt Ridley? Need I answer that question?”
According to Rose, that commenter was none other than a Guardian contributor and Greenpeace consultant named Gary Evans.
Some liberal news outlets and reporters in the U.S. have also used the “denier” label on climate skeptics including CBS’s Scott Pelley. Recently, The Washington Post promoted a petition by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry that pushing for the media to use “denier” labeling, instead of skeptic.
