“Denier” Charge from Jerry Taylor: How Low Can He Go?

“Let’s switch out for a better [climate] policy…. Then conservative activists who continue to be in the denialist camp on climate change will find themselves completely isolated.”

– Jerry Taylor, quoted in “Libertarian Group Takes on Conservatives on Carbon Tax.” Energy & Environmental News (sub. req.), March 3, 2016.

“Alarmists … clearly have decided that the best way to win the global warming debate is by shouting down the opposition and demonizing them in the eyes of the public. But that is not dispassionate scientific debate; it is more like a ‘struggle meeting’ during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.”

– Jerry Taylor, The Heated Rhetoric of Global Warming, Cato Institute Commentary, September 15, 1997.

Climate ‘denier’ or ‘denialist’ is a term of political hate speech. Recently, it came from a source that for most of the last quarter century was labeled a ‘denier’ by the pugnacious Left. Jerry Taylor once seethed at that association, yet he now uses the Holocaust reference in the most public of venues. Raw emotionalism is at work, adding questions and doubt to a very strange intellectual conversion of Taylor from energy freedom to energy statism.

Even Joe Romm at Climate Progress, about as mean a climate campaigner as there is (he once called me a ‘sociopath’ for my nonalarmist climate views) revolted against using ‘denier’ in the climate debate. Romm stated:

Since I lost many relatives in the Holocaust, I understand all too well the unique nature of that catastrophe. The Holocaust is not an analogue to global warming, which is an utterly different kind of catastrophe, and, obviously, one whose worst impacts are yet to come….

Over the years, I have explained why “denier” is not my preferred term. I tried to coin the terms “delayer” and “disinformer” for those who make a living spreading disinformation about climate science — and I still use the term ‘disinformer.’  But coining terms is nearly impossible, and the fact is that almost everybody has embraced the term “deniers” — including many, many disinformers.

Conservatives and libertarians can shout back at Taylor that he has switched positions in the face of a weakening case for climate alarmism. Worse, his peculiar transformation has a lot to do with funding a new think tank with a lot of non-libertarian money. Why else, it may be asked, does Taylor’s Niskanen Center have a moratorium on frontally criticizing Obama energy policy and Left actions such as investigating climate skeptics? The silence is deafening.

Jerry Taylor not only offends conservatives with his inflammatory, inaccurate rhetoric about climate change views. He also offends the overwhelming majority of libertarians who smell a rat in the whole climate agenda/crusade.

Note to Jerry: We will not surrender or capitulate to climate alarmism or government-forced energy transformation. The intellectual arguments against pricing carbon dioxide (CO2) are too strong, combining a weak case for the alleged market failure and a strong case for government failure, global government failure, in addressing the issue.