Some folks just don’t play fair.

Instance?

Media Matters and ForecasttheFacts.org have just teamed up to pressure the media to not to characterize scientists who doubt claims of dangerous manmade global warming as “skeptics.”

Their preferred term?

“Deniers.”

Why?

Two reasons:

First, because skepticism is a scientific virtue, which they don’t want to attribute to those who dare question them.

Second, because “denier” smacks of Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, and Nazism and so is the perfect smear word.

As expressed in a petition ForecasttheFacts.org sent to the Associated Press (AP), they want the AP Stylebook (which many newspapers follow) to include “an entry that captures the following guideline: Don’t use the term ‘skeptic’ to describe anyone who denies scientific facts (such as … man-made climate change).”

“Our country’s top newspapers are still calling climate change deniers ‘skeptics,’” ForecasttheFacts.org complains on its petition page, “and thereby lending them scientific legitimacy and confusing the public on climate change.”

The problem? None of the thousands of scientists and other scholars who doubt dangerous manmade global warming deny climate change, or even manmade climate change. We just think its magnitude is less than alarmists claim—and on that, the scientific facts are solidly on our side.

As we pointed out in our Open Letter to Pope Francis on Climate Change (Read and sign it now!):

On average, [computer climate] models simulate more than twice the observed warming over the relevant period. Over 95% of the models simulate greater warming than has been observed, and only a tiny percentage come tolerably close. None simulated the complete absence of observed warming over approximately the last 16 (according to UAH satellite data) to 26 (according to RSS lower tropospheric data) years.

 

Nonetheless, ForecasttheFacts.org and Media Matters demand that the media mischaracterize skeptics.

And they claim a good response from New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, who on May 7 wrote, “readers are right to watch these choices carefully. The difference between skeptic and denier … may seem minor, but it’s really not. Simply put, words matter.”

Well, yes, words matter. “Skeptic” and “denier” aren’t interchangeable. Not only is the first a term of honor for any scientist, and the second a term of scorn. But also, the first is accurate, and the second isn’t.

We hope the Times, and the AP, will remember that.

Just who are Media Matters and ForecasttheFacts.org?

Media Matters for America is, as Byron York points out, “a left-wing media watchdog founded by former right-wing media star David Brock[,] … part of a group of institutions—the Center for American Progress, MoveOn.org, and others—that have become increasingly important in Democratic politics.”

The Center for American Progress, in turn, is a Left-wing organization run by Neera Tanden, formerly of the Clinton and Obama administrations and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And MoveOn.org is another Left-wing organization. Both are funded by self-proclaimed “stateless statesman” billionaire George Soros.

ForecasttheFacts.org is “a project launched … in January 2012, by 350.org, created by notorious anti-corporation activist Bill McKibben (whom I debated in April in New Orleans), and Citizens Engagement Lab, itself a creation of MoveOn.org, a George Soros-funded appendage of the Democratic Party,” as our friends at the Heartland Institute report.

Its aim is “to expose meteorologists blowing” what ForecasttheFacts.org calls “hot air.” Their “hot air”? Climate facts that don’t line up with the climate alarmist message.

So now you know. Those calling for the media to describe skeptics of dangerous manmade global warming as “deniers” are really just Left-wing, anti-industry, pro-Democratic Party shills.

And since they deny the scientific facts that recent warming has been less than half what the models predicted, and that indeed there’s been no warming at all for at least the last 18 years and 5 months, maybe they should be called “deniers.”