In a recent post at Watts Up With That, Anthony Watts gets angry that the lead author of a new study dared to use the term "deniers" in the press release. The study—conducted by researchers at Southern Methodist University—looks at four different sixth grade science textbooks that major publishers printed in 2007 and 2008. The study finds that the textbooks' framing of climate science was… less than accurate. According to the lead author, Diego Román, "Climate skeptics and climate deniers are given equal time and treated with equal weight as scientists and scientific facts—even though scientists who refute global warming total a minuscule number."
So, while the media has made great strides to eliminate false balance in climate coverage, we have slower-to-update textbooks to thank for the reality that students across the country—even in states with ambitious climate action plans like California—are led to believe human-caused climate change is a subject of scientific debate.
Watts, of course, has no concern for the false balance. Instead, he feels justified in making a false equivalence between his supposed persecution as a denier, and, well, actual persecution. Upon reading the study's press release, Watts called the press officer and grilled her on the use of the term "denier," asking if she knew "that the use of such terms" was offensive and unethical. In his post, Watts ends his own retelling of the interaction with a rather bizarre rhetorical question, saying he wonders "if she realizes she's engaging in what amounts to scientific racism?"
That Watts thinks being labeled a denier for choosing to deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate is tantamount to racism shows a startling lack of empathy for real race issues, and suggests a serious persecution complex.
Upping the drama, Watts tops off his post by asking if perhaps, "as result of this ugliness," there will be book burnings "like [the] one from San Jose State [sic] University?" To clarify his meaning, Watts links to a past post about a tongue-in-cheek photo of a pair of professors at SJSU holding a lit match near a copy of a book sent by the Heartland Institute. The photo makes it obvious that the professors—holding the book in their hands, over a wooden table—didn't actually burn the book, (lest they burn themselves and the table). And given the obvious result of said flammability test (paper burns! hypothesis confirmed!), no one could really think it was the serious sort of Fahrenheit-451 burning Watts pretends it to be.
It also remains to be said that the Heartland book featured in the photo discusses how scientists are part of a vast "false ideology of Climatism." In other words, it would be hard to blame the SJSU scientists for having a little laugh at what is obviously a joke of a book.
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