Posted 9:54 AM by Angie Schultz

Up Denial River

Brendan O'Neill frets over a new religious intolerance -- that of the global warming True Believers. These pure and holy people, who know that only Man is vile, are seeking to silence the infidels and freethinkers. His article begins:

One Australian columnist has proposed outlawing 'climate change denial'. 'David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial', she wrote. 'Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.'

But if you scroll down to his first footnote, you find that the Austraian columnist in question is...Margo Kingston! Frankly, if you're taking Margo Kingston seriously, you've got bigger problems than the end of the world.

But perhaps we should not be so quick to dismiss this concept, just because it comes from the dim and shadowy recesses of Kingston's cranium. Just think of all the people we could villify merely by going bug-eyed with indignation and insisting on trials for denying various things. Trials for all! Fair trials, of course, and afterwards, fair hangings.

For example, anthropogenic global warming is small beans indeed compared to what even a smallish asteroid could do to us. And yet you don't see musicians jetting all over the Earth to prevent it, like they do global warming. No. In fact, except for a few obsessed far-sighted individuals, the whole issue is pretty much non-existent. DENIERS! How dare you ignore the coming bolide genocide?!

And then there's the imminent Second Holocaust -- you know, the one the Iranians are cooking up. Iran is sure to get the bomb. Everyone says so. We're just going to have to live with it. And when I say "we", I mean the US. The Israelis will not have to live it. The Iranian plan is for them to die with it.

So, since Iranian nukes are inevitable, and since the Iranians seem determined to wipe out Israel once they have them, the Second Holocaust is inevitable. And anyone who says it isn't is a SECOND HOLOCAUST DENIER and SHOULD BE TRIED. I'm sure that will be a great comfort to the dead Israelis. I mean, at least we tried.

And then there's North Korea. Kim hasn't explicitly threatened to wipe out anybody just on general principles (yet), so he's off the hook there. But he is starving his own people. Eventually that'll become genocide. HOW DARE YOU DENY IT?!

But the real beauty lies the fact that, between the asteroids, the Iranians, the North Koreans -- and whatever else we can dream up -- Margo's got to be guilty of denying something.


Condolences to David Roberts of Grist[1], who also suggested that "global warming deniers" be subjected to "some sort of climate Nuremberg", but only last month, and so wasn't included in O'Neill's article. He can take comfort, though, in being attacked by an actual US Senator (James Inhofe). Here he is in the HuffPo, taking comfort.

[1]By casually mentioning Grist in this manner, I act as if I am familiar with the publication. I am not. In clarifying, though, I'd have to say something like, "Grist, some sort of earthy-crunchy publication" (or, like Melanie Phillips, "something called Grist magazine"), which seems unnecessarily dismissive. Besides, if it's beneath my notice, why am I stooping to criticize? (Because when I googled for "'global warming' Nuremberg" this article floated to the surface, that's why.)