A leading skeptic climatologist has declared himself so sick of being called a “denier” by climate alarmists that he is now going to call them out as “Nazis” in return.

Dr Roy Spencer, Principal Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, writes on his blog:

“Yeah, somebody pushed my button. “When politicians and scientists started calling people like me “deniers”, they crossed the line. They are still doing it. “They indirectly equate (1) the skeptics’ view that global warming is not necessarily all manmade nor a serious problem, with (2) the denial that the Nazi’s extermination of millions of Jews ever happened. “Too many of us for too long have ignored the repulsive, extremist nature of the comparison. It’s time to push back. “I’m now going to start calling these people “global warming Nazis”.”

Bold move, Dr Spencer. But I foresee problems ahead: not because anything you are saying here is technically inaccurate but because the climate debate is all about double standards.

Here are some of the things you are not allowed to mention if you are a climate skeptic.

1. Hitler’s Germany was the most eco-friendly regime in modern political history. As well as banning smoking on public transport and creating some of Europe’s first nature reserves, the Nazis were heavily into wholefood and clean living. Himmler wanted to feed the SS on organic food only. Goering threatened to send people who were cruel to animals to concentration camps. (For further details, see Watermelons)

2. There is no such thing as a climate change “denier”. No one denies that climate changes. All that skeptics dispute is the degree to which man contributes to this largely natural – and unscary – process.

3. The environmental lobby uses the same tactics used by totalitarian movements through the ages – fascists, Nazis, communists, there’s really no difference. These include: brainwashing the young and turning them against their parents (“Dad! You didn’t recycle!”); outrageous and dishonest propaganda (for Triumph of the Will see An Inconvenient Truth); vicious personal attacks; judicial bullying (see the forthcoming Mark Steyn trial).

The reason you can’t mention this stuff is a) Godwin’s Law and b) – just like the plotters who tried to kill Hitler or the ones in Stalin’s show trials – you’ve already been found guilty and deserve no defense.

However, if you’re a climate alarmist none of these strictures apply. You can call climate skeptics – even high-end scientists like Dr Roy Spencer – anything you like because, hey, having reservations about a flimsy hypothesis like Anthropogenic Global Warming theory is at least as bad as denying that Hitler murdered six million Jews. Er, isn’t it?