We all have terms that we use as a shortcut to collectively describe people who exhibit certain behaviours.



For example, I have one for people who drive too close to your bumper on motorways. They’re called tailgaters, although dickheads is also fine.

Journalists often have to resort to imperfect phrases or generalisations to give readers a short cut to understanding where a person is coming from.

On the issue of climate change, for a long time there’s been disagreement over the most accurate term to use to describe someone who rejects the evidence that human activities are causing the climate to change in ways we should avoid.

Are they skeptics? What about deniers? Contrarians? Tailgaters?

Earlier this week one of the world’s biggest news agencies, the Associated Press, put a marker down with an addition to its Stylebook – the document that sets the house rules for writers.

The AP’s new Stylebook entry on climate change and global warming goes like this:

To describe those who don’t accept climate science or dispute the world is warming from man-made forces, use climate change doubters or those who reject mainstream climate science. Avoid use of skeptics or deniers.

The AP’s decision, explained in a blog post by the agency’s vice president and director of media relations Paul Colford, is important because, as one of the world’s biggest news agencies, so many people around the globe read the stories that its journalists produce.

Seth Borenstein, AP’s respected science and environment journalist, told a critical Erik Wemple at the Washington Post that reaction to the change so far had been mixed.

“We’re getting good and bad from both sides, which is just about right,” he said.

I don’t like the term “climate denier” or “climate change denier” either, because nobody is accusing anyone of holding the view that the world doesn’t have a climate or that it’s climate hasn’t changed in the past.



What we are referring to are people who deny the legitimacy of the scientific evidence on climate change – not only the evidence that emissions of greenhouse gas have all sorts of impacts on the world’s climate but also the evidence that the future looks pretty risky if we don’t do something.

Generally, I’ll go with climate science denier or the slightly softer climate science denialist, because I think it more accurately describes how some deny, ignore or misrepresent (either deliberately or otherwise) the mountains of reliable and credible evidence that’s available.

I’ve also toyed with terms like contrarian, science mangler, doubt spreader and denialist.

I try not to use the term “sceptic” because it suggests genuine scepticism, when often the behaviour of some “sceptics” gets closer to zealotry.

Genuine sceptics have always hated the way that climate science deniers have co-opted a word that’s central to scientific inquiry.

John Cook, climate change communication fellow at the University of Queensland and founder of the SkepticalScience blog, told me:

There is a growing body of scientific research into the phenomenon of science denial, whether it be denial of evolution, climate change, vaccination or so on. We can’t counter the corrosive influence of denial unless we heed the psychological research into what drives people to reject scientific evidence, as well as the techniques and strategies employed to misinform the public. It’s essential that we take an evidence-based approach to our response to science denial. So running away from the issue of denial is counter-productive and unscientific. Scolding people for using the accurate and informative term ‘denial’ is tantamount to scientific censorship.

Cook offered this video to explain the difference between scepticism and denial, taken from a free online university course Making Sense of Climate Denial that he helped put together.

Video from the Denial101x Massive Online Open Course from the University of Queensland

Personally, I don’t like the AP’s choice of “climate change doubter”. To me a doubter is a person whose views are not strongly held – someone who might readily change their mind when presented with evidence.

But the vast majority of climate science deniers who warrant coverage in the news media are not weather vanes or disinterested observers on climate change. Many are activists. Some get funding from the very industries who stand to lose the most from action to reduce greenouse gas emissions.

Perhaps tellingly, several high profile and newly minted “climate change doubters” have welcomed AP’s decision.

Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a climate scientist who is running as a candidate to be the next chair of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said he personally used the term “climate confusers” in most cases.

Former Guardian writer and now editor of The Carbon Brief, Leo Hickman, commented on Twitter that “using denier just gives needless reason for faux outrage” but didn’t much like “doubter” either.

Joe Romm, founding editor at ClimateProgress, wasn’t at all impressed by AP’s move, describing it as “one of the most pointless – if not most senseless” in the history of the AP Stylebook.

Romm explained why he didn’t like the term “doubter”.

Here’s another reason “doubter” makes no sense. The Senate’s leading climate science denier/denialist/disinformer James Inhofe (R-OK) still maintains “global warming is a hoax.” Is he expressing “doubt”? Is he expressing what Oxford Dictionaries calls “a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction.” No. He is denying the science.

Last year, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry urged news media to stop “labeling those who deny the scientific consensus behind climate change as ‘skeptics.’”

Ronald A Lindsay, president of the Center for Inquiry, said he was pleased the AP had decided to stop using “skeptic”.

Skeptics use reason and evidence to reach conclusions, and that simply doesn’t apply to those who reject the scientific consensus on our warming planet.

But he didn’t like the term “doubter” either. He explained:

Referring to deniers as ‘doubters’ still imbues those who reject scientific fact with an intellectual legitimacy they have not earned. The general public, we fear, will still not get a clear picture of which public figures are basing their positions on reality, and which are not.

AP said it rejected the term “denier” because deniers had complained that it had a “pejorative ring of Holocaust denier”.

I’ve witnessed this faux outrage over the term denier many, many times. I’ve been accused of trying to make the inference to Holocaust denial when I’ve used it.

Some climate science misinformers make this Holocaust claim in an effort to persuade their audience that their opponents are nasty and thoughtless.

In my opinion this is, to use a term that few could misunderstand, bollocks. Wemple was more graceful, calling it “specious”.

One climate science contrarian/denialist/doubter/whatever is Dr Roy Spencer, of the University of Alabama, Huntsville.

Last year Spencer, who also doubts that the evidence for evolution is as solid as the evidence for creationism, threw a kind of language tantrum over the term “denier”.

Spencer recommended to his fans that anyone using the term denier should be called a “global warming Nazi”, to which an appropriate response might have been, “yes, and your mum smells”.

Step forward global warming Nazis Prince Charles, President Barack Obama, Sir Richard Branson and Sir Nicholas Stern who have all used the term denier.

The term “denier” is now in common use, whether deniers like it or not. When used appropriately, it’s hard to think of another way to describe people who deny the weight of the evidence and its implications.



There are of course many other colourful terms that some might choose to describe paid lobbyists and PR professionals who tell you that burning fossil fuels isn’t bad for the planet.

If you want some ideas then come and sit beside me the next time I go for a drive on a busy motorway.