Month: January 2015

“We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay.

Let’s let their houses burn until the innocent are rescued. Let’s swap their safe land for submerged islands. Let’s force them to bear the cost of rising food prices. They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?”

Steve Zwick, Forbes.com, 19 Apr 2012

“The question is whether active denialists who intentionally distort information – not just people who are honestly wrong, but people who are actively spreading disinformation that ends up preventing us from taking preventive action – are essentially setting their own houses and all of our houses on fire. IF that is the case, then what happens when the fire spreads? Who do we rescue first? Note that in my analogy, the fire was already started, meaning that the scientists were right.”

Steve Zwick, addendum and clarification of the original article

“I don’t think that mass murderers of the usual kind, such as Breivek, should face the death penalty. Nor do I think tobacco denialists are guilty enough to warrant the death penalty, in spite of the enormous number of deaths that resulted more or less directly from tobacco denialism.

GW is different. With high probability it will cause hundreds of millions of deaths. For this reason I propose that the death penalty is appropriate for influential GW deniers. More generally, I propose that we limit the death penalty to people whose actions will with a high probability cause millions of future deaths.”

Richard Parncutt, a Professor at the University of Graz, Austria. “Death Penalty for Global Warming Deniers?” 25 Oct 2012

“To protect future generations, our legal systems urgently need extension. They should measures to protect future generations. Exactly what penalties should be applied in what situation is a question beyond my expertise. I have no expertise in international law or criminal law.

But I can imagine that it might be legitimate to consider the question of the death penalty in such discussions – at least as an extreme with which other more moderate penalties can be compared.

It might also be interesting to consider the power of different kinds of penalties as deterrents. The primary aim should not be to punish a small number of individuals (in the sense of exacting revenge). The primary aim should be to prevent serious consequences for a very large number.”

Richard Parncutt, “Death Penalty for Global Warming Deniers?” revised version, 25 Dec 2012

“Man-made climate change happens. Man-made climate change kills a lot of people. It’s going to kill a lot more. We have laws on the books to punish anyone whose lies contribute to people’s deaths. It’s time to punish the climate-change liars. Those denialists should face jail. They should face fines. They should face lawsuits from the classes of people whose lives and livelihoods are most threatened by denialist tactics.”

Adam Weinstein, “Arrest climate change deniers” gawker.com, 28 Mar 2014

“Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies. Not necessarily on the forehead; I’m a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say,’Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And exactly why was that granddad?’ “

Richard Glover, The Age, 6 Jun 2011

“What are we to make of those behind the well documented corporate funding of global warming denial? Those who purposefully strive to make sure ‘inexact, incomplete and contradictory information’ is given to the public? I believe we understand them correctly when we know them to be not only corrupt and deceitful, but criminally negligent in their wilful disregard for human life. It is time for modern societies to interpret and update their legal systems accordingly.”

Lawrence Torcello, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology, The Conversation, 13 Mar 2014

“It’s way past time to stop politely coddling these deniers, stop treating their opinions as anything but scientifically illiterate nonsense and lies promoted by fossil fuel fools and mountebanks.”

Meteor Blades, Daily Kos, 19 Feb 2014

“CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature…”James Hansen, “Global Warming Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near,” address to the National Press Club, June 232, 2008

“If the climate deniers were to succeed, and stopped the world responding to the mountain of evidence for human-induced global warming, then hundreds of millions of mostly impoverished people around the world would die from the effects of climate change….

If, like me, you adopt a virtue or duty ethic, but one tempered by consideration of the consequences of an act, climate deniers are less immoral that Holocaust deniers, although they are undoubtedly more dangerous.

However, as the casualties from a warming world mount over the next decades, the denialism of those who continue to reject the scientific evidence will come to be seen as more and more iniquitous.

So the answer to the question of whether climate denialism is morally worse than Holocaust denialism is no, at least, not yet.”
Clive Hamilton, “Denying the coming holocaust” Crikey.com, 16 November 2009