Readers will remember Amelia Sharman for her work on the EU's biofuels scandal and also for her paper on global warming sceptics. Her latest paper (£), in WIRES Climate Change and coauthored with Candice Howarth of Anglia Ruskin, is on the subject of namecalling, again with particular reference to the climate debate. It includes a survey on the literature on the subject, taking in all the silly papers on the subject by people like Rahmstorf and Lewandowsky (citing the Moon Hoax paper, apparently with a straight face!).
It also reviews various terms of art, concluding in passing that there are no appropriate terms for people who are not covered by the extremes of warmist and alarmist or sceptic and denier. The authors don't seem to have heard of "lukewarmers". They seem to uncritically accept arguments that "sceptic" is an unsuitable label for dissenters on climate change.
Encouragingly, however, their conclusion is that that namecalling by academics isn't helping.
It is critical that policy-makers continue to use the academic literature as an evidence base, therefore it is also vital that researchers are attentive to the ways in which their use of, and focus on labels in the climate debate may not be contributing constructively toward a more inclusive dialog about climate change.
I can't help think that this misses the point though. "Contrarian" and "denier" are used precisely to prevent inclusive dialogue on climate change. It is no coincidence that eco-activists academics and eco-activist politicians and media people are both enthusiastic users of the d-word and enthusiastic complainants - to newspapers and broadcasters and media regulators - whenever dissenting views are aired.