Let’s be blunt. The phrase “climate change denier” is meant to be evocative of the phrase “holocaust denier“. As such the phrase conjurs up a symbolic allusion fully intended to equate questioning of climate change with questioning of the Holocaust.

Let’s be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. Let those who would make such an allusion instead be absolutely explicit about their assertion of moral equivalency between Holocaust deniers and those that they criticize.

This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system.

Let’s declare a moratorium on the phrases “climate change denier” and “climate change denial.” Let’s invoke the equivalent of Godwin’s Law in discourse on climate policy. Maybe call it the Prometheus Principle.

No more invocation of “climate change deniers.”