Re: "Deniers" a pejorative? I think not (@ itzman)
"Sadly their effect on climate - essentially zero - has also been demonstrated for many decades."
What has been demonstrated for many decades is the existence of several carbon sinks and heat sinks that to this day have kept the issue relatively in check by acting as carbon and/or heat buffers. The deniers side claims that those sinks will hold for ever against anything we throw at them, which is clearly contrary to all the currently available data and also to elementary logic.
Just to give an example, one of these sinks -probably the most important- is the oceans, which have been capturing and storing carbon for thousands of millions of years, causing climate to support life as we know it. The bad news is that this carbon sink is already failing, causing the oceans to acidify very noticeably, as proved by many -scientific, peer reviewed- studies.
This acidification is caused mainly by CO2 dissolved in seawater, and has caused already noticeable and well documented effects*. There are very strong hints that for this particular carbon sink, the tipping point may already have been reached. There are many studies regarding how this acidification is affecting coral reefs (which store teratonnes of carbon in coral skeletons), sea animals shells (ditto), and phytoplankton (that stores huge amounts of carbon in microscopic algae's bodies, frees a big fraction of the O2 we need to breath and is the base of the oceans food chain).
So, yes, in this context, "Deniers" is a pejorative term, but also very precise, as they are denying lots and lots of very strong scientific evidence. Whether they're doing it because they're stupid, scientifically illiterate, just crazy, or have vested interests in the matter and don't give a shit about the consequences for the survival of life on Earth -including human life- is a different matter. If you define yourself as an AGW denier, the next time you feel ill you should ignore all this Science thing and go straight to a bloodletter, for the sake of consistency.
Note*: as an example, I provide you with a few links to peer reviewed articles and studies (there are many many more, google them yourself) regarding the effects of human activity on coral reefs:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/expeditions/the-effects-of-climate-change-on-coral-reef-health/
http://208.180.30.233/lib/reefs_endangered.071214.pdf
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/coralreef-climate.html *
The last link includes a nice graphic explaining the issue in very simple terms. If you disagree with any part of that graphic, please explain why. Else, STFU.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
