The claim that “denier” always has connotations of the Holocaust is a word game used to put an accurate label off limits. The term has been used for hundreds of years, well before the Holocaust, and continues to be used in a wide variety of contexts without always implying a reference to twentieth century atrocities in Europe. I have no problem using a good descriptive word when the boot fits.

But accepting the premise that denier is a holocaust reference is to play their game. They do it to get sympathy and point away from the subject matter. The dictionary definition of denier is quite accurate, and if it were not PC to accede to their demands, the fake skeptics could perfectly well be named deniers.

If you want to get serious, think about how this is another attempt to jimmy the Overton window.

Climate denier, skeptic, or contrarian?
Assigning credibility or expertise is a fraught issue, particularly in a wicked phenomenon like climate change—as Anderegg et al. (1) discussed in a recent issue of PNAS. However, their analysis of expert credibility into two distinct “convinced” and “unconvinced” camps and the lack of nuance in defining the terms “climate deniers,” “skeptics,” and “contrarians” both oversimplify and increase polarization within the climate debate.

Unlike contrarian or skeptic, the term climate denier is listed in their key terms. Using the language of denialism brings a moralistic tone into the climate change debate that we would do well to avoid. Further, labeling views as denialist has the potential to inappropriately link such views with Holocaust denial.
The article then uses the terminology “skeptic/contrarian” throughout. However, skepticism forms an integral part of the scientific method, and, thus, the term is frequently misapplied in such phrases as “climate change skeptic.” Contrarianism, on the other hand, implies a rather different perspective on anthropogenic climate change.

McCright (2) defines climate contrarians to be those who vocally challenge what they see as a false consensus of mainstream climate science through critical attacks on climate science and eminent climate scientists, often with substantial financial support from fossil fuels industry organizations and conservative think tanks. We expand on the connections between claims making and funding to also include ideological motives behind criticizing and dismissing aspects of climate change science.

Importantly, this definition of contrarian specifically identifies those who critically and vocally attack climate science—those who Anderegg et al. (1) indiscriminately identify as skeptics, contrarians, and deniers. It does not include individuals who are thus far unconvinced by the science (due, in part, to the
voracious media coverage garnered by climate contrarians as identified above) or individuals who are unconvinced by proposed solutions.

The use of the terms skeptic, denier, or contrarian is necessarily subject-, issue-, context-, and intervention-dependent. Blanket labeling of heterogeneous views under one of these headings has been shown to do little to further considerations of climate science and policy (3). Continued indiscriminate use
of the terms will further polarize views on climate change, reduce media coverage to tit-for-tat finger-pointing, and do little to advance the unsteady relationship among climate science,
society, and policy.

Saffron J. O’Neilla,1 and Max Boykoff b
aDepartment of Resource Management and Geography, University
of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia; and bCenter for Science
and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado, Boulder,
CO 80309-0488
1. Anderegg WRL, Prall JW, Harold J, Schneider SH (2010) Expert credibility in climate
change. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107:12107–12109.
2. McCright AM (2007) Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change
and Facilitating Social Change, eds Moser SC, Dilling L (Cambridge Univ Press, New
York), pp 200–212.
3. Boykoff M (2008) The real swindle. Nat Rep Clim Change 2:31–32.
Author contributions: S.J.O. and M.B. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sjoneill@unimelb.edu.au.

When you add to this belief or disbelief in the plethora of specific claims (more storm, colder/warmer winters, 300K/year dead, CO2 and plant growth, malaria range) the combonatorics (sp?) explode.

Given the range of opinions — skeptic and non-skeptic, or denier and affirmer, or believer and heretic (c.f. Scientific American) are problematic.

Anyway, I will repeat the substance of the argument I made at CAS, in favor of “contrarian” as rather more appropriate, based on the Skeptic’s Dictionary (h/t Greenfyre), which defines “climate change deniers” (their term, not mine) thusly:

“Climate change deniers are contrarians who challenge the evidence that human activities such as deforestation and human behaviors that result in more greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are causing changes in our planet’s climate that may prove devastating and irreversible. Contrarians pose as skeptics, refusing to accept consensus conclusions in science on the ground that there is still some uncertainty. True skeptics raise specific doubts about specific claims and do not try to debunk a whole area of science by an occasional error or by the general lack of absolute certainty, which is unattainable in any area of science.”
http://skepdic.com/climatedeniers.html