Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used to say that she was happy when her opposition resorted to attacking her or her colleagues’ character. It meant, she said, that they (her opponents) could not win the battle of ideas.

If that is true, then the eco-extortionists are definitely on the run.

For almost four decades, the left has been using the environment as a weapon in their ongoing war against free markets and free societies. “The world is on the verge of an environmental catastrophe,” they claim, a calamitous event that can only be averted if – you guessed it – we give them complete political control.

First it was the population explosion and the moronic argument that families had to stop having children or the human race was doomed. When this failed to seriously impress anyone but the emerging (at that time) left-wing academia, the eco-extortionists discovered global cooling. “We need to curb industry, surrender our cars and hand over our economic freedom to the planning experts before it’s too late!” the left trumpeted while the rest of us yawned.

When the global cooling crisis failed to move voters to shut down industry, surrender their cars and hand over their economic freedom to the expert planners, the left discovered a new crisis – acid rain. The world may not be in the process of freezing after all, they conceded, but it was in the process of dissolving. Unless we shut down industry, surrendered our cars and handed over our economic freedom the expert planners, they claimed, the complete deforestation of eastern North America was inevitable with dire consequences for all of humanity.

Once again voters refused to shut down industry, surrender their cars and hand over their economic freedom to the expert planners – and the forests failed to disappear. Unfazed, the left discovered o-zone depletion. Neither starvation due to over-population, nor freezing due to the impending ice age, nor poisoning due to acid rain mattered anymore because now we would all die of skin cancer before anything else could get us - unless, of course, we agreed to shut down industry, surrender our cars and hand over our economic freedom to the expert planners. All that and give up hair spray and deodorants as well. In Canada, this campaign against hair spray and deodorant was joined by an equally solemn campaign to prevent Canadians from selling fresh water to the Americans or – I kid you not – risk running out of fresh water and being unable to quench our thirst while we are dying of skin cancer. Far better that those big bad Americans suffer from lack of fresh water while they die of skin cancer than us!

So much for Canadian compassion.

Needless to say, people were as unmoved by these dark prognostications as they were by any previous ones.

Which brings me to global warming and the charge that those who are skeptical of the claim that human activity and global warming are related, are the same as Holocaust deniers.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out to readers that, not only am I Jewish, but my father himself was a survivor of Hitler’s (and Stalin’s) Europe. For our family, the effects of that horrific episode in history manifested themselves on a daily basis. For me, and thousands of others who may not even have an opinion on global warming, the accusation is both personal and deeply offensive.

First made by Ellen Goodman in the Boston Globe and since repeated like a mantra by eco-extortionists with unrestrained glee, the allegation equates so-called “climate change deniers” with Holocaust deniers by alleging that both deny incontrovertible facts, one of history, the other of the future.

This statement is so puerile that, to quote the mosquito in the nudist colony, I don’t know where to begin.

For starters, how about the simple fact that the premise of the comparison is wrong – nobody is denying climate change. Quite the opposite, what much of the scientific community is saying is that climate change is natural, and not man-made. The point is that if global warming is occurring and is problematic, nothing human beings can do will reverse the trend. Our resources are better spent then, on mitigating the impact of global warming rather than a futile attempt to prevent it. Readers who wish to understand the scientific basis of this position are invited to view the video Climate Catastrophe Cancelled by clicking here.

http://www.canadianvalues.ca/diglib.aspx?cid=2

Even as rhetoric, the comparison is embarrassingly foolish. Facts exist in either the past or the present – but not the future. Events can be predicted, but such predictions are hardly facts that can be confirmed or denied. The poor quality of reasoning that has gone into the comparison is a good indication of how unsophisticated the thinking is of those who parrot it. The Holocaust is not some scientific theory that may or may not yet be proved true, as the comparison inevitably must assume in order to be valid. By invoking it in the context of the debate over the causes of global warming then, the eco-extortionists are themselves denying its nature and significance. Worse, they are giving intellectual support to those revisionists who would like nothing more than to establish that its occurrence is a matter of legitimate speculation.

What's going on then?

The answer is simple. The epithet “Holocaust Denier” is so vile, so odious that most people will recoil in horror at the prospect of being labeled as one. Its goal is not to make a point, but rather, to ensure that the only points being made are those that support one side of the debate, the other side having been intimidated into acquiescence.

Which is why, in a twisted sort of way, it’s actually a good sign that the eco-extortionists are jumping on the rhetorical bandwagon. It means that they still can’t win the argument on its own merits.

But then, when have they ever?

Joseph C. Ben-Ami is Executive Director of the Institute for Canadian Values and Director of Policy Development.