Defining non-skeptical heretic

So the NYTimes decides to highlight Pielke's supposedly "middle-ground" stance on global warming policy the other day, and that sets off a flurry of discussion yet again about what views one holds when one claims to be a non-skeptical heretic (NSH). Last time this discussion came up, just about every "researcher" at every major conservative / libertarian think-tank lebelled themselves "NSH" since, you know, they've always believed in the science of it all and they would never doubt that it is actually getting warmer. Now it's the label all the cool kids are carrying. Even Chris Mooney is an NSHer.

Labels are dangerous, so let me just tell you briefly how I think about all this. I am a "non-skeptic heretic" if it means the following...

And that's the problem with the NSH label. Everyone can define themselves as "NSH" simply by agreeing that the earth is in fact warming and that they have some ideas about what to do about it that go beyond the Kyoto protocol. I'm an NSHer, so is Deltoid, but of course so are the American and Comeptitive Enterprise Institutes, Gregg Easterbrook, George W Bush and the folks who don't view the cartoon below as a joke (via Pharyngula):

We're all one big happy family now.

And that's simply not true. While I agree with Chris' point that environmental extremists who seek to tie each weather event to global warming are doing more harm than good, the fact is that for the last 20 years there's been a vocal minority who act as though they represent the "middle ground" between the supposed "extremes" in a scientific civil war when in fact their sole purpose is to distract from the real issues of the day. They are the supposed "NSH" and they represent the ones who will repeatedly tell us that we can't ever even begin to ponder reducing CO2 emissions because it would set off a wave of global economic devastation killing untold millions of poor people everywhere. That's supposedly not an alarmist point of view. So unlike those dirty stinking hippies who aren't "NSH."