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BACK in July last year in a boardroom of a western Australian free-market think tank, the extrovert British climate change sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton was holding court.

The topic for discussion? How to better capture the Australian media to help push a right wing, free-market and climate sceptic agenda. At the time, Lord Monckton was in Australia at the behest of a mining association and Gina Rinehart to deliver a series of talks on climate change and spread his conspiracy theories that human-caused climate change is a left-wing plot to bring down the West.

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What’s that falling from the sky?  A bird?  A plane?   No!  

It’s just crazy climate denier Christopher “Lord" Monckton! Apparently trying to one-up himself after the "Hitler Youth" debacle in Copenhagen in 2009.

Monckton and his compatriots from the climate-denying, pollution-loving Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) skydived onto the beaches of Durban yesterday in another failed attempt to flog the dead "Climategate 2.0" horse.  

The image of Monckton dropping from the sky, eyes closed, destined to decry his well-worn "U.N. world-domination conspiracy" is just priceless. Witness the great non-Lord's descent unto the masses, assisted by a hunky "paratrooper" to guide him to dry land since he couldn't bear to watch himself: 

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TO followers of the climate change policy debate, the extreme conspiratorial rhetoric is all too familiar:

Climate change is a hoax. Environmentalists are just communists in disguise. The United Nations is using efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions as a smokescreen for installing a world government. Greenies are actually reds. Eco fascists want your freedom.

Such rhetoric is daily bread for many neo-conservative commentators, some climate change deniers and even the occasional elected representative. The language is divisive, often becomes abusive and – regrettably – has become a feature of the manufactured debate over the risk posed by human-caused climate change.

The manifesto of Norwegian terrorist and Christian fundamentalist Anders Behring Breivik, currently facing trial for the massacre of 76 people, shows what can happen when the unhinged take the language of the far-right to its ultimate ends.

In the 1500-word document, published online under his Anglicised name Andrew Berwick before the brutal bombing and shootings in Norway, Breivik reveals a hatred for Islam and socialism.

But the manifesto also echoes the beliefs of many climate change deniers and cites the work of Lord Christopher Monckton, Alex Jones and Steve McIntyre.

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New Zealand-based academic and climate sceptic Dr Chris de Freitas has been caught using material from US lobby groups in lectures to first year university Geography students.

Students who listened to the “Geography 101” lectures on climate from Dr de Freitas, an associate professor at The University of Auckland’s School of Environment, admitted to being “quite convinced” that a scientific debate was still raging over the causes of global warming.

A report in the New Zealand Herald highlighted how Dr de Freitas had ignored key texts, ignored recent extreme weather events and argued that climate change was almost entirely down to natural variations.

In the lecture notes, published by author Gareth Renowden on his Hot Topic blog, one student wrote in the margins that “CO2 has a lot of beneficial effects… don’t believe the propaganda”.

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The Guardian reports that UK parliament recently published a letter ordering Lord Christopher Monckton to “desist” from claiming to be a member of the House of Lords. 

This is following Monckton’s interview with Australian Radio earlier this month. When ABC Sydney’s Adam Spencer asked whether Monckton was a member, Monckton answered “yes, but without the right to sit or vote,” and later repeated clearly “I am a Member of the House.”

Clerk of Parliaments David Beamish sent the letter to Monckton last Friday, declaring “you are not and have never been a Member of the House of Lords. Your assertion that you are a Member, but without the right to sit or vote, is a contradiction in terms.”

Beamish concludes the letter as follows:

I must therefore again ask that you desist from claiming to be a Member of the House of Lords, either directly or by implication, and also that you desist from claiming to be a Member “without the right to sit or vote”.

I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not.

David Beamish
Clerk of the Parliaments

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In yet another brutal take-down of ‘Lord’ Christopher Monckton’s claims to royalty and relevance, Bob Ward at The Guardian exposes the fabrications Monckton has whipped up to endear Margaret Thatcher fans to his own ‘work’ as a climate skeptic.

Ward’s piece, “Thatcher becomes latest recruit in Monckton’s climate sceptic campaign,” illustrates again the main point that DeSmogBlog readers know all too well - that climate denialism is about politics, not science.

Ward, who is policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science, was inspired to write the piece after reading Monckton’s outlandish claims in a blog posted on Anthony Watts’ blog.

In his guest blog on WattsUpWithThat, Monckton claims that, among all the advisers to Margaret Thatcher in the mid-80s, he was “the only one who knew any science.” 

Monckton is not a scientist by any stretch, he holds a journalism degree. Apart from his recent paid speeches at tea parties and climate conferences as an anti-science crusader, his career in daily news and tabloid journalism has had nothing to do with science.  But that hasn’t stopped him from pretending to be one. He’s like the fake doctor in the 1940’s advertisements who really, really wants you to trust him that cigarettes are safe, and it’s okay to spray DDT on your kids.