Pompous Prat Alert! Viscount Monckton on Tour
Dangerously Dishonest Climate "Expert" at Large in Canada
Christopher Walter, the Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is gamboling his way across Canada, acting like a character recently escaped from a Monty Python skit and inflaming the passions of climate change deniers and their favourite newspaper editors (at the National Post and the Calgary Herald).
Monckton is being urged on and abetted by the Friends of Science, an oily front group, long derided for trying to conceal its connections to the Calgary oil and gas community. Right wing think tanks the Fraser Institute and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy are also sponsoring the tour. (Although the Fraser Institute has been a recipient of Exxon Mobil funding in the past, neither organization is acknowledging who is paying Monckton to suggest that we all have "the courage to do nothing" about climate change.)
There are two problems with Monckton. First, he claims to be a science expert, regardless that his paper-thin educational background lies in the Classics and his single academic credit is a diploma in journalism (no sin, but surely not a climatology PhD). The second problem is that despite his track record for apparently intentional inaccuracies, people continue to take him seriously.
What of that track record?
Monckton has been caught out on several occasions indulging in deliberate manipulation of scientific data to understate the effects of climate science. But his petty prevarications are more entertaining.
For example:
- Monckton claimed in a 2006 letter to U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe and John D. Rockefeller that he is Member of the House of Lords - when he is no such thing. This looks more like a barefaced lie than a mistake. Monckton, who lost his first shot at the Lords in 1999, also ran in an election and lost again in 2007. An honest man would have noticed.
- Monckton, or someone working curiously from Monckton's personal IP address, claimed in 2007 that he had won a libel judgment against Guardian newspaper columnist George Monbiot - when he had done no such thing. When challenged, Monckton dodged rather than denied. Not convincingly, though.
- After the Nobel committee awarded the 2007 Peace Prize to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change", Monckton claimed to also be a Nobel winner because he had done such good work trying to undermine their effort. He even got a friend to melt down an old science experiment so they could fashion a little Nobel Prize pin, later presented to Monckton in a highly unofficial ceremony. (For the record, Monckton claims he deserves the accolade because he was a "reviewer" of the IPCC report. The IPCC accepts reviews, unsolicited, from all parties and actually invites reviews from people who have varied perspectives, scientific and otherwise. DeSmogBlog manager Kevin Grandia, for example, is an IPCC reviewer, but makes no claim to being a Nobel laureate.)
- When, in 2008, Monckton wrote an opinion piece in a newsletter of the American Physical Society, he told everyone he could find that it was a "peer-reviewed publication." This would be true only if another Lord - a "hereditary peer" - was looking over his shoulder. And when the APS attached a note to the article to clarify its status, Monckton did the pompous twit stomp - to no avail.
Monckton is, of course, entitled to wander around the world saying outragious things - whether they are true or not. It is his right to encourage the ill-informed to stand in front of oncoming buses, on the loose theory that they might survive a likely collision or that any ultimate injuries were inevitable in any case.
The Fraser Institute is also within its rights to sponsor a fall assault on reason, also paying Monckton's soulmate, the dotty former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, to argue that climate science is, mysteriously, no longer valid. But they shouldn't be able to do so without admitting who is paying the bill. If a doctor told a bus crash victim that their broken leg was caused by osteoporosis and not by the accident, you'd be skeptical. But if you found out that the doctor was being paid by the bus driver's insurance company, you would be outraged - justifiably.
We know, in this instance, that we can't trust what Monckton says anyway. Wouldn't it be nice, though, to know who is paying him to spin these yarns.
The only pompous prat round here is Richard Littlemore.
Lord Monckton is a very clever man and a deep and passionate thinker.
He has done alot to expose AGW for the scam it is.
I consider it an honour to have had personal communication with him
Have to admit - that picture of Monckton does make him look like he belongs in a Monty Python movie and the regal title adds to it. I'm thinking him and Glen Beck should get together and sort out this whole climate thing in a half hour special complete with boiling frogs and knight costumes. Guaranteed entertaining.
- this wasn't supposed to be a reply - just a general comment - wrong button
Deeply and passionately wrong, alright!
Just a few days ago he once again made the outrageously wrong claim that Jackie Kennedy made her husband ban DDT, costing 40 millions lives in Africa. The whole DDT issue is yet another lie coming from the deniosphere.
And just look how many errors Monckton managed to press in a few pages on global warming:
http://www.altenergyaction.org/Monckton.html
Brits are so funny with their titles. That alone makes it's difficult to take him seriously
Monckton was on The Hour last night. I didn't watch the whole thing, he was spouting his usual denialist schtick; but he did also talk about working for Margaret Thatcher and them getting drunk together in her office.
It can be viewed at the website, but I don't know how long it will stay up there: http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/
George did mumble a bit in opposition, then they changed the subject away from climate change. George usually doesn't argue with his guests.
I saw Lord Moonbat on The Hour. It was pretty funny.
EdB the topic here is Monckton; stop spamming.
His only claim to fame is that he helped Margret Thatcher fight the coal unions using CO2 as a club. He had cheap natural gas coming from the North Sea so he thought it was time to shut coal mines and kill off the coal miner unions.
And he does not do science or statistics.
At least McIntyre is a statistics expert who can demolish hockey sticks by proving selection bias on part of Mann and Briffa.
That is good science. Moncton is into public relations so he can make money.. imo sounds just like the manifesto above.
I followed the link to the Calgary Herald article and see that it describes Monckton as a "science advisor" to Margaret Thatcher. I'm certain he was not; he was a policy advisor. It would be rather odd if Mrs Thatcher, who has a science degree took scientific advice from a classicist. In fact, Thatcher herself is not a climate change denier and took a stance on the issue in advance of most other world leaders at the time.
I think Nigel Hannaford, the Herald editor, is a creationist and probably knows nothing much about science.
Hockey Stick? What Hockey Stick? - How alarmist “scientists” falsely abolished the Mediaeval Warm Period
By Lord Christopher Monckton, September 12, 2008
Excerpt: An extraordinary series of postings at http://www.climateaudit.org, the deservedly well trafficked website of the courageous and tenacious Canadian statistician Steve McIntyre, is a remarkable indictment of the corruption and cynicism that is rife among the alarmist climate scientists favored by the UN’s discredited climate panel, the IPCC. In laymen’s language, the present paper respectfully summarizes Dr. McIntyre’s account of the systematically dishonest manner in which the “hockey-stick” graph falsely showing that today’s temperatures are warmer than those that prevailed during the medieval climate optimum was fabricated in 1998/9, adopted as the poster-child of climate panic by the IPCC in its 2001 climate assessment, and then retained in its 2007 assessment report despite having been demolished in the scientific literature. It is a long tale, but well worth following. No one who reads it will ever again trust the IPCC or the “scientists” and environmental extremists who author its climate assessments. […]
The continuing affair of the “hockey-stick” graph is a microcosm of the profound collapse of the rigor, objectivity, and honesty that were once hallmarks of the scientific community. The need to look to the State for very nearly all science funding has inflicted upon the scientific community a dull, dishonest uniformity, so that the deliberate falsification of results to support the current official orthodoxy has become commonplace, particularly where the climate question is concerned. It was bad enough that one of those behind the “hockey stick” affair should have told a fellow researcher, “We need to get rid of the medieval warm period.” It was worse that the authors of the bogus graph attempted to do just that, by ignoring, undervaluing or even suppressing proxies for northern-hemisphere temperature that did not suit the result they wanted; by falsely stating that they had used data they had in fact replaced with “estimates” of their own that gave them a less inconvenient answer; by overvaluing by many orders of magnitude the contribution of datasets that suited the result they wanted. It was worse still that the IPCC, several leading journals and numerous former co-authors of the three fabricators of the hockey stick should have continued to cling to it as though it were Gospel even though it has been justifiably and utterly discredited in the scientific literature, and should have gone through an elaborate pantomime of rewriting and publishing previously-rejected papers with the connivance of a dishonest journal editor, so that an entirely fictitious scientific support for the false graph could be falsely claimed by the IPCC in its current Fourth Assessment Report.
continues to show that we are warmer now than during the Medieval Warm Period
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/medieval.html
Maybe Monckton should share his insights with NOAA.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/SheppardFigure1.jpg
IPCC graph 1990. Why was it changed? Your explanation? Maybe Monckton is right on and you should ask the NOAA what the hell planet they live on ginger goofus.
Did you notice that there are no units on the vertical axis?
That makes it an illustration without quantification, not a graph.
And yes, it does matter.
jim your right, unfortunately it does not answer the question of why the IPCC dumped it and changed it? Your explanation?
Earth's atmosphere
currently has about 338 parts per million of CO2 and that in Navy subs, the danger level for carbon dioxide isn't reached until the air has 8,000 parts per million of CO2.
HOHOHOHO, SCORE 2 FOR THE COAL TROLLLLLLLLLLL! READ IT AGAIN FEMACK! READ IT AGAIN GINGER GOOF!
Earth's atmosphere
currently has about 338 parts per million of CO2 and that in Navy subs, the danger level for carbon dioxide isn't reached until the air has 8,000 parts per million of CO2.
OHOHOHOHOOHHO! SMACKDOWN!
338 or 387 ppm? I think your source is off on the ppm
ginger lady, do you realize the graph your referring to is just a new graph made to show the temperatures lower in the MWP. A graph of the MWP already existed and then along came the IPCC and they decided to change the record.
From the website's Comment Policy: "Petty name-calling and/or a pattern of disrespect towards other DeSmogBlog users will also result in account deactivation."
If you're going to call somebody a doofus, you have to use the right spelling for you're. It's a rule.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/10/03/lawrence-solomon-the-end-is-near.aspx
Lawrence Solomon: The end is near
Posted: October 03, 2009, 1:22 AM by NP Editor
The media, polls and even scientists suggest the global warming scare is all over but the shouting
The great global warming scare is over — it is well past its peak, very much a spent force, sputtering in fits and starts to a whimpering end. You may not know this yet. Or rather, you may know it but don’t want to acknowledge it until every one else does, and that won’t happen until the press, much of which also knows it, formally acknowledges it.
I know that the global warming scare is over but for the shouting because that’s what the polls show, at least those in the U.S., where unlike Canada the public is polled extensively on global warming. Most Americans don’t blame humans for climate change — they consider global warming to be a natural phenomenon. Even when the polls showed the public believed man was responsible for global warming, the public didn’t take the scare seriously. When asked to rank global warming’s importance compared to numerous other concerns — unemployment, trade, health care, poverty, crime, and education among them — global warming came in dead last. Fewer than 1% chose global warming as scare-worthy.
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/10/03/lawrence-solomon-the-end-is-near.aspx#ixzz0T6sAQb8S
not in Kansas anymore, or anywhere else in the real world.
Someone should tell EdB that the National Post is losing along with the rest of CanWest Global. I've been wondering if they get funding from the oil corporations for beating the denialist drum.
richard, that is an outright lie. You have absolutely no proof that 450ppm will do anything. In fact, we know that the atmosphere has been above 450ppm and nothing happened. I can't believe you reason that if 8,000ppm is dangerous on a submarine how 450ppm in a container exponentially larger than a sub(the earth) could be dangerous. I demand you retract your falsified statement.
Are you merely another persona for EdB?