SEE UPDATE BELOW FROM MONCKTON
I’m out of the political loop, and have no way of judging the merit of the claim, so I’m just going to link to this story. If it is true, it shows just how bad the treatment of different viewpoints has become in Washington. Perhaps Lord Monckton can give a comment or two here to either bolster or refute this story.
Report: Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing
Thursday, April 23, 2009 By Marc Morano
‘House Democrats don’t want Gore humiliated’
Climate Depot Exclusive
Washington DC — UK’s Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.
“The House Democrats don’t want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.”
UPDATE 8:30PM PST Lord Monckton weighed in on this story in comments. I thank hi for his candor and for telling his story firsthand here. He writes:
Once again I’m most grateful to Anthony Watts and his hard-working team for their kindness in exposing the less than democratic tactics of the Obama Democrats. The story circulated by the indefatigable Marc Morano is – as one would expect – accurate in every particular.
Early this week the Democrats told the Republicans they would have a “celebrity witness” for this morning’s hearing on the Waxman/Markey Bill, but they would not say who. The Republicans immediately contacted me and asked if they could tell the Dems they too were putting forward an undisclosed celebrity witness – me.
When the Dems eventually revealed that their “celebrity” was Al Gore, the Republicans told them I was to testify at the same time. The Dems immediately refused to allow the Republicans their first choice of witness. By the time they had refused, my jet was already in the air from London and I did not get the message till I landed in the US.
At first the Dems tried to refuse the Republicans the chance to replace me with a witness more congenial to them, but eventually – after quite a shouting-match – they agreed to let Newt Gingrich testify. The former Speaker of the House gave one of his best performances.
I attended the session anyway, as a member of the public, and tried to shake hands with Gore when he arrived, but his cloud of staffers surrounded him and he visibly flinched when I called out a friendly “Hello” to him.
His testimony was as inaccurate as ever. He repeated many of the errors identified by the High Court in the UK. He appeared ill at ease and very tired – perhaps reflecting on the Rasmussen poll that shows a massive 13.5% swing against the bedwetters’ point of view in just one year.
My draft testimony will be posted at http://www.scienceandpublicpolicy.org shortly, together with a brief refutation of Gore’s latest errors.
Finally, I have never said what one of your less polite correspondents has said I said about HIV. However, in 1987, at the request of the earliest researchers into the disease, I wrote articles in journals on both sides of the Atlantic recommending that AIDS should be treated as a notifiable disease, just like any other fatal, incurable infection. Had that standard public-health measure been taken – immediate, compulsory, permanent, but humane isolation of the then rather few carriers – many of the 25 million (UNAIDS figures) who have died and the 40 million who are currently infected and heading for death would have been spared. Sometimes, unfashionable points of view are right, and sometimes ignoring them can be a matter of life and death.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Smokey: “I see that Brendan H. is doing his usual character assassination. He can’t dispute Monckton’s facts, so he does his typical ad hominem attack.”
Now you’re trying to change the subject. Let’s check my facts.
1. Was there a claim that the APS had “reversed its stance on climate change”? Yes
2. Was this claim made in relation to a paper submitted by Christopher Monckton to an APS subsidiary newsletter? Yes.
3. Was the claim true? No.
4. Has it been withdrawn. Not apparently.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/17/aps-edito-reverses-position-on-global-warming-cites-considerable-presence-of-skeptics/
Brendan H
Fact: you previously claimed to be doing something important by using a lot of green energy.
Fact: until you actually make some sacrifice, in other words more than simply being chauvinistic about the region you were probably born in, it is hard to take any of your pontification seriously.
Fact: you simply can’t claim to be hoping to help push collective change or whatever backsliding term you used without leading by example
Get off the grid and then we can talk. Grow your own food while you’re at it.
Lou Dobbs picked up this story on his evening session today. Glad to see that it made main stream media.
Glumzabohr (23:09:19) :
“Roger Sowell (22:02:30) :
“mark my words. The gasoline lines of the 70’s will look like a picnic compared to what is coming.”
Sounding an awful lot like the AGW doomers themselves!”
You are absolutely correct! Only difference is, I have the science on my side. In addition to transportation fuel shortages, the engineers predict (accurately) that high levels of renewable, intermittent power plants will result in blackouts on the power grids. Yet Global Warmists insist we build huge amounts of intermittent wind and solar power. Didn’t England’s windmills stand idle for weeks this past winter? Isn’t Germany experiencing severe grid failures where their windpower is the greatest? How’s that working out?
Further to the blackout fiasco, has anyone considered how plug-in electric cars will be charged up during a multiple-day blackout? Even though there is plenty of generation capacity at night, that power does no good if the grid is down after ice storms, wind storms, or circuit breakers trip for other reasons. It requires a week or more to restore power to a grid after a major outage. (see, e.g. Houston TX after this past season’s hurricane).
But, as my beloved Dad used to say, “let ’em alone. They won’t listen, so let ’em learn the hard way.”
When enough people are cold and hungry and thirsty and sitting in the dark without any means of transportation because the plug-in car’s battery is dead, I think things will change. Or worse, sitting in sweltering heat with high humidity and there is no power for the air conditioner or even a fan. People in the US can tolerate such inconvenience once every few years, but when it becomes a regular occurrence, their patience grows thin.
Monckton of Brenchley (13:58:32) :
Along with all those above who have thanked you, I also wish express the same gratitude for trying to add the voice of reason to testimony before the committee.
The treatment you have received at the instigation of Waxman et al is beyond shameful.
Heh, California’s caught on to the corn biofuel scam. Think of the money already wasted because of mandates and subsidies, not to mention the environmental destruction and the increased food prices. It’s criminal.
==============================================
Brendan H (23:31:53) :
The APS statement left H2O off its list of greenhouse gases. This tips you off that it was not written by a scientist but rather a policy maker.
Does Christopher Monckton make you as nervous as he does Al Gore?
he must have a really strong argument if they wont let him say anything, perhaps you could publish it here so we can judge for ourselves? or is that not the point?
“D. King (23:05:09) : What a noble man! He’s going to give all that money away!”
He said the money is going to global warming “awareness”.
Firstly, I don’t think anyone in the industrialized world hasn’t heard of global warming–no need for ‘awareness’.
Secondly, since global warming is Al Gore’s career this ‘awareness’ is the same as advertising for his business. When a business advertises it is raising awareness of itself. So, Al Gore’s ‘raising awareness’ is paid for by carbon credits. He gets free advertising. The money from carbon credits helps him make money from global warming!! Such benevolence on his part to ‘donate’ that money.
One more thing : we’ve been told, by Al Gore, that the money he made from his movie was donated to somewhere (I don’t remember where he said on 60 Minutes) and that the money he gets from this company he is a partner in is donated. But he has never been asked if he donates the money he makes from his speaking engagements. He makes it sound as though every penny he makes from global warming goes to a worthy cause.
sukiho (00:59:48) :
I think he was planning on presenting what you can see in this video :
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5206383248165214524&ei=YcTySb61IJX8qAOtn53yCw&q=apocalypse+no&hl=en&client=firefox-a
sukiho, it’s available around the web. I found it again by yahooing ‘Monckton red flag house testimony’. It’s a letter he wrote to Congressmen Markey and Barton to answer some questions after his recent testimony. It’s a damning indictment of the AGW hoax.
=================================
Roger Sowell (22:02:30) :
Smokey (20:24:04) :
“Roger Sowell (19:41:38), maybe you should have a copy of the October 2006 issue of Consumer Reports with the cover story: “The Ethanol Myth”, to flash around when you attend those meetings. CR is PC, you know. I think I may still have my copy of that issue. If you want it, let me know.
Thanks, Smokey, but it would do no good. Everyone on the panels has already consumed the kool-aid, and they listen to nothing but their own side. The peer pressure is immense to conform, and the votes are either unanimous or sometimes one lone dissenter. The LCFS had one vote against.
One serious problem is that the folks with the experience and knowledge are discounted as liars and biased. Any independent expert who sides with those against the AGW legislation is branded as being paid to parrot. It is absolutely a no-win situation, and I sit frustrated watching this.
The only satisfaction is knowing what is coming: complete and utter collapse of the economy in California due to the overly-burdensome regulations. Companies are failing all over, and the last thing they need is higher prices for fuel (e.g. ethanol), vehicles (e.g. special California high-mpg vehicles), electricity (e.g. 33 percent renewables with outrageously expensive, simple gas-turbines as backup power), and a host of others. As unemployment soars (11.2 pct), tax revenues plummet ($8 billion deficit in only a few weeks), and the state cannot borrow money due to very low credit ratings, this place will crumble. (referring to California). The same will happen across the U.S., as the federal standards take effect.
I also wonder just what is to happen with the corn producers and their mandate to meet minimum ethanol production levels each year. Do policy makers know that farmers have bad years from time to time, or is this just An Inconvenient Truth? Do they know about weather-related crop failures? What will gasoline marketers do, when the oil refineries reduce capacity to 90 percent of today, in reliance on ethanol being available for 10 percent of gasoline? Are ethanol sellers stockpiling ethanol to get us through the bad years? Somehow, I doubt it. Make it and sell it, is their modus operandi.
By way of comparison, oil refineries are operating at the low 80’s percent of capacity at the moment. Expect several of the marginally-profitable refineries to shut down soon. They require 90 percent utilization as a minimum.
Gasoline shortages will happen in a corn-based ethanol fuel market, mark my words. The gasoline lines of the 70’s will look like a picnic compared to what is coming”.
Roger,
Just for the record, does this mean that the policy makers are out to destroy the Californian economy as a main objective or is this a case of ultimate stupidity?
Al Gore, like many of the AGW proponents, don’t want to debate. They’re cowards. As a matter of fact, Gore ducked a debate with Fred Singer on the Larry King show several years ago.
http://www.sepp.org/key%20issues/glwarm/sengorebook.html
I’d even bet James Hansen would duck a debate with Monckton.
What Monckton is not allowed to stop:
FROM JEROME CORSI’S RED ALERT
Killer ‘green’ bill to slaughter U.S. economy
Obama drains lifeblood from financial system with climate legislation
Posted: April 20, 2009
10:52 am Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and columnist. Subscriptions are $99 a year or $9.95 per month for credit card users. Annual subscribers will receive a free autographed copy of “The Late Great USA,” a book about the careful deceptions of a powerful elite who want to undermine our nation’s sovereignty.
With hearings in the House of Representatives on the Obama administration’s energy and climate change agenda, credible opponents are voicing concern that a U.S. “green” policy may kill the economy, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reports.
James Hackett, chairman and chief executive officer of Anadarko, one of the nation’s largest independent oil and gas companies, told the Financial Times, “The histrionic and maniacal focus on carbon dioxide” risks plunging the United States into an economic tailspin that could turn the United States into “the world’s cleanest third world country.”
(Story continues below)
Hackett attacked the Obama administration’s cap-and-trade proposal that will be included in the bill to be before the House committee next week, calling the plan an indirect tax on individuals that would be as open to manipulation as the European model.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., hosted a forum on clean energy policy and climate change at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week.
“The Obama administration speakers at the MIT forum made it clear the Obama administration is dug in on the issue and intends to force the United States into the exact type of green policy that has oil executives like James Hackett concerned,” Corsi wrote.
John Holdren, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy told the group that, “The energy challenge we face is actually a more difficult challenge than putting a man on the moon was.”
“We have to do things that pervade our whole economy,” Holdren insisted, “not just of this country but around the world, in order to get it done to the degree that is required.”
Holdren listed a series of fears he claimed climate science had “proved” were happening faster than the predicted, already frightening, scenarios postulated by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In his list, Holdren included effects on agriculture from changes in monsoons, more flooding from extreme precipitation and pest population explosions that are affecting the timber industry in the United States.
“Tipping points” that lead to rapid climate change – such as rapid ice-sheet disintegration in the poles and the release of gasses trapped in permafrost, could “occur sooner rather than later,” he insisted.
Three members of the Obama administration are scheduled to testify at the hearings on Markey’s bill next week, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
Red Alert’s author, whose books “The Obama Nation” and “Unfit for Command” have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, said the Obama administration intends for the House to vote on the legislation before the August recess, with a bill signed into law before the next round of international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Corsi received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.
In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.
For more information on Obama’s climate agenda and for financial guidance during difficult times, read Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, “The Obama Nation.”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=95543
Fuelmaker
The following link is an index of a number of papers, several of which cover historical records of measured CO2 values dating back 180 years
http://www.biokurs.de/papers.htm
As Monckton put it bluntly, AGW’s recent win to get CO2 flagged by the EPA as a dangerous toxin is the equivalent of Prohibition. Energy (and CO2) will continue to be pumped out by those who control it, but to those who don’t, black market prices are thier penance to pay.
As for CO2 sequestration, the yield of crops due to less C02 and falling temps globally will be a double whammy. The good news is that many governments are telling the US to stick it. The bad news is than the US is sticking it to itself and it’s population. Hockey Sticking it.
The Depression had it’s Dust Bowl. The Global Downturn now has it’s victim to sacrifice on the altar of AGW. The USA,
Kum Dollison (22:46:04) :
Roger Sowell (23:26:13) :
The trouble with ethanol – Roger is quite right – is that the energy balance is poor.
The energy required for preparation and fermentation of the feedstock is considerable. Fractional distillation (or alternative) to separate the ethanol from water also has a high energy demand. Drying of stillage etc. has a further energy requirement. Adding all this up, and never mind the energy used in transport of the feedstock, and the parasitic load of the plant is at least 60% (and I have seen much higher quoted). So for every 100kW or GJ of energy used by the plant, you’ll only get 40 (maximum) back out as energy.
It is this poor energy conversion that bothers me.
Watching the video and I can see why they didnt let him speak, I dont think Im going to get thru the whole hour, perhaps he has some good points but he takes far to long to get to them
jon (05:03:17) :
If he worked for Thatcher … no wonder 🙂 She stated that leaded gasoline posed no health risks to people in the UK and that there was no need to remove lead from the fuel.
As has already been pointed out, the substitutes for lead aren’t exactly harmless, either. Unlike most current politicians, Mrs T had a scientific background (in chemistry) and knew the score. One of her few failures was to persuade the EU to adopt lean-burn petrol engines in favour of catalytic converters. Cats require a richer mixture to avoid damage, which increases overall consumption, and since they take 15-20 minutes to reach working temperature, they do little good in a crowded island like the UK. Lean-burn would have made cars simpler and more efficient, and would not have required an expensive, easily-damaged component containing precious metal.
@ur momisugly Christopher Monckton,
From one Christopher to another:
I would like to join the others in saying a big thank you for your work so far and in wishing you success for the future.
As I’ve always been interested in science I’m now quite surprised that climate change didn’t really appear on my radar until just over two years ago. I was aware of Kyoto and its criticisms, and a friend wrote a letter to the Times about ten years ago to say that global warming was natural and driven by the sun. But that’s about it.
I think it was your two articles printed in the Sunday Telegraph that alerted me to what was going on. Unlike its sister publication, the Sunday Telegraph is fairly balanced on climate change and a week later it printed a ‘rebuttal’ from Al Gore. If your articles made me lean towards scepticism then Gore’s article probably clinched it!
At about that time I started to research climate change. I asked a reasonable question: what is the proof that the 20th century warming was driven by carbon dioxide? I have to report that, after two years of searching, I have to say the ‘overwhelming proof’ is remaining somewhat elusive. To put it bluntly, I can’t find a shred of evidence to support what I call strong AGW.
I take science very seriously and what I have found makes me very sad. It does look like an important branch of science has been badly corrupted by politics, money and an almost religious form of fanaticism. I’m also sad to see the media such as the BBC and the Daily Telegraph giving completely biased and one-sided coverage (the Sunday Telegraph being an honourable exception).
Science often gets things wrong but in the long term it always finds the truth (how many scientists today believe that the sun goes around the earth?) I’m sure this will happen in climate science. But, because of the vast vested interests that climate scientists have in alarmism, I suspect it will take many years. But it’s a fight worth fighting. If Gore and his kind have their way governments around the world will squander trillions of dollars chasing imaginary demons. Meanwhile, the world has real problems to solve such as the global recession, provision of clean water, the fight against malaria.
I wish you the very best of luck in this fight for reason. I am confident that, in the long run, the truth will prevail, whatever it might be.
Chris
Brendan H (23:31:53),
You just can not stop with the ad hominem attacks, can you? If you’re interested in debating the specific science, point by point, raised by Monckton or anyone else, I’m ready, willing and able to take you on.
When I said that ‘Brendan H. is doing his usual character assassination. He can’t dispute Monckton’s facts, so he does his typical ad hominem attack,’ philincalifornia responded, “The gauntlet is down Brendan H. Can you dispute Monckton’s facts??”
Your response was only more ad hominem attacks. You run from discussing the central CO2=AGW issue, because that hypothesis has been repeatedly falsified. You cannot win the argument on its merits, so you take the coward’s way out and attack another individual for having an opinion different than yours.
The fact that you always resort to personally attacking the messenger, rather than debating the message, shows that you lack the facts to support your position.
You’re simply being a pest.
Lord Monckton,
as a crass Antipodean I’m not sure of the protocol involved but I shall *curtsey* to you and thank you for your contributions and hard work on this matter. I detest being lied to and and any effort to bring truth to the surface is to be lauded. If you’re ever in Sydney, Australia, you and your family are very welcome for dinner at my humble abode. I do a mean lamb roast with all the trimmings! 😀
Thermophobia
An abnormally excessive and persistent fear of heat, including hot weather and hot objects. Sufferers from this fear experience anxiety even though they realize their fear is irrational. To avoid heat, they may live in a cold climate, wear light clothing, stay indoors on warm days, and avoid hot water and hot foods. Thermophobics may also be involved in any organization that desires cold over warmth, and have been known to explore cold places. Thermophobics can be very dangerous to themselves and others. If you know a thermophobic, please urge them to seek treatment before the condition can cause irreparable damage to occur.
Monckton of Brenchley
Let my add my name to the many who thank you for _inconveniencing_ yourself on our mutual behalf.
I have a question that I have not seen elsewhere: Have any of our ill-mannered lawmakers offered to reimburse you for your expenses?
First of all, thank you for your various references to my question about historical CO2. I am seriously disillusioned about the historical CO2 basis for AGW (and at 49yo with 2 ex-wives and 4 children, that is not common, sorry WAAAAY OT).
The famous “hockey stick” fraud almost killed AGW. I believe the dissemination of the fact that they turned the sawtooth CO2 record into a leading hockey stick could really finish the job. Beck should get some kind of prize for exposing the fraud. The conspiracy to find BOTH temperature records and CO2 records to prove the AGW theory is pretty clear to me now. Anthony, the previous threads on this were so lively, can you start another one or even provide a resource to spread the word more forcefully?
Second, and also OT. I am an agricultural engineer and have worked in energy for my whole career. This is not the place to snipe at each other about your pet peeves regarding subsidies. I currently manufacture wood fuel for home heating and do not want any subsidies, because that will just mess up the market with a bunch of stupid money building bad projects until the politics changes.
I did business with Kinder Morgan, they are a great company. They will ship ethanol or blends as soon as standards and regulations are changed to allow it. There is nothing magical about ethanol that makes it impossible to ship by pipe. It is just extremely hydrophilic, in fact it is used as a dryer. Small quantities of water from the atmosphere can cause big problems because the ethanol will come out of solution if it absorbs too much water in a gasoline blend.
Corn ethanol is a competitive fuel, even without the tax break. I am happy to burn the starchy part of corn to run my car instead of importing it from Hugo Chavez. I came very close to restarting an ethanol plant in Florida to convert low value byproducts into fuel.
I can give you lots of info on ethanol economics if you want, but this is not the place and I do this to feed my family. In short, to make a gallon of ethanol, fermentation does not require any energy, distillation requires about 2% of it’s energy, and dehydration to fuel purity requires about another 2%. Of course, you would be stupid to burn your finished product to make low quality heat, that is why you use a cheaper fuel source like a landfill gas, wood chips, or coal. The biggest fuel use at most plants is drying the valuable, high protein byproduct. You shouldn’t “charge” this against the ethanol production, and the best plants feed the wet byproducts to eliminate that cost.
“Richard deSousa (01:51:01) : I’d even bet James Hansen would duck a debate with Monckton.”
He has already avoided appearing with John Christy.