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 Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday.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.
Pardon me, but since when is Lord Monckton a celebrity? It doesn’t surprise me he mentions it himself. He always does go about relating wonderful tales about himself.
Anthony, do you really endorse Lord Monckton’s views and the way he spouts them?
At the rate Ca. is going, the new pioneers will be once again walking over Donner Summit, this time heading East. To thier dismay, the cold will find them just as unprepared as it did in 1848. The visions of global warming will fill thier heads and cloud their reasoning as they struggle in the deepening snows convinced great heat will soon clear thier paths.
When Al Gore was making his scifi horror comedy scary future vision thing he approached Apple with an offer to promote PowerBooks and iWork software very visually in his erm documentary. In exchange he wanted a position on Apple’s board and a large number of options. He was given both. He was given AAPL at around 10% of their market value and cashed out most of it for a very large profit when he was informed in late 2007 that the banks were about to see some trouble in 2008. And you thought he just wanted to make money out scaring children and creating a market for buying and selling carbon emissions?
That’s how the muchachos work in them circles.
Did it occur to Gore that this feat and same conditions were also found in 1959? Repeatedly? No, what filled his head were visions already planted.
Let him embark on a mission to the South Pole. He is so convinced of his dogma that he surely will be unstoppable. Great gushing prophetic utterings will carry him like a 1000 butterflies.
I found Newt’s testimony to be weak and incomplete. We really need someone to attack the facts of this outright and stand up and say “All of this hysteria is a lie.”
@hotrod:
i agree with your position on ethanol, especially the information about 3rd generation production. i would like to add, that
– overall corn production in the US increased massively with ethanol production, as there were huge areas of spare land available for additional use. a country like brazil still has such gigantic spare land outside the tropical rain forests, usable for highly efficient, sugar-based ethanol production. this potential could replace oil not only in brazil but also the US.
– the worldwide deficit in grain production was mainly due to prices stagnating for 30 years, while demand and energy, fertilizer and other cost increased. food prices were too cheap to support a growing production. farms were dying globally, most farmers in the western world will soon reach pension age. prices had and have to go up to incease production. the alternative would be a soviet style agriculture with fixed prices and state run farms – which failed badly.
– the extremely negative UN report presented by radical left wing Jean Ziegler, however, was obviously written by notorious anti-US, anti-bush and anti-west bureaucrats. why is the UN so anxious to a talk about real threats to global food availability, such as the population explosion in the muslim world – including the rich muslim world – which obviously undermines the thesis, that population explosion can be stopped by fighting poverty ?
– there is a shortage of liquid fuel for mobility, so even production with no energy gain would be a beneficial.
– growing food for fuel production can be regarded as building up additional reserves for mankind, In case of food shortage the additional production could be, will be and has been used for the food chain.
What Moncton was not allowed to stop now continues based on bribe offers!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/To-get-votes-Waxman-offers-cap-and-trade-breaks_04_24-43592342.html
Caleb, Maine, I believe there may be others, is going toward ethanol-free “premium” gas for the reasons you put forward. They are definitely valid. The small engines, presently, on the market do Not do well with ethanol (several manufacturers, however, are remedying this.)
Verasun, and Aventine lost a fortune in the commodity market. Verasun shorted corn all the way to the “Top,” and then “locked in” at the Top. I’m not for sure about Renew, or Pacific.
BTW, several large petroleum distributors have gone bankrupt, also. Does this mean that Oil is a “Bad” business?
And, statements like This: More energy input for ethanol is required than is obtained as output. Every reputable agronomist and engineer agrees with this. are just hysterical armwaving. They are Not True.
Jeez: “Fact: you previously claimed to be doing something important by using a lot of green energy.”
I don’t remember claiming to be doing anything “important”. I didn’t create the existing system of energy production, so I see no need to make a sacrifice.
Addressing climate change effectively requires collective action. When that happens I will comply.
Smokey: “If you’re interested in debating the specific science, point by point…”
Did I say I was interested in debating the “specific science”? No. I’m interested in pointing out the likely reason for Monckton receiving the cold shoulder in Washington.
“You run from discussing the central CO2=AGW issue…”
You’re trying to change the subject again. The article heading this thread is called “Monckton not allowed to debate with Gore today”. I’m staying on topic.
I’m surprised, though, that your well-honed nose for the ad hom (or more accurately, accusation) failed in regard to the article that heads this thread:
“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.”
So point me to the post where you protest that claim.
Manfred (14:08:16) :
@hotrod:
i agree with your position on ethanol, especially the information about 3rd generation production. i would like to add, that
– overall corn production in the US increased massively with ethanol production, as there were huge areas of spare land available for additional use. a country like brazil still has such gigantic spare land outside the tropical rain forests, usable for highly efficient, sugar-based ethanol production. this potential could replace oil not only in brazil but also the US.
– the worldwide deficit in grain production was mainly due to prices stagnating for 30 years, while demand and energy, fertilizer and other cost increased. food prices were too cheap to support a growing production. farms were dying globally, most farmers in the western world will soon reach pension age. prices had and have to go up to incease production. the alternative would be a soviet style agriculture with fixed prices and state run farms – which failed badly.
– the extremely negative UN report presented by radical left wing Jean Ziegler, however, was obviously written by notorious anti-US, anti-bush and anti-west bureaucrats. why is the UN so anxious to a talk about real threats to global food availability, such as the population explosion in the muslim world – including the rich muslim world – which obviously undermines the thesis, that population explosion can be stopped by fighting poverty ?
– there is a shortage of liquid fuel for mobility, so even production with no energy gain would be a beneficial.
– growing food for fuel production can be regarded as building up additional reserves for mankind, In case of food shortage the additional production could be, will be and has been used for the food chain.
Manfred,
You are plain wrong.
As long as we use food crops for fuel, the fuel price will dictate the food price.
We have sufficient oil, gas and coal for the next century.
I think we should concentrate on research for real solutions.
I have no objections against the Third Generation Bio Fuels based on algae and cellulose (waste material),this is a different story.
hotrod (12:30:10) :
I just reread your post and there are a number of points I don’t agree with. My figure was not a net energy gain of 46% but only that 46% of the original total energy (CV) in the corn was converted to ethanol through fermentation. And that is not taking into account the energy used in processing.
Your figure of +1.35 for ethanol is OK – right order of magnitude, but I would really dispute +0.81 for oil. Even tar sands are generally assumed to yield 3 bbl for 2 bbl of energy expended (that is +1.5)
D. King (11:31:05) :
Listen again to what he said for yourself :
“….The Alliance for Climate Protection to spread awareness of why we have to take on this challenge.”
He makes more and more money the more we “take on this challenge”. As John Coleman in this video has said Al Gore should be sued for fraud :
Neven (13:39:21),
I Googled “Lord Monckton” in hard quotes, and the 31,700 returns seem to validate his ‘celebrity’ status. Whether he’s as celebritized as say a “Perez Hilton” (5,550,000 returns. gulp), I hestitate to say, but Monckton is certainly widely known & identifiable by the given title.
Neven, you’ve been trolling your Monckton-bait ’till it’s ready to rot off the hook.
Roger Sowell,
thank you for the reference. It was interesting.
I hadn’t thought of the diesel. But with a diesel, we are talking about a car not many people want. I guess I was wondering what would happen if say Ford just said to California, “…the only cars we can sell here are the Focus and anything smaller.” Would we see people hanging onto their gas-guzzling Mustangs longer and longer. Would we see families going out to Nevada for an Explorer (and spending their money there)? Would we see every government worker (contradiction in terms really) coming up with an excuse as to why they need the exemption for an F150, so they can get to work in a snowstorm? What would the dealerships start to do with such a limited product line? It was always my opinion that pretty quickly the milage and emission standards would crack. But, that may be a fantasy. (by the way I am a government employee, so I used an old joke but one I always liked).
Since this thread is so long but still active perhaps I can ask a question I have had for a long time. Every so often I see these articles about someone running his Rabbit diesel on used french-fry grease. It’s interesting and there are some fun mechanics behind it, but how much french-fry grease is there in the world? I know that it is more of a prototype and a demonstration, but the reporting makes it sound more like we could all soon be driving for free. According to my calculations, there is only enough used grease in the world for about 1 car in 1000. But my numbers are not good.
So, Flanagan, why don’t you provide an actual reference to back up the assertion you made regarding Lord Monckton and we’ll all look at it in context and see if your allegation holds water? Isn’t that pretty much what this site is about?
Warming in the earth ended about 10 years ago. Comments about Monckton in this thread ended about 50 comments ago.
Reply: Yes, please stay on topic, folks. ~ dbstealey, mod.
Richard M (11:42:37) :
“I see a pattern in the ethanol debate. Since some link it with AGW then it MUST be bad. That is shortsighted.”
No Richard, I disagree with this conclusion.
We are in for the arguments.
I have no objections against any fuel if it is produced in a sensible manner and if the use of the fuel in practice is compatible in price (without grants) and if there is no problem with security and vehicle reliability.
We love the facts, not the fiction.
Chemist: “All of this hysteria is a lie.”….Nope!. This hysteria it´s just that: TRUE HYSTERIA. (As described by Charcot, Freud,etc.)
Oh, and Roger. Those were AKI numbers I gave. The same numbers that are put on the fuel pump by your (past) employers.
We’re Not putting up “apples vs oranges.”
Anthony,
Would you like me to work on a longer piece with some hard data on ethanol production and use? I don’t want to have to repeat myself all the time, but really would like to dispel some of the misinformation. I believe I am uniquely qualified to educate on this. I have worked with distillation design, dehydration design, cogeneration design and operation with landfill gas and digester gas, diesel engine modification to run on 95% gas, dilute acid hydrolysis for lignocellulosic ethanol, and wastewater processing. Anyone want to really educate themselves? Or would you rather pick the sources that fit your already formed opinions?
Reply: I was ready to say yes until I read the last two sentences. – Anthony
Tomorrow is sunday..why not preparing a good barbecue, burning a lot of coal or wood cuts, to pay a big and renewed homage to our eager for CO2 green planet?
Monckton radio interview appears to have been posted today at
I think the confusion in the ethanol debate comes from the many ways one can look at the situation. Do you ignore the feed byproduct … how is water used … where are the drying costs placed … are the production costs at the farms costed against the ethanol or the feed … as hotrod described, what engine technology is used for the finished product … etc. etc. etc.
This is why you see large differences of opinion.
California to dump ethanol?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/california_to_dump_ethanol.html