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 Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday.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.
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Monckton of Brenchley (13:58:32) :
Thank you very much for your relentless efforts and your posting here at WUWT.
Monckton of Brenchley (13:58:32) :
Sir,
Thank you for your noble effort to bring reason to the US legislature (perhaps a lost cause…). I hope you will find the trip across the Atlantic not wasted and many an ear open to your thoughts. Perhaps you can demand offsets for your flight from the Democratic members of Congress?
I wonder if Glen Beck would interview Lord Monckton? Would love to hear AND see him in action!
To Monckton of Brenchley
Thank you Sir
Smokey (14:34:45) :
“Since the Congress will never apologize for its atrocious behavior toward Viscount Monckton, I apologize on their behalf. Most Americans who are aware of this situation strongly disapprove of these increasingly despicable tactics, in which the mainstream media is complicit.
That said, I’m very appreciative of the fact that there remain ethical people in the world, who are willing to fight for honesty in the face of official mendacity”.
Smokey,
Although I resent the concept of providing an apology for matters beyond once influence, in this I fully underwrite your gallant gesture.
What has happened today is unbelievable.
Shame on those responsible for this debacle of obstruction of truth.
It’s great to interact with truely sincere people that maintain such high moral standards.
I am proud of you.
Monckton of Brenchley (13:58:32) :
On behalf of the many Americans who do not support the actions of our current Congress and President, please accept our apologies at the rude treatment dealt to you today. A grateful nation gives you our thanks.
Jerry Haney (13:48:12) :
“After reading Newt’s testimony, I was left with a distinct impression that he also does not understand the issues of AGW.”
Newt is a brilliant politician and historian. He’s not a scientist. When George W. rolled on the issue, (of course he was just trying to make “nice” with dems) he cut the legs out from under any Republican who didn’t agree with AGW. Don’t expect Newt to try to repair that blunder. A Republican president, ostensibly the leader of the party at the time, conceded the issue. What I suspect is this; Newt is trying to argue his case the best he can based on W’s poorly considered precedent. He’s on a political tight rope with this issue. Don’t bust his chops on the details.
So a former Presidential candidate of the United States is too scared to not only not debate an individual, but to not even allow the guy to speak in the same forum – on HIS, Gore’s, chosen career subject. How embarrassing.
WTF do they think this does for them in the court of public opinion ?? I’m e-mailing this joke to everyone I know, as well as posting it on any other website I happen to frequent.
I’d initiate a pass-on-to-just-10-friends chain letter-type e-mail, but then I’d be accused of starting a Ponzi scheme. Ha ha ha ha.
This act of cowardice could even bite Obama in the ass, let alone his five level down peons.
On the other hand, and no disrespect to the great Lord Monckton, but Gore would have a hard time debating my 13 year old son on the evidence for CO2’s role in climate change.
Not entirely off topic.
Obama’s recent hand reaching to Cuba and his visit to South America where he offered the friendship of the USA, shook the hand of Chavez and discussed the Global Warming issue has resulted in an unexpected declaration which will hurt tremendously, spreading the wealth in optima forma:
The Declaration of Cumaná: Capitalism ‘threatens life on the planet’
By various
April 24, 2009
We, the Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela, member countries of ALBA, consider that the Draft Declaration of the 5th Summit of the Americas is insufficient and unacceptable for the following reasons:
– The Declaration does not provide answers to the Global Economic Crisis, even though this crisis constitutes the greatest challenge faced by humanity in the last decades and is the most serious threat of the current times to the welfare of our peoples.
– The Declaration unfairly excludes Cuba, without mentioning the consensus in the region condemning the blockade and isolation to which the people and the government of Cuba have incessantly been exposed in a criminal manner.
For this reason, we, the member countries of ALBA believe that there is no consensus for the adoption of this draft declaration because of the reasons above stated, and accordingly, we propose to hold a thorough debate on the following topics:
1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis. Those who think that with a taxpayer money injection and some regulatory measures this crisis will end are wrong. The financial system is in crisis because it trades bonds with six times the real value of the assets and services produced and rendered in the world, this is not a “system regulation failure”, but a integrating part of the capitalist system that speculates with all assets and values with a view to obtain the maximum profit possible. Until now, the economic crisis has generated over 100 million additional hungry persons and has slashed over 50 million jobs, and these figures show an upward trend.
2. Capitalism has caused the environmental crisis, by submitting the necessary conditions for life on the planet, to the predominance of market and profit. Each year we consume one third more of what the planet is able to regenerate. With this squandering binge of the capitalist system, we are going to need two planets Earth by the year 2030.
3. The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end life and the planet. To avert this outcome, it is necessary to develop and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on:
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– solidarity and complementarity, not competition;
– a system in harmony with our mother earth and not plundering of human resources;
– a system of cultural diversity and not cultural destruction and imposition of cultural values and lifestyles alien to the realities of our countries;
– a system of peace based on social justice and not on imperialist policies and wars;
– in summary, a system that recovers the human condition of our societies and peoples and does not reduce them to mere consumers or merchandise.
4. As a concrete expression of the new reality of the continent, we, Caribbean and Latin American countries, have commenced to build our own institutionalization, an institutionalization that is based on a common history dating back to our independence revolution and constitutes a concrete tool for deepening the social, economic and cultural transformation processes that will consolidate our full sovereignty.
ALBA-TCP, Petrocaribe or UNASUR, mentioning merely the most recently created, are solidarity-based mechanisms of unity created in the midst of such transformations with the obvious intention of boosting the efforts of our peoples to attain their own freedom. To face the serious effects of the global economic crisis, we, the ALBA-TCP countries, have adopted innovative and transforming measures that seek real alternatives to the inadequate international economic order, not to boost their failed institutions. Thus, we have implemented a Regional Clearance Unitary System, the SUCRE, which includes a Common Unit of Account, a Clearance Chamber and a Single Reserve System. Similarly, we have encouraged the constitution of grand-national companies to satisfy the essential needs of our peoples and establish fair and complementary trade mechanisms that leave behind the absurd logic of unbridled competition.
5. We question the G20 for having tripled the resources of the International Monetary Fund when the real need is to establish a new world economic order that includes the full transformation of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, entities that have contributed to this global economic crisis with their neoliberal policies.
6. The solutions to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial scheme should be adopted with the participation of the 192 countries that will meet in the United Nations Conference on the International Financial Crisis to be held on June 1-3 to propose the creation of a new international economic order.
7. As for climate change, developed countries are in an environmental debt to the world because they are responsible for 70% of historical carbon emissions into the atmosphere since 1750. Developed countries should pay off their debt to humankind and the planet; they should provide significant resources to a fund so that developing countries can embark upon a growth model which does not repeat the serious impacts of the capitalist industrialization.
8. Solutions to the energy, food and climate change crises should be comprehensive and interdependent. We cannot solve a problem by creating new ones in fundamental areas for life. For instance, the widespread use of agricultural fuels has an adverse effect on food prices and the use of essential resources, such as water, land and forests.
9. We condemn the discrimination against migrants in any of its forms. Migration is a human right, not a crime. Therefore, we request the United States government an urgent reform of its migration policies in order to stop deportations and massive raids and allow for reunion of families. We further demand the removal of the wall that separates and divides us, instead of uniting us.
In this regard, we petition for the abrogation of the Law of Cuban Adjustment and removal of the discriminatory, selective Dry Feet, Wet Feet policy that has claimed human losses. Bankers who stole the money and resources from our countries are the true responsible, not migrant workers. Human rights should come first, particularly human rights of the underprivileged, downtrodden sectors in our society, that is, migrants without identity papers. Free movement of people and human rights for everybody, regardless of their migration status, are a must for integration. Brain drain is a way of plundering skilled human resources exercised by rich countries.
10. Basic education, health, water, energy and telecommunications services should be declared human rights and cannot be subject to private deal or marketed by the World Trade Organization. These services are and should be essentially public utilities of universal access.
11. We wish a world where all, big and small, countries have the same rights and where there is no empire. We advocate non-intervention. There is the need to strengthen, as the only legitimate means for discussion and assessment of bilateral and multilateral agendas in the hemisphere, the foundations for mutual respect between states and governments, based on the principle of non-interference of a state in the internal affairs of another state, and inviolability of sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples.
We request the new Government of the United States, the arrival of which has given rise to some expectations in the hemisphere and the world, to finish the longstanding and dire tradition of interventionism and aggression that has characterized the actions of the US governments throughout history, and particularly intensified during the Administration of President George W. Bush. By the same token, we request the new Government of the United States to abandon interventionist practices, such as cover-up operations, parallel diplomacy, media wars aimed at disturbing states and governments, and funding of destabilizing groups. Building on a world where varied economic, political, social and cultural approaches are acknowledged and respected is of the essence.
12. With regard to the U.S. blockade against Cuba and the exclusion of the latter from the Summit of the Americas, we, the member states of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America, reassert the Declaration adopted by all Latin American and Caribbean countries last December 16, 2008, on the need to end the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the Government of the United States of America on Cuba, including the implementation of the so-called Helms-Burton Act. The declaration sets forth in its fundamental paragraphs the following:
“CONSIDERING the resolutions approved by the United Nations General Assembly on the need to finish the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba, and the statements on such blockade, which have been approved in numerous international meetings.
“WE AFFIRM that the application of unilateral, coercive measures affecting the wellbeing of peoples and hindering integration processes is unacceptable when defending free exchange and the transparent practice of international trade.
“WE STRONGLY REPEL the enforcement of laws and measures contrary to International Law, such as the Helms-Burton Act, and we urge the Government of the United States of America to finish such enforcement.
“WE REQUEST the Government of the United States of America to comply with the provisions set forth in 17 successive resolutions approved by the United Nations General Assembly and put an end to the economic, trade and financial blockade on Cuba.”
Additionally, we consider that the attempts at imposing the isolation of Cuba have failed, as nowadays Cuba forms an integral part of the Latin American and Caribbean region; it is a member of the Rio Group and other hemispheric organizations and mechanisms, which develops a policy of cooperation, in solidarity with the countries in the hemisphere; which promotes full integration of Latin American and Caribbean peoples. Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever to justify its exclusion from the mechanism of the Summit of the Americas.
13. Developed countries have spent at least USD 8 billion to rescue a collapsing financial structure. They are the same that fail to allocate the small sums of money to attain the Millennium Goals or 0.7% of the GDP for the Official Development Assistance. Never before the hypocrisy of the wording of rich countries had been so apparent. Cooperation should be established without conditions and fit in the agendas of recipient countries by making arrangements easier; providing access to the resources, and prioritizing social inclusion issues.
14. The legitimate struggle against drug trafficking and organized crime, and any other form of the so-called “new threats” must not be used as an excuse to undertake actions of interference and intervention against our countries.
15. We are firmly convinced that the change, where everybody repose hope, can come only from organization, mobilization and unity of our peoples.
As the Liberator wisely said:
Unity of our peoples is not a mere illusion of men, but an inexorable decree of destiny. — Simón Bolívar
Via climatedepot: http://rabble.ca/news/2009/04/declaration-cuman%C3%A1-capitalism-threatens-life-planet
The C-Span video is truely one for the books.
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=HP-R-17836
It’s 2 hours and 52 minutes long and a definitive piece of AGW history. It needs to be preserved and dissected. I stopped counting at 60 the number of false statitics that VP Al brought out.
Is Lord Monkton speaking at all tonight on any other programs?
Googling around whilste at minute 43 of the Cspan…
Check this article from 1998 about recently declassified submarine data… 1998 remember.
http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=102863
Look at the path of the submarines… it appears to be called the “Gore Box”. I just about fell off my chair. Someone tell me I am wrong. Please.
“Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday.”
If this is correct, it’s probably because AGW people are steering clear of Monckton after last year’s debacle involving the American Physical Society.
At the time, it was reported that the APS had reversed its stance on climate change. This claim was false, but it was given huge publicity across the blogosphere, including on this site, and no doubt caused a lot of embarrassment to the APS.
But publicity is a two-edged sword, and I doubt that anyone, including Republicans, wants a repeat of that episode.
K it’s true. From the article
“The Arctic Submarine Laboratory, on behalf of the Chief of Naval Operations, approved declassifying the sea-ice data within a specific swath of the Arctic Ocean, roughly between Alaska and the North Pole. The area is known as the “Gore Box” for Vice President Al Gore’s initiative to declassify Arctic military data for scientific use.”
So all the data to 1998 was decalssified then, meaning all the data from 1998 to 2008 has now been made available too? Where?
“BernardP (07:54:10) :
It seems that only litigation will be able to slow down, or possibly stop, the cap-and-trade juggernaut. The whole exercise is borderline-rigged like a Venezuelan election.
The question about Obama and AGW is: naive or dishonest?”
As I’ve mentioned before, AGW is a funding mechanism that is needed to support the trillions of dollars in spending that this congress and administration is going forward with. Take the funding mechanism away and you’ve got to make cuts in the “nirvana” program somewhere.
UNLESS you come up with an alternate funding mechanism?
JimB
Larry T (04:52:49) :
If someone in Federal or State Prosecutors Offices had some guts, I think that Al Gore could be brought up on RICO charges becasue he is a undeclared lobbyist and also promotes his investment interests without declaring them. He is just a con man with a “democrat royality” pedigree.
Best idea I’ve heard in awhile !
Dave in CA (13:04:58) provided an interesting link that shows why the CO2=AGW gang fears and loathes geologists. From page 6 onward, there is current, up to date info — that was being discussed back in 2006. A sample:
In other words, CO2 measurements by Keeling et al. were probably lower than the actual levels, for the reasons discussed above.
I would tend to agree that Glen Beck would love to have Viscount Monckton on with him, the only hard part would be setting asside enough time to get his points across, I mean even with an hour long show, knock off 15 minutes for commercials and platitudes that still leaves just over 1 minute for each of the 35 points 🙂
Thank you for your effort to come, and feel free to post on here at anytime.
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. What a guy…
…not.
George E. Smith (15:34:46) :
George, I am usually impressed because you usually write very good stuff, but the above is not up to your usual high standard.
“People harmed by lead in gasoline” would include those who worked in the tetra-ethyl lead manufacturing plants. Also, lead in gasoline did not just disappear from the Earth, it had to end up somewhere. That somewhere included in the top layer of soil near highways, granted, in small quantities. Humans do not react well to lead ingestion, hence the ban on leaded gasoline, and leaded paints, and the strict procedures for removing leaded paint in building demolition.
MTBE was not a replacement for TEL (tetra-ethyl lead). The TEL additive increased octane, and after its removal, for years refiners ran their catalytic reformers at higher severity to produce a blending component with higher octane. This reduced the volume of gasoline from a refinery, resulting in marginally more crude oil runs through the refineries. There was some additional octane achieved by better catalysts in a fluid catalytic processing unit, but the effect there was small.
MTBE was added many years after the TEL ban, as a smog-reducing agent. The theory being that an oxygenated hydrocarbon increased the degree of combustion. Several other oxygenates also do this, including ethanol. You are correct that many groundwater sources are contaminated with MTBE.
Ethanol addition to gasoline is not the same as adding water, as anyone who has had the experience of running an engine with water in the gasoline can attest. Ethanol runs pretty well in engines. Water does not.
The California regulation for LCFS, Low Carbon Fuel Standard, requires renewable fuels. ARB’s idea is that renewable fuels do not increase the net amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, because the corn plants (for example) convert CO2 into plant mass. The California Air Resources Board got it all wrong, though, as the energy consumed just about equals the energy produced by a burning ethanol.
What should be required is for every step of the ethanol production chain to burn ethanol or other parts of the corn plant, and ONLY those, for their fuel or additional energy input. The ethanol refineries would go out of business in a week. Every oil refiner knows this, and has no problem with running oil refineries with only petroleum-based energy input. Many oil refineries did exactly that for decades. Oil refineries consume less than 20 percent of the crude oil raw material as energy, counting every step in the process from oil exploration, production, shipping, refining, marketing, and final product dispensing in gas stations.
ARB points to Brazil as the model to emulate, saying Brazil produces renewable ethanol for transportation fuel and imports very little oil. Unfortunately, the USA does not have suitable geography to grow sugar cane in the quantities required, but Brazil does. We can grow corn, but corn requires huge amounts of energy to make ethanol.
My blog entry on LCFS:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/ab-32-and-low-carbon-fuel-standard.html
ARB is about to learn some lessons in central planning, with this LCFS and other aspects of AB 32. I sit in many of their planning and other committee meetings, and I cannot believe what passes for science. The voices of experience and reason are ignored, in favor of ivory-tower theoreticians who are hopelessly wrong. This is the state of our government today, as I have written before. The policy makers are listening to the wrong people. As a result, everyone will be paying for their mistakes.
Smokey (19:32:23) :
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. What a guy…
…not.
————————–
The gauntlet is down Brendan H. Can you dispute Monckton’s facts ??
At 1:47 of 2:52. Bleaching of the great barrier reef is due to global warming and acidification.
While common thought it that a mass bleaching events take a decade or more to rebound, the barrier system recovered in 3 from 2006
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/73816/-australian-scientists-celebrate-great-barrier-reef-recovery.html
Jim Papsdorf (11:22:58) :
I bet that your email did add to the other emails they were already getting about this story. Drudge is smart in that he tries to present varied headlines to satisfy a cross section of people. He knows the poll numbers on global warming. So it only makes good business sense for him to post the story. He isn’t like CNN who will only give one side–which is causing them to drop in ratings.
It’s a good idea for all to send stories like this from the other side of AGW to Drudge on a consistent basis and keep him abreast. Anyone can send stories to DrudgeReport.com in the
“SEND NEWS TIPS TO DRUDGE
[ANONYMITY GUARANTEED]”
box in the lower part of the right column there.
I am still looking forward to the day when a story from WattsUpWithThat is linked at Drudge!!
Monckton of Brenchley (13:58:32) :
Mr. Monckton,
I caught you on the radio today as I was driving. I was so glad! You must have reached more American citizens through that show today than you would have by speaking in Congress. I think most people were not even aware that you and Mr. Gore were scheduled to speak today in Congress. But after all the media coverage they do know now. I’d like to thank the Democrats for letting everyone know about it and for giving people a whiff of the true nature of global warming.
The political left may have hurt itself rather than helped itself in what it did today.
Pamela Gray (06:19:32) wrote: Heavens, I think I’ll go partyless from now on.
The “two-party” system just does not work. BOTH have betrayed us.
Anybody up for forming the Science Party?
Its goals would be simple: Sound policy based upon sound science.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Roger, in a modern plant it takes about 75,000 btus to process a bushel of corn into 2.9 gallons of ethanol. The co-product, 17 lbs of DDGS contain approx. 140,000 btus (8,400 btus/lb.)
It would be easy to burn the ddgs for process energy. For ex. “Corn Plus,” in Winnebago, Mn uses a fluidized bed, gassification reactor process to to burn the “Syrup” – the less-valuable, thin stillage.
The problem is: The DDGS are more valuable (for livestock feed) than the nat gas they would replace. It’s a matter of “want to,” not “can do.”