Video of Lord Monckton Warning of Copenhagen Climate Treaty Exceeds 3.5 Million Views in a Single Month
Lord Monckton giving a presentation – photo by Derek Warnecke
Minneapolis – A video of Lord Christopher Monckton warning of the impending Copenhagen climate treaty has received over 3.5 million views in 30 days, according to Minnesota Majority, the organization responsible for posting the original 4-minute excerpt of Monckton’s speech. The organization says that its original clip, together with the 100+ cloned versions that now exist on YouTube, in total exceeded 3.5 million views as of November 15, 2009. The video clip made Minnesota Majority the #1 most viewed Non-Profit & Activism channel in the month of October on YouTube.
[ Note: Also I have a link to the draft Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty here Monckton’s Powerpoint presentation used at that speech is available in PDF format here (warning large download 17.5 MB) – Anthony]
See the video below.
The video clip is an excerpt from a 95-minute speech given by Lord Christopher Monckton at an event sponsored by the Minnesota Free Markets Institute in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 14. Monckton, former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher and a noted climate change expert, presented evidence dispelling the theory of man-made global warming. He also warned that America’s sovereignty may be at risk if the United States signs the treaty scheduled to be negotiated at a United Nations climate change summit beginning on December 7 in Copenhagen. Monckton says that the Copenhagen treaty will cede U.S. sovereignty, mandate a massive wealth transfer from the United States to pay reparations for ‘climate debt’ to third world countries and create a new ‘world government’ to enforce the treaty’s provisions.
Full video speech of Lord Monckton’s speech. It is one hour and 35 minutes long.
The Monckton speech has spurred a national debate on the issues of man-made global warming and the Copenhagen Treaty. His comments have been featured on Fox Business, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, The Wilkow Majority, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin and Breitbart TV. An hour-long segment featuring Lord Monckton and Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton was aired on the October 30th edition of the Glenn Beck Show.
The Monkton video also helped to launch a national petition drive opposing the Copenhagen Treaty as well as domestic cap-and-trade legislation. The petition, which is hosted at www.NoCapAndTrade.com, has generated over 135,000 messages to Congress.
“The more people learn about the supposed issue of ‘climate change’ and how green extremists intend to control our lives, the more skeptical they become,” said Jeff Davis, president of Minnesota Majority.
Monckton’s message appears to be having an impact. Last week, key US Senate Democrats said it is unlikely there will be any additional action on climate-change legislation this year. The Obama administration had hoped to seal a deal on domestic cap-and-trade legislation prior to attending the Copenhagen conference in December. Earlier this month, The Times reported that all hope is lost for a deal in Copenhagen and that a world treaty on climate change will likely be delayed by up to a year.
Davis warns now is not the time for treaty opponents to rest on their laurels. “We may have bought ourselves some time,” said Davis. “But green extremists will be back in-force trying to advance both domestic cap-and-trade legislation and an international climate treaty that will rob us of our liberties and grant government more control over our lives.”
CONTACT
Jeff Davis, Minnesota Majority
jeff.davis [ -at -] mnmajority.org
612-605-3303 ext 702
Nothing came of Copenhagen, but Lord Monckton’s warning was on fairly solid legal ground as I understand it.
With Missouri v. Holland the SCOTUS decided that treaties had the capacity to render actions constitutional, which if taken by Congress would have been unconstitutional. Coincidentally, the issue at hand was environmental. An earlier law protecting interstate migratory birds was twice struck down on constitutional grounds (ie, the Federal gov’t had no authority over birds, having no bird-related powers vested it by the text). The inventive way around the Constitution by the environmentalist supporters was to sign an international treaty protecting migratory birds, on the pretext that the treaty, being supreme law of the land as provided by the Constitution, could overcome any constitutional limitations. Missouri argued that the Federal gov’t had no ability, by treaty, to bind states with laws which if enacted “freestanding” would have been themselves unconstitutional. SCOTUS went against Missouri.
That was step one, and established the idea that a Federal treaty can entirely invalidate and supplant existing constitutional provisions, including the Bill of Rights — in that case, the 10th amendment.
The next half of the puzzle is United State v. Belmont, which held that an “executive agreement” by the POTUS with a foreign power was binding on the states and could not be rejected even when the agreement was against state law. The issue at the time was the formal recognition of the USSR by FDR, and his accession to allow the nationalization of Russian assets held in the US (bank accounts, etc). The owners of those assets naturally objected, and NY state at least refused to comply. SCOTUS again went against the state, Justice Sutherland arguing, incomprehensibly, that this was justified under the treaty provisions of the Constitution (he even referenced Missouri v. Holland).
The problem in Belmont being that no treaty had been approved by the Senate at all, it was just the President’s “executive agreement” with the Soviet Union.
The combination of those two atrocious decisions is that [external] treaties may entirely subvert and trump all [internal] rights and constitutionality, and that to fall within the category of “treaty” all that is necessary is that the President, on his own initiative and without any ratification, make an agreement with some foreign power or group of powers.
In practice, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t some trouble about this,” if it were attempted by that route, but there is certainly some precedent supporting a dire view of the things.