UPDATE: The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley thanks readers and responds to some critics of his title in an update posted below. – Anthony
UPDATE2: A new condensed version of Monckton’s rebuttal is available below
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I don’t have a dog in this fight, as this is between two people with opposing viewpoints, but I’m happy to pass on this rebuttal from Christopher Monckton, who writes:
Professor Abraham, who had widely circulated a serially mendacious 83-minute personal attack on me on the internet, has had a month to reply to my questions.
I now attach a) a press statement; b) a copy of the long letter in which I ask the Professor almost 500 questions about his unprovoked attack on me; and c) the full subsequent correspondence. I’d be most grateful if you would circulate all this material as widely as you can. The other side has had much fun at my expense: without you, I can’t get my side heard, so I’d be most grateful if you would publicize this material.
Links to both Abraham’s and Monckton’s presentations follow.
I’ll let readers be the judge.
Abraham: http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/
(NOTE: He uses Adobe presenter – may not work on all browsers)
Monckton: monckton-warm-abra-qq2 (PDF)
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UPDATE: 7/13/10 6:40PM PST In comments, the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley thanks readers and responds to some critics of his title in an update posted below. – Anthony
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From: The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
I am most grateful to Anthony Watts for having allowed my letter asking Professor Abraham some questions to be circulated, and to so many of you for having taken the trouble to comment. I have asked a good firm of MN libel lawyers to give me a hard-headed assessment of whether I have a libel case against Abraham and his university, or whether I’m taking this too seriously.
I am charmed that so many of you are fascinated by the question whether I am a member of the House of Lords. Perhaps this is because your own Constitution denies you any orders or titles of nobility. Here is the answer I recently gave to the US House of Representatives’ Global Warming Committee on that subject:
“The House of Lords Act 1999 debarred all but 92 of the 650 Hereditary Peers, including my father, from sitting or voting, and purported to – but did not – remove membership of the Upper House. Letters Patent granting peerages, and consequently membership, are the personal gift of the Monarch. Only a specific law can annul a grant. The 1999 Act was a general law. The then Government, realizing this defect, took three maladroit steps: it wrote asking expelled Peers to return their Letters Patent (though that does not annul them); in 2009 it withdrew the passes admitting expelled Peers to the House (and implying they were members); and it told the enquiry clerks to deny they were members: but a written Parliamentary Answer by the Lord President of the Council admits that general legislation cannot annul Letters Patent, so I am The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (as my passport shows), a member of the Upper House but without the right to sit or vote, and I have never pretended otherwise.”
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UPDATE2: A new condensed rebuttal for easier reading is here
I don’t think I’d want Chris Monckton mad at me.
Lord Monckton is one of the finest bestowers of the literary Glasgow Kiss I have had the pleasure of reading since Hugh MacDiarmid shuffled off his mortal coil.
This is pure joy.
“A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.”
I would give my [snip! – consider it given] to have even half of the flair and insight of Christopher Monckton, although that might prove problematic as he seems to have many more than two! Rebuttal? – more like a blitzkrieg, and deservedly so!
It doesn’t appear to be happening globally, but it feels like the temperature is rising between the two camps.
Did Professor Abraham just bring a knife to a gun fight?
Right from the beginning, he describes Chris ‘denying that the climate is changing’. Good grief. Are we all back in kindergarten now?
Having so completely mis-characterised Chris and the skeptic community in general I knew it was going to be slanted,but I was not prepared for the deluge of misrepresentations and obfuscations that followed.
I have now listened to enough of Abraham’s comments to make me feel ill at the sound of his voice. What is clearly noticeable is the tendency to ‘mix and match’ any available quote as a ‘rebuttal’ to something Chris has said, most of the while (not all the time of course) avoiding addressing the points being made as much as possible – or simply puffing.
One has to think about the reasoning behind the attack on Chris: he must be scaring the hell out of them. That is the only conclusion I can come to. Why go to so much trouble creating such a bilge bucket of half-responses. And do not expect him to engage Chris on response. An open debate is avoided at all costs – that much is clear already from the CRU investigations. On the excuse of ‘it will give them a platform to spread misinformation’ deny all open debate.
Chris’ peer reviewed scientific paper in the American Physical Society Journal 2008 makes Abraham’s claims dubious from the start. His ‘stuff’ about the Antarctic ice sheet sweeping into the sea is by now urban legend not believe even in blue collar bars in Dixie. Any regular reader of WUWT is much better informed and able to give a more balanced report on global ice.
The word ‘hack’ was invented to describe Abraham’s type of article. It’s a hat that fits.
A wonderful rebuttal, one that will fall, Lord Monckton knows, on deaf ears.
Where’s “c) the full subsequent correspondence”? Or is ” ” another copy of it?
In the very first sentence of his hit piece, John Abraham refers to himself a “Professor”.
That appears to be a deliberate misrepresentation; Abraham is listed by the university as only an associate professor.
There is a big difference between the two. Ask any real Professor.
I’ll answer one of the questions: 17)
American associate and adjunct professors are also addressed as professor. So, there is no relevance to the question.
JDN,
Which is the more accurate statement from an Associate Professor:
“I am an Associate Professor…”
“I am a Professor…”
“The question goes to the defendant’s credibility, your Honor.”
Im actually not a big fan of monckton’s response. I find it sounds a bit whiney sometimes. He should of just put together a slideshow refuting every piece of the evidence rather than complaining about being picked on and called names.
@Crispin in Waterloo : I Concur (in Kitchener)
Another Minnesota liberal. I think some have migrated to Penn State and to Boulder Colorado.
Sean Peake: July 12, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Did Professor Abraham just bring a knife to a gun fight?
Worse. He brought a plastic spoon.
“Any regular reader of WUWT is much better informed and able to give a more balanced report on global ice.”
Lets hear your “report” on global ice then? I would be especially interested to find out about what’s going on with Pine Island Glacier, Totten Glacier, Cook Glacier, Thwaites Glacier etc… ? I think WUWT readers are able to converse pretty well with regards to sea ice, but land ice is not a specialty of the proprietors of this site so there’s no need to make false statements. I think Goddard’s completely refuted attempt to discern Grace mass trends was evidence of that.
I think Lord Christopher Monckton is too condescendent to dig in such abyss of ignorance where global warming believers inhabit; such an imaginary realm it is only a product of a strange opposition of planets, which alter the concience, if any, of hideous creatures.
Though he deserves our admiration, he is surely stirring a killer bee hive, in a kind of surrealistic dive into a nightmare world of cataclysms and armageddons or into the horrendous smell of anaerobic creatures living in sewages.
To put it in a sentence:
What nature does not give, Salamanca does not lend
Translated: What you don’t have at birth, no university can lend it to you.
Answer to question 456) Ice can accumulate at the top of an ice sheet and melt at the bottom even with a net loss of ice. I’m not saying this happened, but, it could. The answer may not prove anything.
Very wise, Andrew.
Bill Tuttle says at 12:21 pm:
“Worse. He brought a plastic spoon.”
I have it on good authority that Assistant Professors are allowed to use sporks.
Smokey says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Seriously, we call them all professors around here and only worry about the variations when they have to serve on committees, produce a CV, or ask for tenure. Associate professors frequently outproduce tenured full professors because of their desire for tenure. I’m saying that Monckton is beating him up over nothing.
Smokey, JDN:
In American colleges and universities, the full-time faculty consists of assistant, associate, and (full) professors. The big step is from assistant to associate professor, becuase assistant professors are not tenured, and associate professors are. The step from associate to full professor, if it comes at all, comes much later, and at most colleges, the decision on this promotion is a mystery to anyone outside the Faculty Senate. But outside of the faculty itself, no one cares about the distinction between associate and full professor.
Weird, on paper I have similar education and qualifications to Prof Abraham, both PhDs, both Engineers specialising in energy/thermodynamics. Somehow he is a true believer and crusading for AGW, while I am still looking for convincing evidence.
Is it not slightly ironic that Monckton is so keen that Abraham follows his version of standard academic practice, and demands $10,000 from Abraham. This is definitely a novel interpretation of standard academic practice, and might appear as an attempt to intimidate a critic into silence. Not that a Peer of the Realm would stoop so low of course.
Those who lack a sense of humour usually die in unpleasant ways.
Those who consider themselves as sages usually die as donkeys.
It is a very, very curious fact, that all GWrs. lack the sense of humour.
JDN,
If that is the rule, then why is Abraham listed as “Associate Professor,” rather than as “Professor”? In casual conversation you may be right. But Abraham’s hit piece was anything but casual, and he began right off by misrepresenting his own position.
Face it, Abraham is self-aggrandizing. Besides, Monckton only asked him the question; he made no assertion and drew no conclusion. It is up to Abraham to set the record straight. Do you think he will man-up and make the necessary correction?
The central problem is that before he published, Abraham should have done some fact checking with Lord Monckton. Instead, he made a lot of provably wrong assumptions — and now Monckton is making a monkey out of him.
I call for a public debate at the university between Lord Monckton and Associate Professor John Abraham. Do you think Abraham has the stones to accept such a challenge?
I don’t.
REPLY: The issue of associate/full professor is a side issue. Concentrate on the content – Anthony
I can say I listened to and read both of these. I certainly hope that Abraham will comply, but I’m doubtful he will.
So some unknown Professor from an unheralded Faculty at a backwater university tries to earn his progressive chops with the ohhhh soooo progressive crowd and in actuality gets a giant new bung whole the size of an Al Gore eco-grifter’s bank account ripped into him as a result.
Professor Abraham is a prime example of what is wrong with modern university educators who substitute their religious/belief system of dogma into the curriculum and call it science.
One can only hope the good professor will slink back into the hole he came from. One can also hope his students take him to task for his juvenile diatribe and further expand the gaping bung hole “Chris” ripped into him already.
And wait until the lawyers get on him . . . his career is toast.
Do you prefer butter or jam Professor Abraham?
“359: Had I not made it explicit earlier in my talk that sea level was rising at about 1 ft/year?”
Run for the hills!
Handbags at dawn.
The first 3 pages are good. Still reading.
But I question whether putting 500 or so back to back questions was the best way to format this. Anyway, when I get to the all important “last” question, I may revise my position on that.
So far, and obviously I’ve just started, the most damning thing to me from a social, not scientific, perspective is Abraham behaved like a weaselly little worm by not contacting Monckton first. I’m sure Monckton’s questions will cover more than this.
I’m hoping they go behind challenging Abraham on his varying points of weasel-like behaviour, and get into defending the science, and addressing any serious questions or criticisms Abraham brought up.
I was somewhat impressed by Abraham’s presentation, but not by Abraham’s failure to give Monckton a timely chance to respond to this attack on his reputation in advance. That, of course, undermines my confidence in Abraham’s presentation.
Has someone got a link to the original presentation from Lord Monckton that “Professor” Abraham was commenting on?
Logic is dead. Long live logic!
I know two people who, on paper, are chefs, and one can cook and the other can’t. Not well, anyway.
Jeeeeeeez!!!!! I started out willing to give Abraham a fair hearing – but he even starts his presentation with the baseless assertion that CM is a (quote) “denier of climate change”! Whenever anyone uses such a STUPID term, I find it very hard to have any respect for them. When a person calling themselves a “scientist” or a “professor” uses such terminology, I find it almost impossible to see any credibility in them.
The degree to which Abraham’s assertions are UNSCIENTIFIC beggars belief. How he lamely thinks he can counter CM’s evidence with – ahem – predictions! So we see, according to Abraham, CM was somehow wrong to cite the established fact that those four dead Polar Bears were not victims of “climate change” – apparently CM was wrong simply because it is predicted that there will be more Polar Bear deaths in the future due to climate change! What sort of remedial non-argument is that?!!!
And the equally lame attempt at countering Monckton’s assertion that ice in that particular area had grown very slightly in the last 20+ years. Abraham’s response was to cite a single anecdotal observation of melted ice!!! Dirr??!!! This man calls himself a professor?
And all that cheap talk about not being able to find CM’s sources – but not actually bothering to even request them? Anyone with any sense knows that is the very first thing you should do – request it (you know, Prof Abraham, like the Steve McIntyre requesting data from the CRU).
I could go on. If my blood is boiling, then Lord CM’s blood must be evaporating through his ears. Surely there are grounds for suing Abraham, for misrepresentation of CM’s views and defamation of character?
Lord Monckton, I am sure you are reading these comments. You have my total and unreserved respect.
Smokey says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Just as the commander of any floating craft is a “captain”, even if his rank is ensign, a teacher in a college or university is entitled to the honorific “professor”. My rank, for pay and other purposes is “Adjunct Instructor”. The accounting department can call me what they like… for all other purposes, I can, and will, be addressed as “Professor”.
It is a very, very curious fact, that all GWrs. lack the sense of humour.
Oh, I dunno. Only read a few pages and already in stitches. So far my fave is the bit where, to refute the allegation that he left his audience with the idea that the world was cooling Monckton says the world has been cooling since 2001, second fave – to refute the idea that he might have hinted that sea levels are not rising he says that er, there had been little or no sea-level rise for four years.
And black is really white. ROFL!
TL:DR. 🙂
If the good professer just answered NO 488 times he would be correct within the 95% that Phil Jones adheres to.
revkin has lots of (anxious) links in his updates below, relating to this IPCC attempt to control the message. btw, having just read the first link, which simply directed u to the revkin page, but had plenty of sceptic response in the comments, i find the first link now shows up nothing except the url:
11 July: NYT: Climate Panel Urges “Distance” from Reporters
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/climate-panel-urges-distance-from-reporters/
10 July: NYT DotEarth: Andrew C. Revkin: Climate Panel Struggles With Media Plan
[July 12, 1:01 p.m. | Updated There are nice posts on the panel’s communication efforts by Bryan Walsh at Time Magazine and Kate Mackenzie at the Financial Times.][3:37 p.m. | Updated At the bottom of this post I’ve linked to a three-page “media backgrounder” that the climate panel sent to assessment authors on Saturday. It’s fascinating reading.] …
But any instinct to pull back after being burned by the news process is mistaken, to my mind….
When I was sent a copy of the letter Friday morning by another climate researcher, I immediately forwarded it to Rajendra K. Pachauri…
Friday night, Pachauri sent this response (ascribing the delay to the time different in India, where he lives):
My advice to the authors on responding to the media is only in respect of queries regarding the I.P.C.C. Some of them are new to the I.P.C.C., and we would not want them to provide uninformed responses or opinions. We now have in place a structure and a system in the I.P.C.C. for outreach and communications with the outside world. The I.P.C.C. authors are not employed by the I.P.C.C., and hence they are free to deal with the media on their own avocations and the organizations they are employed by. But they should desist at this stage on speaking on behalf of the I.P.C.C.
I sent this followup question (e-mail shorthand is cleaned up a bit): ….
I sent Pachauri’s response to Edward Carr to get his reaction, and here it is:…
3:37 p.m. | Updated Here’s a link to the “Background and Tips for Responding to Media” sheet sent to climate assessment authors. It was produced for the intergovernmental panel by Resource Media, a nonprofit communication consultancy that in 2007 created a Web site explaining the panel’s last set of reports.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/climate-panel-struggles-with-media-plan/?emc=eta1
So, perhaps he took it too seriously, perhaps imagining he was descending from Mount Tabor with The Ten Commandments….and found such a lot of non believers 🙂
…Descending from Mount UN with its Agenda 21 🙂
Liam says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:45 pm
“Weird, on paper I have similar education and qualifications to Prof Abraham, both PhDs, both Engineers specialising in energy/thermodynamics. Somehow he is a true believer and crusading for AGW, while I am still looking for convincing evidence.”
Almost the same for me:
On paper I have similar education and qualifications to Prof Abraham, both PhDs, but I’m a physicist rather than an engineer specialising in energy/thermodynamics. Somehow he is a true believer and crusading for AGW, while I am still looking for convincing evidence.
Almost exactly one year ago was the day I’ve found WUWT. Still have the “Real Climate gives reason to cheer…” post as bookmark.
This year was so educating and entertaining … and now this piece.
WUWT is my preferred reading, more than once daily, and I am checking links to the “dark side” as well, what I did some weeks ago with Abraham. But nor fo long, because from the beginning it was just primitive and cheap.
So the more I had a lot, and I mean A LOT, of fun today.
Very appropriate response to a most inappropriate acting individual.
Anthony, Lord Monckton et al, keep going and thank you.
richard telford says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Is it not slightly ironic that Monckton is so keen that Abraham follows his version of standard academic practice, and demands $10,000 from Abraham. This is definitely a novel interpretation of standard academic practice, and might appear as an attempt to intimidate a critic into silence.
Into silence: no. Into sticking to the verifiable facts: YES.
Sean Peake says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Did Professor Abraham just bring a knife to a gun fight?
No, it actually was a gun, quite large as well. It would been a little more impressive if it hadn’t been bright orange, with lime green trim and half filled with water, but still, personal decisions being as they are….
A mealy mouthed hatchet job just got blown out of the water. I hope Lord Monckton follows up on the monetary side as these AGWrs need to return some of the money that has been misappropriated from tax payers.
Can’t we just ask for the Al Gore Warm CO2 blanket to be pointed out? In a sane world, it’s absence would be the end of the hoaxers argument. They have yet to produce one GCM which does not reference the need for this non-existent feature of the equatorial atmosphere.
I assume it would be too much for people to ask for proof that doesn’t involve arm waving and name calling.
Curt says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Smokey, JDN:
In American colleges and universities, the full-time faculty consists of assistant, associate, and (full) professors. The big step is from assistant to associate professor, becuase assistant professors are not tenured, and associate professors are. The step from associate to full professor, if it comes at all, comes much later, and at most colleges, the decision on this promotion is a mystery to anyone outside the Faculty Senate. But outside of the faculty itself, no one cares about the distinction between associate and full professor.
You’d think Monckton would understand the subtle distinction involved with titles and forms of address. To refer to yourself as a Professor at an American university does not involve the distinction between the different levels, it’s the equivalent of referring to oneself as an officer rather than using the exact rank. Monckton’s title is ‘Viscount’ but it’s correct to address him as a ‘Lord’.
Monckton asks the question:
17: Please provide a full academic resume. Though you have described yourself as a “professor” (3, 62)
more than once in this presentation, are you in fact an associate professor?
This from a man who has described himself as “a member of the Upper House of the United. Kingdom legislature,” and also “I am a member of the House of Lords, though without the right to sit or vote, and I have never suggested otherwise” whereas in fact he was neither and has never been!
So it’s rather rich that someone who is prone to inaccurate usage of his own title should complain about someone else who quite properly uses his!
REPLY:And I find it rich that somebody who’s at a university but doesn’t bring their name to the discussion can criticize a man who has the courage to put his name to his words. What’s your title at your university Phil? Careful, or I’ll put you back in the troll box. 😉 -A
JDN says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:37 pm
“[…]Associate professors frequently outproduce tenured full professors […]”
Do they produce more AGW papers than the tenured ones? Oh, that’s good. We like to have a laugh.
From my school days…
500 lines for Abraham – hand-written please!
“I must not have the audacity to insinuate that my superiors should tolerate such diabolical asininity designed to give artistic verisimilitude to such mendacious excreta from such an insignificant insect as myself.”
…as best I can remember it!
I am surprised that someone has not told Lord Monckton, that it is the height of bad manners to indulge in a battle of wits with someone who is obviously unarmed!
Reply to richard – I believe the presentation was the Oct 14/09 talk in Minneapolis, youtube link available at ingodwetrustblog.com
This brings about the topic of Nobility. Nobility does exist: A noble person is who never surrenders his/her convictions. An ignoble person is the contrary.
Being a “winner” most of the time means to surrender own’s convictions, usually in exchange of some retribution or favor from the powerful.
Phil.
How’s that glass house you like to throw your stones from?
CaptainDave at 1:47 pm
Thanks, I’ll have a look.
Anthony can you let us know if Abraham and University of St. Thomas has complied to Monckton’s request that:
Will you, therefore, now be good enough to take down your talk from whatever public places it has reached; to pay $10,000 to the United States Association of the Order of Malta for its charitable work in Haiti; to ensure that your University, which failed upon my request to have your talk taken off its servers at once, pays $100,000 to the same charity for the same purpose; and publicly to disseminate a written apology
and retraction substantially in the following terms:
“The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
“We, St. Thomas University, Minnesota, and John Abraham of that University,
retract, apologize to Lord Monckton for, and undertake never again to repeat all or
any part of, the 83-minute talk with 115 slides entitled “But Chris Monckton Said
…”, that we prepared without notification to him and then widely disseminated via
the University’s servers and other media.
“We have agreed that, in token of our good faith, by 30 June 2010 without fail we
shall have paid between us US$110,000 to the United States Association of the
Sovereign Military Order of Malta for its charitable work in the reconstruction and
relief of Haiti.”
What is Monckton’s recourse if his demands are not met? I hope you will follow up.
“and I am checking links to the “dark side” as well”
I stopped visiting those sites long ago. I have a religion already thank you very much. Science is the key to everything, and beliefs MUST be seperated from science in order for it to work. This is why any debate between even a half-way informed skeptic and an cagw will be one-sided…and funny to watch.
As much as I like anyone who can get climate scientists to bluster, I don’t have a horse in this race either, but the longer it goes on, the more attention the media “might” put into it, and once the media breaks, this entire charade of a camel’s back will fall faster then you could imagine.
There is still months and maybe years before this happens, and I just hope society is not wrecked because of “feelings” and “beliefs”. I do believe our society has been there, done that, and I would hope we would learn from the mistakes of our ancestors. One can only hope.
Found it. http://ingodwetrustblog.com/constitution-in-peril/lord-christopher-monckton-speaks-in-minneapolis/
Lord Monckton:
Masterful reply. Your post did say something about “subsequent correspondence” but I have not been able to locate it. Have I missed it or have I missed the subtle reprimand that Professor Abraham and his University did not have the good manners or grace to reply?
So essentially everything after Abraham states that Lord Monckton don’t believe in climate change is, well, pretty much then moot. lol it took him only about 21 sec to state as much.
After 23 sec, personally, I found it rather interesting that there’s really a lot of time at hand wondering over why I now like dry farts like Lord Monckton, and Dr Lindzen, even viewing them as akin to proper truth seeking hackers, heroes really, when I probably should be making sure I’m not suffering from an eight month running heat stroke, but just getting old. :p
Never expect any detailed, point by point, specific responses to questions asked of, or arguments made to, a “progressive”. I learned this long ago. You are wasting your time. Remember, AGW is a religion to some of the less intelligent true believers and a source of funding to all involved on the appropriate side of the issue.
@ Richard
Here is the video of his presentation:
Lord Christopher Monckton Speaking in St. Paul
and here are the slides
Apocalypse? NO!
Ben says:
July 12, 2010 at 2:00 pm
A little of knowledge takes you away from God, a lot of knowledge takes you nearer to Him
@Rudolf Kipp at 2:10 pm
Thanks, the other one was just a 4 minute cut from the presentation.
This Ass’t. Prof. Abraham comes across as a blatant Warmist tool, concerned not only to libel his opponent in an enormous number of particulars but to do so under spurious cover of necessarily unreferenced pseudo-science typical of Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth, and many another of such hysterics’ sorry ilk.
Since November 19, 2009, at latest, the time has long since past to let such actionable smears pass by in silence. Monckton is fully justified in exposing this craven ideologue for the peculating fraud he unquestionably is.
Titular quibbles aside, the Lord Monckton has simply required that Mr. Abraham responds in the correct and accepted manner, which Mr. Abraham has manifestly not done so.
In the process the Lord Mockton has delivered a swiftly-raised knee into Mr. Abraham’s metaphorical gonads. Insofar as this episode has unravelled, it would appear that such a blow was richly deserved. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Evidence versus predictions?
“Models, models, everywhere but nary a fact in sight.”
Getting carried away with the AGW hype is like being a deer caught in the headlights. Sooner or later you are going to get run over.
Line 4, ‘Mockton’ should read ‘Monckton’, of course.
Right off the start, Abraham calls Monkton a well known denier of climate change. The term denier is used to associate people with holocaust deniers. And Monkton does not deny climate change. Normally, you throw out discussion that sink to this level.
On the very second slide, he says that Monkton is saying that the world is not warming, sea levels are not rising, that ice is not melting, on and on. I’ve never heard Monkton say this. What Monkton says is that it’s been going on for a while before there were high levels of CO2.
We can skip to Slide 95 where it shows a slide from Monkton’s presentation that says the Sun is the main cause of global warming. I thought Abraham said Monkton denies global warming??? He’s contradicting himself.
Is all this a joke?
On slide 4, he uses the fallacy of attacking the person’s credentials instead of attacking the material. On slide 5, he uses the fallacy of appeal to authority.
The rest of this is difficult to stay awake. Apparently, Abraham believes that science involves asking the people who obtained the data. Whatever they says is written in stone and this is science. You cannot object to their conclusions. Most of his presentation is emailing people telling them that “Monkton, a skeptic, says so and so, please respond with your view”. One reply came on slide 75 by Larry Hinzman, “I believe we would side with you on this argument.” Forget the data, we’re taking votes now.
Slide 64 is funny. He’s not denying it could have been warmer millions of year ago. He’s asking if we want to go back to that. Well, if the causes aren’t from humans, then this is flying right over his head.
Near the end, he’s attacking the source of funding. The irony is so striking, I’m baffled he would go there. Wow! He’s going hardcore. Several slides of where his funding is from. NASA seems to have funded a lot of Soon’s work too.
Slide 115, he’s still attacking the relationships Soon has. Is the irony thick enough?
Slide 116, attacks Monkton’s lack of attributions. But I believe Monkton has made available all his sources somewhere, but he never once mentioned any correspondence with Monkton. He obviously did not ASK Monkton.
Slide 125 is funny. Don’t trust me. Trust these organizations that agree with me.
Slide 126 has the best question ever! Who has an agenda?
Basically what I’ve seen is that Abraham showed responses from people who agree with AGW. But most of all the data he showed were from Monkton’s slides. Again, the irony is striking.
I’ve read most of Monkton’s response/questions and it’s scathing. Monkton says it correctly. There’s a difference between using someone’s data and using their interpretation of that data. Abraham doesn’t understand that two people can have different interpretation of the same data. So most of Abraham’s argument falls apart because Monkton isn’t misrepresenting the interpretation. Monkton is showing the data. This has always been explicit. I don’t know why this is even an issue.
Conclusion: Abraham is a troll. His presentation is a joke.
What if you were taking a class from John Abraham that touched on global warming. Do you think you would be getting an objective education of the issues.
In one of the techniques that is consistently used by Abraham in his presentation – “I’m not saying that every test Associate Professor Abraham gives his class ends with a question “Do you fully believe in global warming” and you get a F if you don’t answer in the affirmative but …”
[snip]
A detailed response is forthcoming.
[reply] We look forward to it. RT-mod
Steve Mucci says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:10 pm
A wonderful rebuttal, one that will fall, Lord Monckton knows, on deaf ears.””
I would be willing to bet it went viral on one campus. 😉
Monckton doing the Gish Gallop.
Did he never hear the saying “I am sorry to write you such a long letter because I did not have time to write a short one” ?
Johnnies rebuttal of Lord Monckton’s presentation is a smarmy. His unprofessional tone (maybe calculated to talk to just “us folks”) is insulting to the intelligence of his audience. That alone made listening to him unbearable.
Lord Monckton on the other hand elevates those to whom he speaks. His FACTUALLY based presentations and writings are interesting and informative. I’m always left feeling educated on the topic.
If Johnnies presentation style in this is any indication of his teaching style he belongs at best in middle school. Certainly not at a reputable university.
Sundance says:
July 12, 2010 at 1:59 pm
What is Monckton’s recourse if his demands are not met? I hope you will follow up.
***************
VILLABOLO:
Sundance, Lord Monckton has a history of attempted intimidations against scientists, including threats of lawsuits and harassment directed at Institutions that the scientist belongs to or associates with.
Nothing so far has come of those threats.
Phil. says: July 12, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Phil, I suspect Lord Monckton does indeed recognize the subtle distinctions in title and rank, just as I am sure you recognize, but choose not to acknowledge, the issues involved in the restriction of hereditary peers from voting participation in the House of Lords. Lord Monckton is one who has challenged the legitimacy of that restriction on hereditary custom and privilege and is consistent in his approach. I’ve already snapped at Smokey, whom I normally agree with and usually find informative and thought provoking, but in Lord Monckton’s defense, Professor Abraham (and you will note I give him the full honorific) was a tad imprecise in whether he was using rank or job description. In my own written work, I will describe myself as a “professor of sociology” but when being formal will describe myself as “Adjunct Instructor of Sociology”… not that the students get a discount on their tuition because I am not ranked “professor” or their credits are listed at 3.0 rather than say 2.5 because they have an inferior teacher or the recommendations I write for them are discounted because I am “only an adjunct”. Dr. Abraham’s credentials are impressive enough without gilding the lily. His rebuttal to Lord Monckton was a lot less so.
Anthony’s criticism of you is also valid. Dr. Abraham was correct in asserting that a knowledge of background and qualifications is helpful in judging the quality of someone’s assertions (although Dr. Abraham conveniently neglected to mention that the individual who had degrees in classics and journalism was also considered qualified enough to serve as a science advisor to Margaret Thatcher) – I’d be willing to consider your postings with more respect if you were forthcoming with the credentials that Anthony suggests you may possess. Step out into the light of day, Phil.
Steve Mucci says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:10 pm
A wonderful rebuttal, one that will fall, Lord Monckton knows, on deaf ears.
Abraham may be, yes. But I wish this was broadcast on tv. Lots of good hearing ears there.
David T. Bronzich (July 12, 2010 at 1:30 pm)
… it actually was a gun, quite large as well. It would been a little more impressive if it hadn’t been bright orange, with lime green trim and half filled with water, but still, personal decisions being as they are…
——
I have found those same “weapons” to be quite effective at getting raccoons (i.e. pernicious vermin) out of my garden and off my deck, all while providing me with great mirth and hilarity in the evening hours. I strongly recommend Lord Monckton acquire one.
I’d love to see a live debate between the two. Monkton would have to be the best debator I’ve ever seen.
Perhaps Chris could extend his question 454, based on the IPCC 1995 pre-massaging statement:
“No study to date has positively attributed all or part (of the observed climate changes) to anthropogenic causes”
… to an additional question, 467:
“Exactly what is the evidence that man’s CO2 is causing climate change ?”
The first thing I question is what axe does John Abraham have to grind?
It is obvious the purpose of John Abraham’s smear tactic was to discredit Lord Monckton or he would have confirmed his statements with Lord Monckton first.
I’m very surprised Father Dease finds this to be professional conduct becoming a professor of St. Thomas University. Has Father Dease commented on John Abraham’s lack of response and actions yet?
“I have sent a brief letter to the President of your University, Father Dease, informing him that I have sent you this letter but not sending him a copy for now. I have told him that, once I have had your response, I may wish to invite him to investigate whether the content and distribution of your talk constitutes gross academic and professional misconduct on your part.”
Ocean acidification from Carbon Dioxide is complete rubbish – a grade 6 chemistry student could tell you that.
Sub postmaster/professor Abraham, or whatever status he has, is typical of the climate ‘Establishment’ desperately trying to protect the status quo from being exposed to the facts.
Moncton’s response might be a tad on the lengthy side, but here is 5 bucks that says there will be no response to his questions.
Christoph says:
July 12, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Weird, on paper I have similar education and qualifications to Prof Abraham,”
I know two people who, on paper, are chefs, and one can cook and the other can’t. Not well, anyway.
My grandma wasn’t a chef on paper. But I still haven’t had better pancakes anywhere than hers! So much for being someone on paper.
I find it very cool that Richard Feynmen didn’t want to be ‘someone’. He was satisfied with his findings and not in being someone.
Josh, can we have a cartoon of this? Please?
Liam says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Weird, on paper I have similar education and qualifications to Prof Abraham, both PhDs, both Engineers specialising in energy/thermodynamics. Somehow he is a true believer and crusading for AGW, while I am still looking for convincing evidence.
That Liam is because you are a true scientist looking for truth not a drama queen searching for validation.
I think the damages demanded (paid to a US charity) may indicate that the good Viscount is heading to the libel courts. I hope so as it will put the mmcgw scam in the law courts, much like Gore’s film (which was found to be political propaganda ). It will be interesting to see if he does this in the UK or the US
Either way ‘Nice one’
“I don’t have a dog in this fight.”
Quaint expression, that. Must admit it’s a newie on me. As a way of saying “I’m a detached observer” it has a catchy ring, though the image it conjures up ain’t too pretty. Googling the term, it was apparently first used by James Baker, former Secretary of State and a Texan. Dogfighting has been common in Mexico and also practised illegally in the U.S., especially in Texas.
Being somewhat more refined Down Under, we prefer idioms like “I don’t have a horse in this race”!
Anyway, now for a read of the dogfight.
Really?
You have some insight that leads you to believe Father Dease would be more intellectually honest and ethical than your typical university provost?
I also don’t have.. a.. “canary in this coal mine”?.. but I was offended by Abraham’s purported “slap-down” of Monckton, which was so enthusiastically distributed by the media blogs and warmist propagandists. Like everyone else, here, I saw it for the perverse, unscientific ad hominem atrocity that it was. It deserved a proper and full response from Monckton.
I’m delighted that Monckton responded, and I am not in the slightest bit surprised that Abraham has been unwilling to respond. There simply is no fitting response to having been hung drawn and quartered.
It’s not enough to just read and enjoy Monckton’s rebuttal. The existence of this rebuttal needs to be shared, spread far and wide. This is the only way Monckton’s response will receive comparable coverage to Abraham’s miserable excuse for a presentation.
Spread the link.
Lord Monckton gives me hope for humanity. He is well spoken, well educated, and well mannered. Always a pleasure to read his words and watch his presentations.
Smokey writes,
“In the very first sentence of his hit piece, John Abraham refers to himself a ‘Professor’.
That appears to be a deliberate misrepresentation; Abraham is listed by the university as only an associate professor.
There is a big difference between the two. Ask any real Professor.”
You are mistaken. Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, and full Professors all are professors.
Monckton, however, is not a member of the House of Lords as he sometimes has claimed.
I also think it implies he may not be 100% sold on each aspect of Monkton’s position in this argument between the men.
FijiDave says:
July 12, 2010 at 1:42 pm
“I must not have the audacity to insinuate that my superiors should tolerate such diabolical asininity designed to give artistic verisimilitude to such mendacious excreta from such an insignificant insect as myself.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Your quote reminds me of:
Monckton and the IPCC spade:
“The University of St. Thomas, founded in 1885 by Archbishop John Ireland, is a Catholic, independent, liberal arts, archdiocesan university that emphasizes values-centered, career-oriented education.”
see: http://www.stthomas.edu/aboutust/history/default.html
Your last comment was a dodge, John from CA:
Why, specifically, what Father Dease, be more ethical and intellectually honest than another human being?
Another primate?
I have nothing against the man. He may rise up in defense of academic decency and civil debate for all I know, demanding this all be put right and no unfair attacks on another person’s reputation without giving them an opportunity to respond be tolerated.
But I believe the evidence behind the proposition that religious leaders are more intellectually honest and ethical than laypeople, if that is what you are getting at, is pretty near zero.
I wonder if the Professor may now count his diatribe as “Research” or “Scholarship” on his CV? Perhaps he could claim Lord Monkton to be a Referee in any future applications for employment? After all, Lord Monkton is probably the only person to have completely read the Professor’s work.
Like others, I soon choked on the presentation, then suspected the Professor was just playing with an interesting new internet tool. After all, his faculty claims:
“We are committed to developing complete engineers who have a sound Liberal Arts foundation combined with hands-on experience and strong technical skills.”
But the Faculty also declares:
“We strongly believe that an Engineering education is about rolling up your sleeves, getting your hands dirty on projects, and wrapping your mind around ideas which have the potential to change our world.”
http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/about/default.html
Oh dear, those delusions of grandeur again.
Christoph says:
July 12, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Really?
You have some insight that leads you to believe Father Dease would be more intellectually honest and ethical than your typical university provost?
====== you mat have a point ;)======
Before you begin research on human subjects . . .
see: http://www.stthomas.edu/irb/NewIRB/Other%20Forms/before.htm
What is the mission of the University of St. Thomas IRB?
In keeping with its distinctive mission as a Catholic university (“to develop morally responsible individuals,” Mission Statement) as well as with federal regulations (45 CFR 46), the University of St. Thomas is committed to a policy of safeguarding the dignity, rights, and privacy of all human subjects of scientific research, whether such research is federally funded or not.
The mission of the IRB at the University of St. Thomas is to assist faculty, staff, and student researchers in meeting the highest ethical and professional standards for the use of human subjects in scientific research.
Investigators are reminded that research involving human subjects may not begin prior to review and approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), and that it is the responsibility of the researcher to see that all relevant forms, documents, and supporting materials are filed so that IRB review of the research proposal may begin.
I downloaded the U. of St. Thomas paper about a month ago.
My “B.S.” detector went so high, I thought I’d have to sanitize my computer room.
As I sit here and scan to PDF Elsasser’s 1942, Heat Transfer By Infrared Radiation in the Atmosphere (Havard Meteorological Studies), wherein Dr. Elsasser IGNORES the effect of CO2 in the “heat balances” of the Troposphere, as it is an even “upflux and downflux” agent, I’ve also taken some time to flip through Lord Monckton’s “tomb”, and delight in watching a sharp wit with a rapier slice and dice a rather superficial thinker.
I hope Lord M. WILL get a copy of Elsasser’s work, because PHYSICS (basic PHYSICS) has not changed from 1942, and how CO2 suddenly becomes “controlling”, mystifies me to this day. (By the way, Plass, et. al., vintage 1955 calculate the COOLING effect of CO2 on the stratosphere, which comes about as a consequence of the net steradians of 4pi which the “shape factor” of the CO2 molecule intercepts on the Earth versus open space.)
Go GET ‘EM LORD M!!
The St. Thomas’ champion has attacked the evil Anglo denier. The staff have gathered below the school’s funding tree awaiting the calming sight of a full blossom.
Academics are the same all over the world.They will get their wagons in a cicle and mount a hatchet job on Monckton irrespective of the merits of the argument either way.
Just look at the way they connived on both side ofthe Atlantic to ensure that it was only academics reviewing the bad behaviour of other academics, so that it remained inside their cosy little corals.
Penn State inquiry, Muir Russell and Oxburgh all follow the same pattern.
Meanwhile its the tax payer who has to sit on the sidelines whilst these charades get played out ..because political leaders are too piss weak to step in to get the job done properly and credibly.
I think folks are missing a point here. Monckton has a history of people jeering at him for “not having a science degree”, answering Monckton’s excellent maths and science with rubbish, and acting thereafter as if Monckton could not / did not reply, when in fact he did.
Gavin Schmidt laid into him this way, Monbiot believed Schmidt. Monckton answered the lot… but warmists don’t want to know this. See here.
The same happened with Monckton’s paper published through APS, I think it was Arthur Smith who attacked Monckton like Schmidt did earlier, and again many warmists talk as if Smith had the last word – and fail to mention Monckton’s reply to Smith. Typical Wikipedia omissions.
So this time Monckton’s using a megaphone. And he did bring a court case in the past, and won it – the case involving UK schools, showing Al Gore’s film was rubbish. But with lousy media reporting, at a time when most of us still assumed the official science was trustworthy, there was little effect. This time, a court case might get a press who is both more knowledgeable and more skeptical of climate science. And the recent farcical reviews have raised the degree of iniquity now ripe for exposure. Media awareness and attitudes have changed since Climategate.
Abraham introduces his stream of ad hominem attacks and near complete absence of arguing the data on its merits as, “I’ll respond to his presentation in a way typical of how a scientist responds to information.”
Every scientist on the planet should be affronted by this, but sadly, there is a new breed of scientist afoot, who seeks social validation, rather than validation by experiment and Nature. This presentation reflects very badly on the University of St. Thomas.
Abraham was evidently inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity.
So,,,, Ben Santer rewrote the ’95 IPCC report conclusion to finger us all for warming the planet…..
Got any data to show us yet Ben?
You can try duffing me up in an alley if you like. I’m 6′ 8″ and trained.
It is more than a rebuttal, it is the basis of a case of defamation. There are plenty of direct comments made that satisfy the definition of defamation in most Western countries for Monkton to have a case against Abraham. He has laid out the challenge logically and in each instance has given Abrahams the opportunity to challenge whether his summary is correct. He has given Abrahams and the University a period of in-confidence consideration to apologise and withdraw and now followed that up with a further opportunity. Should they not do so Monkton has a reasonable case for court action. Losing a case like this would do much wider harm to the AGW believers than just Abrahams and the Uni. My guess is the Uni’s lawyers would not let it get to court and the sum of $110,000 will be miniscule compared to what is to come (never mind the legal costs).
Should be interesting.
Now I’ve scanned Monckton (I too get nauseous now at anything over a few seconds’ exposure to the Dark Side) I think this is a tour de force, worthy of Churchill’s speeches but in the coin appropriate for the current battle in Science. It’s at once a restatement of Monckton’s speech, with excellent clear pictures to scupper each familiar rotten icon of the warmistas, and a refusal to let the warmistas take pot shots at him from the ivory towers of abused public trust. It’s a worthy call to arms, to eject the usurpers of Climate Science from their thrones, using the proper procedure – the full rigor of Scientific Method, amplified and backed with the power of law and a passion for truth and justice. It has the sense of fatal drumbeat I remember from the Watergate inquiry.
If you’re reading this, M’lud, let me say that I deem your response to be a valuable learning resource. About the nuts and bolts of climate science, as well as about the intellectual climate that breeds nuts who bolt from the blue and underestimate the intellect of those they assume to be idiots (and therefore not worthy of spending sufficient time constructing arguments against).
Reading your rebuttal with complete fascination from cover to cover, I had a sudden insight into how Abraham, Oxburgh, Muir Russell, Gavin Schmidt, etc. are all singing from the same hymn sheet, all subject to the same tendency to arrogantly dismiss a priori anyone who disagrees.
It isn’t so much “We are right”, as “We are cleverer than you, so you must be wrong, and we don’t have to waste time putting much thought into our arguments”. Maybe we won’t hear from Abraham again, but whatever, I’ll bet that if he reads your rebuttal thoroughly, somewhere deep inside, his soul will start blushing bright red.
I think the University of “Doubting Thomas” needs more skeptics 😉
The entire warming story occupies the period following WWII to present. ~65 years. In that time, there was cooling over the first 35 years, warming for 20 years, then a slight cooling from 1998 to present. I still think the 30’s/40’s were likely the TRUE modern peak after UHI is adjusted out. The entire period is insufficient to conclude anything. And in this period, less than one third of it trended upward. Before we get to the other 50 reasons why AGW theory fails, it’s already statistically impossible to prove. It doesn’t matter what Abraham had to say after he started with the “Denier” comment. He immediately became a deranged zealot.
Lord M to Prof A: “You did not give me the opportunity to review your talk before you circulated it widely, as you should have done, and as is normal in academe.”
I am afraid the Lord has no idea what is normal in academia. There is no such mandate or custom.
500 questions? Damn that Monk dude is one thorough mofo!!
🙂
Lord Moncton is way ahead of the posse.
He knows, and any dog with a mallet in his *rse knows, this wh0le debate is nothing to do with climate.
this is a battle for Truth and Freedom – you better believe it!
Lord Moncton knows you need to step above the minutia of this debate and get a glimpse of what is really going on.
Look at the “investigations” and ask yourself:
1) were these investigations a serious attempt to determine a “truth”?
2) were both sides of this debate represented and heard?
3) were the reasonably expected questions answered, or even asked?
4) Do you think these “investigations” stuck to their terms of reference?
5) Do you think these “investigators” were chosen on the basis of impartiality?
6) Do you think the total content of these “investigations” has been made available to the public?
7) If you can answer “No” to any of the above, you must conclude “whitesash”
8) and, if you are still intent on arguing the technical minutia of this debate, you must admit that you’re sacrifising a greater truth for something which is technically insignificant. Don’t sweat the small stuff!
I think Lord Moncton is the apostle of common sense.
This AGW is an attempt to deprive you of your freedom and autonomy, and a dog with a mallet in his *rse can see this – we over-educated humans can’t see the wood for the trees.
Lord Moncton is concerned with the TRUTH and is not a child of his age.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
I am a lurker and seldom a contributer. I had a few drinks tonight and decided i needed to say something – nobody’s perfect, take offence if you like.
God Bless America – the old flag is a bit dishevelled but it’s our only hope.
tim
John from CA says at 3:38 pm:
“The first thing I question is what axe does John Abraham have to grind?”
That’s the pertinent question, isn’t it?
Abraham clearly isn’t interested in the scientific aspect of whether human emitted CO2 causes noticeable global warming. If he were interested, he would have given Lord Monckton the courtesy of reviewing his presentation. That’s what a stand-up guy does.
Instead, Abraham threw his ad hominem hit piece onto the internet, and notified all the usual alarmist blogs at the same time in order to give it maximum impact. That’s not science; that is a venomous P.R. hit piece.
Lord Monckton has thoroughly deconstructed Abraham’s presentation in great detail. If Abraham is to retain any credibility, he must now show that Lord Monckton is wrong throughout his critique.
Knowing how thorough Lord Monckton is, and knowing the very high level of his understanding of the subject, I think Abraham is beginning to see that he bit off more than he can chew. He is going to have to show that Monckton’s criticisms are all incorrect. Otherwise the assertions in his presentation will be the issue, rather than Lord Monckton’s well documented position.
The obvious way to allow Mr Abraham to salvage his credibility is in a televised debate with Lord Monckton, held in a neutral venue, and with a mutually agreed Moderator and debate rules.
But based on the cowardly Mr Abraham — whose modus operandi is craven internet back-stabbing, I would expect the spineless Mr Abraham to run and hide out from any fair debate. Abraham can easily show that I am wrong — if he has the courage to stand and deliver, instead of taking pot shots from the safety of his Ivory Tower.
Why is it that the alarmist side, from Michael Mann on down, run and hide out rather than explain to the folks paying the freight how they arrived at their alarming conclusions? There seems to be little difference, if any, between Bernie Madoff and Michael Mann. Now we can add John Abraham to that list.
Although I’ve heard Lord M speaking many, many times on digital feedforms I always internalize his written output as if Winston had spoken!
As much as I am certain that linguistic correlations would tend to the lower boundaries of similarity, I feel, no less convinced, that the KBO spirit of WSS lives on.
Rhetorical brilliance, underpinned by blatent honesty, still has a role to play!
I know that my exhortations add naught to your arsenal of siege-weaponry my dear Sir but, nonetheless, I hope that my support may contribute, however slightly, in a positive way to reassure that ‘cometh the hour, ‘cometh the Man!’ and point an appreciative finger in your direction!
Thank you.
Thank you Sir.
Did you all read question #466? It is first time I have seen a rebuttal demand a cash payment! Your Lord is a joke. Instead of actually rebutting Assoc. Prof. A., he asks a serious of leading questions, which no one could have time to address. Since he does not make statements, he can’t be called a liar, but can say “Prof A has not answered my questions!” If his original claims are correct all he needed to do was justify them.
You should follow the thread about this on Treehugger. It seems that Abrahams has backed down , but not all the way, he’s taken down the public defamatory stuff but still has most of it available on public server – leaving the uni and himself open to legal action – please join treehugger as you won’t be able to see this thread unless logged in as they are now so scared of skeptics that they are basically censoring everything – but you can see the google cahce of any page if you know how to search – here is the thread –
http://forums.treehugger.com/viewtopic.php?f=98&t=15996&start=15
to quote –
“Watch and listen to the presentation.
http://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/
I would have thought someone with your choice of username would perhaps have read the thread enough to have gathered that is where the debunking occurs”
I went to the University of St. Thomas for my MBA. The teachers and staff are very much of the progressive mindset. It amazes me that Prof. Abraham would use consensus and group think to dispute the fact based analysis of Lord Monckton. It was the late Dr. Michael Crichton who said “Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels”. Looks like we have a scoundrel here. I hope some seminary student at St. Thomas can find it in his heart to give Prof. Abraham absolution!
Lord M is clever. Of course since he is threatening to sue, Prof A cannot answer his questions! And Lord can then say: “He hasn’t answered my questions!!!” Is this “normal in the academe”?
Mike says:
“Instead of actually rebutting Assoc. Prof. A., he asks a serious [sic] of leading questions, which no one could have time to address.”
Abraham has had an entire month to respond to Monckton’s letter. Instead, he continued hiding out. And a simple request for more time would certainly have been granted. Further, Lord Monckton has made reams of specific statements over the years, so it is disingenuous for you to take him to task for asking straightforward questions of the person who did the hit piece on him. Questions, it seems, are what scares the alarmist crowd the most.
You also say:
“I am afraid the Lord has no idea what is normal in academia. There is no such mandate or custom” [eg, to contact the subject of your paper in order to correct any deficiencies, errors of fact, or misunderstandings].
In publishing, peer review and just about everywhere else it is common courtesy to contact the subject. Abraham didn’t just make a casual comment on a blog. His slide presentation had to have taken a great deal of time for him to produce, and is much larger than most peer reviewed publications. He made the entire issue Lord Monckton, rather than science — all the while hiding behind his science credentials. What a guy, eh?
If you believe it is acceptable behavior to act as Abraham has, then it is you who do not understand customary professional behavior. You have an odious hero in John Abraham. That kind of role model is becoming very typical of the climate alarmist crowd.
Surely Monckton would know that Abraham wouldn’t comply to the 110,000 USD. Surely the guy wants a fight and wants to bring this subject wide-open. He wants a public debate, and this maybe how he gets it.
The dealine was 30th June 2010 for the charitable donation – I take it that this wasn’t forthcoming…
One may pretty safely assume that Lord M. has armed himself well to debate any and all issues listed here. Good on him!
Question: Has he addressed all (or substantially all) of the main issues raised by Prof A?
“Is it not slightly ironic that Monckton is so keen that Abraham follows his version of standard academic practice, and demands $10,000 from Abraham. This is definitely a novel interpretation of standard academic practice, and might appear as an attempt to intimidate a critic into silence.
Into silence: no. Into sticking to the verifiable facts: YES.
”
There’s definitely the implication that he’s asking for the donation to a charity in lieu of a libel lawsuit, which is why he began by noting that the presentation was designed to injure him, etc.
Mike
Lord M is clever. Of course since he is threatening to sue, Prof A cannot answer his questions! And Lord can then say: “He hasn’t answered my questions!!!” Is this “normal in the academe”?
This has little to do with academe Mike. Monkton has been putting up with this sort of nonsense for years. This is an escalation and not before time. I thought that taking Al Gore before the British Courts to debunk the so called facts had set the scene, but people naturally don’t like doing that. I made the point earlier that there is a result here that could be bigger than just getting Abrahams to pull his head in. A successful defamation case might actually take the emotion out of the debate and get it to a discussion based on fact.
Abrahams is toast and he knows it.
The Monkton Rebuttal has not been written with Abrahams, nor the wider blogosphere as the primary target readers. Its primary reader is the future Judge who it may come before in a defamation/libel case. Monkton is no fool and probably received legal advice. He demonstrates throughout his ‘reasonable’ behaviour compared to the ‘unreasonable’ behaviour of the other parties. He carefully identifies at the beginning that a number of parties have libelled him with the implication that Abrahams, the Uni, the authority within the Uni who authorised Abrahams address, could all be sued. (By the way if the Uni’s Defamation Insurance policy is sensible they will counter-sue Abrahams for any damages they may sustain).
He provides the opportunity and time for the accused to recant. He even sets out what he considers to be reasonable actions to recover his damaged reputation (withdrawal, apology and donation).
Given all this a future Judge might question (having found that Monkton had indeed been defamed) why had Abrahams et al not taken any one of the several opportunities offered to settle the matter before court. A court punishment could be very substantial. Monkton knows this. Abrahams thinks this is a just an argument. He is out of his league. The real win for Monkton though is the wider damage that could be visited upon the whole AGW religion.
“Mike says:
July 12, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Lord M is clever. Of course since he is threatening to sue, Prof A cannot answer his questions! And Lord can then say: “He hasn’t answered my questions!!!” Is this “normal in the academe”?
”
A month is more then enough time for him to contact an attourney and respond in an adequete matter to this. The fact that he “buried” his head in the sand tells stories about this fellow.
Maybe we do need to put global warming on trial. Like Mr. Hansen of NASA wants. I mean after all, lets get the real facts out there and not the rubbish Mr. Hansen says.
Its almost too bad that Abraham is so tediously boring. Presentations such as his will have the undecided persons BS (Bad Science) alarm going off so quickly that most will be pushed into the skeptical camp. These pathetic rebuttals from the AGW camp use such consistent bad methods of ad hominem attacks, logical fallacies, inconsistencies, appeals to authority, etc; that one would think they all took the same class on how to write bad rebuttals. My favorite is how indignant they become when someone uses the data or observations from a paper and then dare to disagree with the conclusions from the author of the paper.
Monckton not only gets his facts straight, he does so in such an entertaining manner that I enjoyed reading all 500 questions.
Mike says:
July 12, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Lord M is clever. Of course since he is threatening to sue, Prof A cannot answer his questions! And Lord can then say: “He hasn’t answered my questions!!!” Is this “normal in the academe”?
Superbly peer-ceptive Mike. He’s terribly clever but the questions he asked were terribly straight-forward. He asked for clarification, on issues that challenged his integrity, his un-peer- reviewed questioning to the self-referenced gatekeepers whom more, and more. appear to be holding a defensive position based more on precedent than philosophy!
He asked the wrong question, is that your gripe?
If that’s your defence against his thinking then I am forced to enquire as to why you persist with a train of thought that will result in the de-raillment of a mechanism that has doubled our longevity , quintupled our prosperity but because YOU have adjudged it sinfull, while hypocritically accepting the “two-legs iz good” dictum of the Gorist Beach Frontists, who’ll happily purchase property that they’ve massively depreciated!
Some depracate, like you did Mike, that the noble Lord threatens the sanctity of those whom call him a fool, a paltroon and a liar that I have no sense of anxiety as to the fate of CM, from either side of the court, as to being other than a gold-medallist
Get this into your thinking, Lord M has no need to resort to other than the truth, for him the facts are sufficient. And as much as that sits badly with the powers of the moment, well that is life and a bit of a reminder that just because Physics and Politics begin with the same letter I’d just a reminder about the non-associatively betwixt correlation and causeation unless it suits your cause.
But whY do I know?
tallbloke says:
July 12, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Got any data to show us yet Ben?
No. But supposedly he has a rat on his doorstep.
Monckton’s not a scientist? Al Gore is?
I’d love to see Monckton come back to Minnesota and challenge Abrahams in a debate.
I also can’t believe a college professor doesn’t have the brains to realize he’s going to get hammered on something this stupid. I’m an engineer, rule #1 on the job – always tell the truth. Abrahams must have failed Engineering Ethics.
I’ve watched Abraham’s attack and read the first 60 or so of Lord M’s rebuttal. Like UnfrozenCavemanMD, I was affronted by Abraham’s claim to be responding “how a typical scientist” would. I noticed quickly that Abraham wasn’t distinguishing published peer reviewed results of papers from just the discussion part of the paper which receives less peer review scrutiny and he was going to the authors of the papers for what they thought, as distinguished from what they could back up. He also was not making an effort see what validity there might be to Lord Monckton’s points as scientist would first do in good faith. He tried to rebutt points about 4 years flattening of the sea temperatures and ten years of little net reduction in Arctic ice, with the long term trend data, which was not being denied. It seems to me that rather the point being made was that natural variation was not being given its due.
On my first and only viewing so far, I noticed that Abraham’s quotes Dr. Frank uncritically:
“Evidence for anthropogenic causes of this modern warm comes from the fact that climate models can only reproduce modern warmth by including anthropogenic forcings.”
First of all, it the statement uses the standard IPCC fudge phrase “anthropogenic forcings”, which conflates the anthropogenic GHGs with the anthropogenic aerosols. CO2 forcing can’t reproduce the midcentury cooling or the steep temperature rise of the 80s and 90s without anthropogenic aerosols either, and those aerosols are so poorly constrained by data that models that vary by over a factor of two in climate sensitivity can “match” the 20th century climate chiefly by using different levels of aerosols. Statement’s like Frank’s have been one of the chief arguments against a larger attribution to solar, but even though the IPCC acknowledges that solar variation is poorly understood allowing that it might be a factor of two greater than in the Lean data typical used for solar forcing in the model runs, I’ve never seen an attempt to match the 20th century warming using solar forcing with twice the variation. You’d think that would at least have been tried in true fairness to a competing hypothesis. You would think that the failures of the models to reproduce the PDO and NAO which were in positive phases for the recent warming and negative phases for the mid century cooling would give one pause before citing their inability as “evidence”. Of course there is a lot of other diagnostic literature documenting problems with the models including a failure to reproduce the signature of the solar cycle seen in the observations. It would be nice if they were validated for solar before being used to reject it as a hypothesis.
Later on, Abraham goes on to cite a number of solar articles, once again uncritically. Most were just mere correlation studies, so of course, since solar forcing was fairly flat when the temperature was rising in the 80s and 90s, and CO2 forcing was also rising, the correlation with CO2 was better. But solar forcing does not have to rise for warming of the oceans and climate to continue, it just has to be maintain a higher level of forcing than the ocean’s have yet to equilibrate to, and the oceans, which contain nearly all the thermal mass of the climate system, were still recovering from the little ice age. The full climate response to earlier poorly understood increases in solar forcing, may, just like the response to CO2 forcing, have been modulated by the anthropogenic aerosols and the PDO and NAO multidecadal oscillations. The earlier papers cited, like Solanki’s in 2003 were published before the climate commitment studies of Meehl, et al and Wigley, et al, in 2005, which might have given Solanki pause before using mere correlation. Surely, there should be more evidence than mere model failures, before dismissing a solar grand maximum in the latter half of the 20th century as mere coincidence.
As a scientist whose specialty is radiative transfer, Abraham should know that direct effects of CO2 and other well mixed GHG forcings could only explain less than a third of the recent warming. Attributing anything more to them requires that the climate system have net positive feedback to their forcing. That is the key question in the science, since the direct effects alone would only result in a climate sensitivity of about 1 degree C. That would not be enough to justify sacrificing trilliosn of dollars of economic growth. The science is unresolved as yet, there is still the possibility that if the net feedback is negative or only slightly positive, most of the recent warming is due to solar, aerosols and internal variation. GHG warming would be a perturbation on top of natural variation, not the other way around. While the climate will likely be warmer in the year 2100, that decade may well be cooler depending upon natural variation.
Lucy Skywalker says:
July 12, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Now I’ve scanned Monckton (I too get nauseous now at anything over a few seconds’ exposure to the Dark Side) I think this is a tour de force, worthy of Churchill’s speeches but in the coin appropriate for the current battle in Science. It’s at once a restatement of Monckton’s speech, with excellent clear pictures to scupper each familiar rotten icon of the warmistas, and a refusal to let the warmistas take pot shots at him from the ivory towers of abused public trust. It’s a worthy call to arms, to eject the usurpers of Climate Science from their thrones, using the proper procedure – the full rigor of Scientific Method, amplified and backed with the power of law and a passion for truth and justice.
======================================
Yes. Bravo. Well said.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
UnfrozenCavemanMD says:
July 12, 2010 at 4:58 pm
This presentation reflects very badly on the University of St. Thomas.
But you wouldn’t know because your just a caveman, thawed out. Our world frightens and confuses you. 😉
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3388136/9476695
I sometimes tire of people (even myself) calling AGW a religion. Let’s be fair; if it is a religion, it is one of the more badly constructed, factually challenged religions. It’s apologia stinks. Just look at Dr. Abraham’s presentation. It would never stand up to the rigorous challenges that religiously mature apologia must endure. It is filled with obvious speaking -to-the-choir (or ignorant) easy to dispute assertions (as CM does so devastatingly). It really is more like a cult, a unique, historically temporary, streak-of-faith-filled-frenzy supported by carefully arranged, mutually reinforcing factoids (a cargo cult?). Dr. Abraham’s behavior embodies every stinking bad behavior we associate with narrow minded cultists: intolerance and holier than thou ad hominem attacks hiding behind a thin veneer of arrogant rationality. Anyway, my hat is still off to the late Michael Crichton.
Mike says:
July 12, 2010 at 6:33 pm
“Did you all read question #466? It is first time I have seen a rebuttal demand a cash payment! Your Lord is a joke. Instead of actually rebutting Assoc. Prof. A.,” […]
Read the e-mail to Anthony and the letter again. You’re being distracted by details. Christopher Monckton was not writing a rebuttal. Associate Professor Abraham was writing a rebuttal.
Monckton wrote a conditionally confidential letter to Abraham, not a rebuttal. As near as I can make out, Monckton laid out the points of his libel case, should he decide to pursue the matter, and offered a reasonable way for Abraham (and St. Thomas) to avoid any legal unpleasantries.
[Hey Bill you got your own blog that’s great, but we aren’t discussing your opinions posted on your blog about Monckton here, nice try at trolling for traffic though]
I eagerly await the next instalment of this thrilling drama. As has been mentioned it seems common for Monckton’s detractors to bring a spork to a gunfight.
I believe Monckton has seized the opening afforded to him by the unsuspecting Abrahams and his naive institution to lay a foundation for a case to test not just the facts of this dispute, but by extension the science of AGW, the integrity of the IPCC, and the hockey stick team in a U.K. court of law. This could be a trial of decade, affording the skeptics the opportunity denied them by the various inquiries to date – to frame the case against the true believers. This will certainly be a more level playing field than the various inquiries have been to date. I hope the good Lord’s pockets (and those of his supporters) are deep, because the true believers will certainly fund Abrahams with whatever it takes. This should be good sport for all, and an interesting outcome is certainly assured.
The demand for monetary compensation for the damages to reputation are required for legal purposes to establish legal standing to bring a lawsuit before a court of law.
I think it obvious that Monckton’s education at Churchhill College,Cambridge and Cardiff trumps the teaching staff at St. Thomas (oh excuse me, I just turned a particular into a general argument). However I don’t often come across such a poorly worded brief as that put forward by the good professor. If I were students under him, I would be worried about my quality of education. I also would hope that he is not representative of the remainder of the instructors there.
Monckton was a terrific read and I always enjoy the manner in which he adds his own brand of humor.
Liam says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Weird, on paper I have similar education and qualifications to Prof Abraham, both PhDs, both Engineers specialising in energy/thermodynamics. Somehow he is a true believer and crusading for AGW, while I am still looking for convincing evidence.
Might I guess that you also actually have a real job in the real world where generating real results are a necessary feature of your working life. As opposed to academia.
Smokey says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Bill Tuttle says at 12:21 pm:
“Worse. He brought a plastic spoon.”
I have it on good authority that Assistant Professors are allowed to use sporks.
Perhaps it was a Progressive Spoon – i.e. it has the appearance of a spoon, but will only function as a spoon 40% of the time if it recieves a taxpayer funded stimulus… the other 60% of the time – it pretends to be a politically correct fork.
Demolition time – remind me never to get on Lord Monckton’s bad side, that was a masterpiece! Good luck to him, I hope it gets very widely publicised!
Villabolo: “Sundance, Lord Monckton has a history of attempted intimidations against scientists, including threats of lawsuits and harassment directed at Institutions that the scientist belongs to or associates with.”
I see this said a lot, and to be honest I don’t follow Monckton’s career that much, so I’m totally unaware of any threats or intimidations. The assertions are never accompanied by citations, so perhaps you could clarify for us who Monckton threatened and why. If you have no citations could I suggest you withdraw your comment because it is defamation if untrue.
REPLY: I second that, Villabolo, put up or shut up. Show citations or withdraw the claim – Anthony
Curious why Prof A produced a “revised” version. Both are still available from his faculty page:
http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/jpabraham/
I don’t have the inclination to listen to both and compare, but there’s a substantial revision to the Willie Soon slides that tones down the question of motive by funding sources, while still raising the question.
It’s as if Prof A needed to re-do his presentation to remove the libel, but in that case, why leave the older version available? Smells of rotting walleye.
University of St Thomas in St Paul MN is (according to US News) a 3rd tier university, with an endowment of ~$350M USD (they can afford the $100K, but not a lot more) that accepts ~80% of applicants. In other words, not very selective. They charge $28K in tuition and fees for their 6164 undergraduate students.
Prof A claims ~80 publications, but a quick scan suggests that most of these are conference presentations, which are typically not peer reviewed. He has a heavy teaching load, but finds time to consult for a broad variety of industrial activities that verge on “green” energy efforts, which may explain his financial biases.
My academic institution would not be happy with me if I had put it in the jeopardy that Prof A has put the University of St Thomas in!
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
July 12, 2010 at 8:12 pm (Edit)
tallbloke says:
July 12, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Got any data to show us yet Ben?
No. But supposedly he has a rat on his doorstep.
He’s had Overpeck round to call?
Angela says:
July 12, 2010 at 11:07 pm (Edit)
Demolition time – remind me never to get on Lord Monckton’s bad side, that was a masterpiece! Good luck to him, I hope it gets very widely publicised!
The parts I read were pretty good, but full of typos and missed words. Someone with the aptitude and time could usefully help him with a proof readers report.
Larry G says:
July 12, 2010 at 9:38 pm (Edit)
I hope the good Lord’s pockets (and those of his supporters) are deep, because the true believers will certainly fund Abrahams with whatever it takes. This should be good sport for all, and an interesting outcome is certainly assured.
The extent to which they would back Abrahams financially would itself speak volumes about their propaganda machine. It would also be fun to find out whse money was being used, and where it came from…
Lucy Skywalker says:
July 12, 2010 at 5:44 pm (Edit)
Now I’ve scanned Monckton (I too get nauseous now at anything over a few seconds’ exposure to the Dark Side) I think this is a tour de force, worthy of Churchill’s speeches but in the coin appropriate for the current battle in Science. It’s at once a restatement of Monckton’s speech, with excellent clear pictures to scupper each familiar rotten icon of the warmistas, and a refusal to let the warmistas take pot shots at him from the ivory towers of abused public trust. It’s a worthy call to arms, to eject the usurpers of Climate Science from their thrones, using the proper procedure – the full rigor of Scientific Method, amplified and backed with the power of law and a passion for truth and justice. It has the sense of fatal drumbeat I remember from the Watergate inquiry.
Nicely put Lucy. I think people stateside probably underestimate the impact of the case Monckton backed in the UK courts when the lorry driver took issue with Gore’s movie being rammed down the throat of his kid at school.
The british public became aware of the Judges verdict, and quietly formed ther opinions about ‘global warming’. The polls showed belief diminishing from that day forward. Brit’s don’t like the inculcation of thei children with a one sided viewpoint.
I think Viscount Monckton’s pockets probably are pretty deep, but I’d certainly be willing to kick into the fund if he manages to get this one to court and needs our support.
Tallbloke, ahem, that would be ‘a proof reader’s report’.
Monkton seems to have peculiar values, he calls University of St. Thomas a ‘Bible school’ then demands $100000 because he thinks they insult him.
Phil Clarke (1:16 pm), is the world warming or cooling?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_hi-def3.gif
From Monbiot’s Blog
“Viscount Monckton, another fallen idol of climate denial
Professor John Abraham’s withering scrutiny reveals how the gurus of climate scepticism repeat a pattern of manipulation
Abraham, like the other brave souls who have taken on this thankless task, has plainly spent a very long time on it. He investigates a single lecture Monckton delivered in October last year. He was struck by the amazing claims that Monckton made: that climate science is catalogue of lies and conspiracies. If they were true, it would be a matter of the utmost seriousness: human-caused climate change would, as Monckton is fond of saying, be the greatest fraud in scientific history. If they were untrue, it was important to show why.”
What will Monbiot say next! Sue me too?
To use the youthful vernacular, Associate Professor Abraham has been PWND! I think the term PWND is entirely appropriate as Associate Professor Abraham has created a presentation of the standard of an indisciplined teenage student.
From what I saw of Abraham’s PDF presentation, I found it to be inaccurate and misleading and I gave up reading/watching it after a very short while as I could easily see the gaping flaws in it’s first few arguments.
I did not bother finishing it. This rebuttal from Viscount Monkton has highlighted even more mistakes, misinterpretations and outright lies that I was not aware of. It makes me think that Associate Professor Abraham did not actually watch Viscount Monkton’s presentation at all, but merely looked at the slides, misunderstood them and then without the common courtecy of even contacting Monkton, set about to wilfully libel his work.
That this man, Abraham, has somehow achieved the position of Associate Professor astounds me when his sloppiness in research is worse than would be expected of a first year A level physics student in the UK.
Viscount Monkton has thoroughly rebutted this pathetic presentation, which is bordering on a libellous defamation of character.
If anyone has the gall to even think of mentioning Abraham’s name when discussing credibility in Climate Research, They will have already deserted their own credibility entirely.
The beauty here is that Monckton laid out all the arguments against AGW in his presentation and some boofhead from a University trying to get a taste of the AGW funding pool came along and challenged him. Perfect!
Let the court case begin.
Is it acceptable to abbreviate “Associate Professor Abraham” as “Ass. Prof. Abraham?”
Probably not. However Abraham’s snarky attack on Monckton sinks me to the level of snark, especially as I was subjected to Abraham’s sort of “scientific” disdain, when I first began innocently asking questions about the “science” of global warming.
I often lose debates simply because I lose my temper. Once, when arguing “peace is better than war,” I was so infuriated by my younger brother that our discussion disintegrated into a brawl. (So much for peace.)
Due to my own weakness, I greatly appreciate Monckton’s ability to painstakingly dissect Abraham’s guff, demonstrating not only Abraham’s incorrect interpretation of facts, and his misuse of logic, but also Abraham’s failure to be polite and have good manners.
Abraham winds up looking inept and intellectually lazy. It is the intellectual laziness, combined with arrogant displays of power, that has always infuriated me about Alarmists. All I have needed to do is ask questions, and I have witnessed people scorning, scoffing, and looking down sniffy noses, calling me all sorts of names, without answering my questions.
When “Villabollo” talks of “threats and intimidation” I feel he is forgetting what it was like to even dare question the idea of Global Warming, even only four years ago. Abraham’s rant is actually a fine example of the sort of “threats and intimidation” I’d receive. It might not discourage the likes of Monckton, but to an ordinary fellow like myself it was definitely intimidating to get hit by a whole slew of “science.” I was often condescendingly informed I couldn’t understand, because I was not an Ass. Prof.
I wonder if Abraham was not actually fishing for funding, when he took on Monckton. Although some scientists and schools, like Mann and Penn State, have received money from the stimulus slush-fund, most scientists are chronically underfunded, and the current economic crisis is starting to hit home in small, back-water colleges that employ Ass. Profs.
In a time of crisis we are faced with a choice. We can stand by Truth, and use the painstaking logic that Monckton uses, or we can sink to the level of Abraham, which strikes me as a sort of juvenile bullying.
If we build on Truth we build on a rock, but if we build on adolescent bullying we are building on a swamp.
Here is a quote from the St Thomas website;
“The legal body that governs the university is the board of trustees. It is the final authority on setting our important policies, on the definition of major goals, and on the preservation of the academic mission.”
That last clause seems the operative bit.
I checked out the list of members of the Board of Trustees. Plenty of interesting people who have vested interests in academic integrity, an a number of high-powered lawyers, too. I expect there to be a lot of communication between these people since Monckton went public. And I bet one of the questions will be ‘ why weren’t we informed?’
Here they are;
Lee R. Anderson/Chairman, APi Group, Inc.
George W. Buckley/Chairman, President and CEO, 3M
Rodney P. Burwell/CEO, Burwell Enterprises, Inc.
Michael V. Ciresi/Partner and Chairman of the Exec. Board, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, L.L.P.
Burton Cohen/CEO and Publisher, MSP Communications
Reverend Dennis Dease/President, University of St. Thomas
Gail Dorn/Marketing and Community Relations Consultant, Target Corporation
Michael E. Dougherty/Chairman and CEO, Dougherty Financial Group LLC
John J. “Hap” Fauth/Chairman, The Churchill Companies
Maureen A. Fay, O.P./President Emerita, University of Detroit Mercy
Archbishop Harry J. Flynn, D.D/Archbishop Emeritus, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis ..Chair, University of St. Thomas Board of Trustees
Ron L. Fowler/Chairman, President and CEO, Liquid Investments, Inc.
Timothy P. Flynn/Chairman, KPMG LLP
Eugene U. Frey/Chairman, Wabash Management Inc.
Geoffrey C. Gage/President and Owner, Brand Solutions
Antoine M. Garibaldi/President, Gannon University
James P. Gearen/Executive Vice President, Zeller Realty Corporation
Amy R. Goldman/Chairman and Executive Director, GHR Foundation
Pierson M. Grieve/Retired Chairman and CEO, Ecolab, Inc.
Daniel J. Haggerty/Retired CEO, Norwest Venture Capital
Stephen J. Hemsley/President and CEO, UnitedHealth Group
Kathleen J. Higgins Victor/President, Centera Corporation
Stanley S. Hubbard/President and CEO, Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc.
John J. Huber/Controller – U.S. Accounting Operations, Canadian Pacific Railway
Sister Carol Keehan, DC/President and CEO, The Catholic Health Association
Laurence E. LeJeune/Chairman of the Board, LeJeune Investments, Inc.
Reverend Edward Malloy, CSC/President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame
Reverend John M. Malone/Vice President for Mission, University of St. Thomas
Mary G. Marso/CEO, Jeane Thorne, Inc.
Reverend Kevin McDonough/Pastor, Church of Saint Peter Claver
Harry G. McNeely, Jr./Chairman Emeritus, Meritex Enterprises & McNeely Foundation
Alvin E. McQuinn/Chairman and CEO, QuinStar Investment Partners, LLC
John M. Morrison/Chairman, Central Financial Services, Inc.
The Honorable Diana E. Murphy/U.S. Circuit Judge, 8th Circuit Court of Appeals
Stephen P. Nachtsheim/Chairman, Deluxe Corporation
John F. O’Shaughnessy, Jr./Chairman and CEO, General Parts, Inc.
The Most Reverend Lee A. Piché/Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
Gerald A. Rauenhorst/Founding Chairman, Opus Corporation
Richard M. Schulze/Chairman, Best Buy Co., Inc.
Robert J. Ulrich/Chairman, MIM
Frank B. Wilderson/President, Wilderson and Associates, Inc.
Ann Winblad/Partner, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Mark Zesbaugh/CEO, Lennox Re
The Board of Trustees holds meetings three times per year, in February, May and October. The Executive Committee of the Board meets bi-monthly.
Given that WUWT is the #1 science site on the whole web, Abraham is now obviously going to be agenda item #1 for the October meeting.
“Mike says:
July 12, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Did you all read question #466? It is first time I have seen a rebuttal demand a cash payment! Your Lord is a joke. Instead of actually rebutting Assoc. Prof. A., he asks a serious of leading questions, which no one could have time to address. Since he does not make statements, he can’t be called a liar, but can say “Prof A has not answered my questions!” If his original claims are correct all he needed to do was justify them. ”
Mike, yes, I have read ALL the questions, which is why I waited until I had finished reading them before I gave my opinion.
Lord Monkton DID refute and rebut the ill-informed and misleading nonsense that Associate Professor Abraham published. He rebuts them in the form of detailed questions that can only be answered honestly in a way that will show how incompetently the Professor has conducted his sloppy hatched job.
You are right, Mike, in stating that these questions cannot be answered, well, not in a way that can allow the Associate Professor to retain any credibility as these questions rightly cut to the very heart of the massive mistakes in the Associate professor’s serious and defaming allegations against Viscount Monkton.
The specific cash payment is to a charity, NOT to Viscount Monkton and this is necessary in this case as a precursor to a possible legal claim for damages.
This presentation by Associate Professor Abraham is full of massive and obvious mistakes, deliberate misrepresentation and demonstrates a level of competence equivalent to a first year A level student in the UK. It is the kind of work that a lazy student who could not be bothered actually watching Viscount Monkton’s presentation, but who would only look at some of the slides, fail to understand them or their context (which were fully explained in the presentation itself) and then create a very biased and poor hatchet job of Viscount Monkton himself.
This was not evidence of competent academic research, on the part of Associate Professor Abraham, but of personal spite and wilful defamation and sloppy investigation (what little investigation there was plainly did not even stretch as far as actually watching the presentation in full) If Associate Professor Abraham had actually watched the presentation, then I am even more at a loss as to how a professed “learned” man could not understand many of the slides as the way in which he misrepresented what was presented by Viscount Monkton is little short of grotesque.
Your Associate Professor Abraham has been made to look like a very foolish, lazy, sloppy, ill-educated, ill-mannered and silly little man indeed.
If Chris Monkton tries to sue Abrahams for libel, then I will show my backside in the marketplace. From the above comments Monckton clearly knows his market, and that’s all that matters to him.
Abrahams looks mild and sensible enough not to rise to Monckton’s bait and sue Monckton. Monckton has done what a reasonable person ought not to have done and simply turned up the volume. He’s lost it big time.
Clearly it really *really* galls Monckton that Rajendra Pachauri has vastly more relevant peer reviewed papers than dear Monckton’s one little article.
I was amused to see that the latest sea level data blows Monckton’s “no sea level rise for 4 years” graph out of the water. Ah but because it was true when Monckton gave the presentation, that’s all that matters! Well no, not really. It’s just proof of the obvious cherry-picking that Monckton likes to do.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_ns_global.jpg
Ken Hall
Good reply to Mike’s comment but I would not go so far to suggest the good associate professor as you did: rather I would summarise his effort as one of intellectual incompetence. 🙂
I keep getting download errors when trying to download the Monckton piece. Does anyone have a Word file of it or something I could try?
Or is it up somewhere else in a different format?
Thanks
““Evidence for anthropogenic causes of this modern warm comes from the fact that climate models can only reproduce modern warmth by including anthropogenic forcings.””
Oh gosh darn! That is another bovine waste meter broken!
Am I the only one who reads the above ridiculous defence of model-based evidence and only sees,
“Sorry, we can’t get out models to work, because our models are wrong!”
We only have ONE model worth examining, and that is the big one we live on.
The other comparative computer models cannot get the same results without adding “anthropogenic forcings” because they are NOT models of the actual earth’s climate (because they cannot model things that humans still have no clue about, even simple things like clouds and the effect of the sun’s radiative, magnetic, electronic and other effects and the effects of the changes in the earth’s gravity, magnetic strength and polarity, and sub oceanic volcanic and earthquake activity and literally millions of other small, but critical interactions of energy that actually take place in our real non-predictable, non-linear climate) and therefore are programmed to give the political outcome that the computer programmers who wrote the code were paid a lot to produce and therefore those computer models are NOT modeling the earth accurately and therefore the computer models are WRONG!!!
bigbloke says:
July 12, 2010 at 11:55 pm
Tallbloke, ahem, that would be ‘a proof reader’s report’.
Uh-Oh, apostrophe catastrophe alert. BB is watching you 🙂
‘I’ve got ‘Coaldust’ chiding me for using them where I shouldn’t on my blog, and you chiding me for missing ’em out here.
Read this and gimme a break! 😉
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/about/
OK…. so I’m on slide 8 of Dr Abraham’s Presentation. (refuting slide 1 of the Monkton presentation)…. this isn’t going well……
The Quote that Abraham refutes is actually from a Sunday Telegraph article ‘Me and my God – Moral Outlook: Earthquake, Wind and Fire’ an interview with Frances Welch (10th September 1995)……
I guess I’ll keep listening, but already Abraham shows himself to be light on research and big on appeal to authority (his)…….
John from CA,
I’m sort of getting your point that this university, like every other university, has a published statement of ethical guidelines that sounds pretty neat. Although this has nothing to do with human experimentation, so that part of your quote threw me.
I’m not saying Father Dease would necessarily be unethical and/or ineffective. I’m saying there’s no reason to assume he is less likely to be so than anyone else in his position.
“Father” in front of a person’s name does not guarantee he’s better at doing his job than anyone else doing the same job. (Nor does it disqualify him.)
Steve Milesworthy,
Thank you. Your link merely proves Viscount Monkton to be correct. If you took your blinkers off and look at what Monkton shows in his presentation, he shows a long term trend, the end of which (the last four years) was largely flat. This .jpg also shows that and then it shows a return to the exact same trend that Monkton demonstrated in his presentation.
This trend does not show a trend of 20 feet rise per century, (as Al Gore predicted) much less the 20 meter rise that some hysterical alarmists predict.
In fact it clearly shows 3.2mm per year +/- 0.4mm It says so on the graph itself at the bottom left above the years 2004 2006 2008.
Let’s do some really easy sums…
If one multiplies 3.2(mm) x 100 (years) this equals 320mm. 320mm divided by 10 gives us 32 centimetres. This means this graph which you posted shows a 32cm rise over 100 years, which is 1.04 feet.
The long term trend is approximately 1 foot per century in that graph.
So, where is Viscount Monkton wrong?
Steve, you are wrong.
Steve Milesworthy says:
July 13, 2010 at 3:11 am (Edit)
I was amused to see that the latest sea level data blows Monckton’s “no sea level rise for 4 years” graph out of the water. Ah but because it was true when Monckton gave the presentation, that’s all that matters! Well no, not really. It’s just proof of the obvious cherry-picking that Monckton likes to do.
I see a lot of graphs still being paraded by warmists which end at 2000-2003. At least Monckton’s graph was up to date when he wrote his presentation. At how was giving a graph which started with the beginning of the satellite record and ended up to date cherry picking anyway?
Get a grip
But who is Sheridan Stewart? According to the properties of the pdf, he/she is the author.
jcrabb says:
SO!! It is run by members of the clergy, isn’t it? and Moncton did say he would donate it all to charity, (of their choosing?)
Hi there,
interesting smearing on both sides . . makes me a bit wodnering if we forget the big picture in all the details..
Anyhou, I found this one by Lubos about the Houghton-question
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/02/sir-john-houghton-is-liar.html
Seems that this one can be answered quite clearly . .
All the best,
LoN
Look, that’s my problem with this. Christopher Monckton’s chosen method of addressing this was ridiculous.
He scores some hits, but by dividing his point into almost 500 pin-pricks, some of them come across as trivial and silly. Like, as only one example, when Abraham points out Monckton is saying the sea levels aren’t rising, Monckton replies, but I said they were rising until recently.
Well, that would mean Abraham was right, doesn’t it?
Etc.
Sure, there’s another way to look at it, but rather than engaging in a concise, hard-hitting, debunking, we get 500 questions.
Is it fair that Monckton should ask some questions? Sure. But this comes across as ridiculous to someone not already predisposed to like him.
And who the hell would have time to answer them all, even within a month, while otherwise working?
Now, Abraham brought this on himself by not giving Monckton a timely chance to respond before Abraham published. But instead of replying with a knockout blow against Abraham, we get something that isn’t even a long diatribe. Monckton’s hits are buried within a format most people would consider unreasonable if they received such a request.
And the concluding with request for monetary donations to charity while cute, was also arrogant, and much less effective than just closing with a particularly strong debunking point.
Steve Milesworthy says:
“Clearly it really *really* galls Monckton that Rajendra Pachauri has vastly more relevant peer reviewed papers than dear Monckton’s one little article.”
You seem to be unaware of the fact that the climate peer review system has been thoroughly corrupted. Here is a good starting place to get some knowledge.
“Ah but because it was true when Monckton gave the presentation, that’s all that matters! Well no, not really. It’s just proof of the obvious cherry-picking that Monckton likes to do.” But your own ‘latest’ sea level chart is cherry-picked.
This chart shows it’s not time to panic. But if you need to be frightened, by all means, scare yourself. The rest of us know the sea level is simply the result of the rebound from the LIA, and there is nothing to get alarmed about.
And claiming that “Rajendra Pachauri has vastly more relevant peer reviewed papers than dear Monckton’s one little article” shows how little you know about the corruption of the climate peer review process, not to mention Pachauri’s own personal ethics challenges.
Lord Monckton has asked some embarrassing questions of John Abraham. Unless Abraham can provide satisfactory answers, his ad hominem attack will backfire — which is already happening, as we can see from the responses here.
“421: Have you heard of Mr. Alexander Graham Bell’s wondrous invention, the electric telephone?
422: Have you heard of Mr. Albert Arnold Gore’s astounding invention, the World Wide Web?
423: If you had been truly interested in discovering any of my sources that a non-climatologist such as yourself would not be familiar with, why did you not, even once in the months you say you spent preparing your talk, use either the electric telephone or the World Wide Web to contact me and simply ask? Yes, I have raised this question several times before in this letter, but that is because in your talk you kept on and
on and on about it.”
😀
re:Abraham’s credentials. I’m sure that he is a member of the British House of Lords.
The essential prerequisite for a successful ambush is to give your opposition the certainty they are in complete control of the situation. Monckton, being the politically astute man he is, knows this.
It was only a matter of time until one of the Alarmists mounted a very public attack on him that moved well beyond the simple ad hom and into defamation and libel territory. This case will put the whole AGW nonsense on trial, a trial whose Terms of Reference can’t be rigged, whose jurors can’t be hand picked and whose conclusion can’t be whitewashed.
The jaws of the trap have just been sprung.
Pointman
” Tony says”
Is this a blacklist?
Pointman – The Rannoch bear-trap in action……I’ll enjoy watching the progress from snare to cooking pot.
Best,
OL
Gneiss: July 12, 2010 at 4:11 pm
You are mistaken. Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, and full Professors all are professors.
You are mistaken. Colleges and universities allow Assistant Professors and Associate Professors to *call* themselves “Professor” when engaged in school-related activities, but the title is an honorific, not a recognition of achievement or tenure. In Kentucky, distinguished citizens are awarded the honorific “Colonel” when appearing at social events, but it does not entitle them to lead a brigade in combat.
Monckton, however, is not a member of the House of Lords as he sometimes has claimed.
I’m unaware that he has ever claimed he was — all I’ve ever been able to find is talking points, without links or citation that he did. He *is* of the hereditary peerage and entitled to call himself “Lord Monckton,” but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn people don’t know the difference (since 1999, anyway) between a Hereditary Lord and a Sitting Lord.
Christoph says:
July 13, 2010 at 5:14 am
““Instead of actually rebutting Assoc. Prof. A., he asks a serious [sic] of leading questions, which no one could have time to address.”
‘Abraham has had an entire month to respond to Monckton’s letter. Instead, he continued hiding out.’
Look, that’s my problem with this. Christopher Monckton’s chosen method of addressing this was ridiculous. […]”
==========================================
Cristoph, refer to
Randy says:
July 12, 2010 at 7:22 pm
I don’t think Monckton was being ridiculous; more like meticulous.
I have just been to Monbiot.com to see how he responds to having his cherished hero, Associate Professor Abraham and his rebuttal, torn apart so publicly.
There has been nothing so far. There is the older post in which Monbiot proudly defends Abraham and denies any ad hominem attacks by Abraham on Monkton, and claims that this rebuttal of Monkton’s presentation by Abraham is first class, accurate and worthy.
I tried to post a link to alert Monbiot that his new emperor has no clothes.
I discovered that he is not allowing comments on that article. What a coward he is. So I filled in his contact us page instead and sent him a link to Viscount Monkton’s response to John Abraham.
Bill Tuttle says:
July 13, 2010 at 5:39 am
Monckton, however, is not a member of the House of Lords as he sometimes has claimed.
I’m unaware that he has ever claimed he was — all I’ve ever been able to find is talking points, without links or citation that he did.
———————–
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061212_monckton.pdf page 7
“you may wonder why it is that a member of the Upper House of the United
Kingdom legislature”
The slide misrepresenting the skeptics position was a give away to the sloppy logic to follow.
Skeptics claim there is no climate change ?
That is what climates do, they change. Denying that obvious fact is ridiculous.
The 5 dead polar bears fallacy is indicative of the logic Dr Abraham resorts to.
Monckton’s assertion was that 5 dead polar bears was not an indication of anything. [which is correct.] The “rebuttal ” was misdirection to studies that seem to show that someday there might be a problem. Where did this guy learn logic from ?
I listened and looked my way through Abraham’s presentation and found him inaccurate, fond of using conflicting and confused ad homs and desperately, desperately boring. If any Year 13 student had presented a similar effort to me as a trial run for an A levels paper I would have suggested he find another topic, preferrably one he had actually read some books about and completed his coursework on. Abraham’s refusal to engage with Monckton before and after publishing his ‘rebuttal’ is not only a break from accepted behaviour in academe, but along with accusing Monckton of making stuff up, is breathtakingly silly. Christopher Monckton is absolutely meticulous in his research for his presentations and knows very well that for him to debate and debunk the Warmist alarmaism, he has to be 100% accurate 100% of the time.
Abraham’s first slide displays Abraham’s own abysmal misunderstanding of just what Christopher Monckton actually stated in the (Monckton’s) presentation Abrahams has set about ‘demolishing’. Abraham’s protestations are those of acallow person who has absorbed dogma rather than understood the science.
I suspect others have wound Abrahams up like a clockwork mouse and pointed him at Monckton and that Abrahams will bitterly regret his foolishness when this comes to court.
@Caleb at July 13, 2010 at 1:58 am: the appropriate abbreviation for Assistant Professor is Asst. Prof. But you knew that, I’m sure.
And from the AGW lot you will nto hear a peep as its buisness as usual flaming and abusing people is something you do when you have religion on your side.
They always remind me of the bullys at school that have low intelligence so always use to revertt to name calling, ‘poopy head’.
If you put these guys on X factor i know which one woudl be voted off in seconds.
Any chance that Abraham was set up by those in the AGW crowd who wouldn’t dare try to do a hatchet job on CM themselves? A proxy attack so to speak. I wonder if there were any recent large donations to the University.
Just to touch on the Associate Prof/Prof issue, perhaps Abraham understands that the general public would be more impressed with the title “Professor” than “Associate Professor” and therefore have more confidence in his remarks. If that was the case it was certainly intentionally misleading.
Robert says:
>>“Any regular reader of WUWT is much better informed and able to give a more >>balanced report on global ice.”
>Lets hear your “report” on global ice then? I would be especially interested
> to find out about what’s going on with Pine Island Glacier, Totten Glacier,
>Cook Glacier, Thwaites Glacier etc… ?
>I think WUWT readers are able to converse pretty well with regards to sea ice, but >land ice is not a specialty of the proprietors of this site so there’s no need to
>make false statements. I think Goddard’s completely refuted attempt to discern
>Grace mass trends was evidence of that.
That I know the names of the glaciers, the difference between sea and other ice, that I know the difference (for heaven’s sake) between the Arctic and the Antarctic, that I know who Goddard is, that I have read both his analysis and a number of responses challenging his interpretations, that I know you by your first name and the general slant of your views, are all evidence of two things: that I am a i) regular and enthusiastic reader of WUWT and its manifold external references and ii) better informed that Abraham on the subject of ice, whether floating, grinding or static; whether thinning, multi-year or calving; whether blowing, piling or fragmenting.
WUWT is a site dedicated to exploring, in a scientific manner, many topics of interest. I am surprised that you say the proprietors of the site are not specialists on land ice. Why would they have to be in order to host a discussion on the subject? It is evident to me that the owners of New Scientist, for example, know little about global climate issues but that has not prevented them hosting a wide range of AGW supporters. The difference is that here one gets to read point and counterpoint. Compare that with the intellectual sterility of RealClimate for a few days!
It is not for me to provide for you reports on global ice as I have none to make. However were I to by chance to need facts and references to bolster my opinion in a discussion, I know where to find them (WUWT) and where not (the University of St Thomas in St Paul Minnesota).
Meticulous is the right word. The 500 questions are like individual explosions that bring a gutted old stadium crashing down gloriously. I too look forward to any legal action this leads to. Abraham’s only out may be to claim insanity.
@John McManus
Not a blacklist at all. That list was straight off the St.Thomas website, and apologies because I forgot the link. Here it is;
http://www.stthomas.edu/administration/board/default.html
tallbloke
[quote]I see a lot of graphs still being paraded by warmists which end at 2000-2003. At least Monckton’s graph was up to date when he wrote his presentation. At how was giving a graph which started with the beginning of the satellite record and ended up to date cherry picking anyway?[/quote]
What’s cherry-picking is making a silly point about the last 4 years being flat. If you think Monckton should be allowed to get away with this sort of thing just because the others did it first then I can’t argue with that, can I?
Another double-standard of Monckton is to complain that Al Gore makes claims about 20 feet of sea level rise in 100 years, which of course he didn’t even if he implied it in his film. But then he complains in his usual pompous way when Abraham paraphrases Monckton’s claim that the arctic ice is “just fine” and is “recovering” as “the ice is not melting”.
I would say that CM is dissembling when he says his presentation relies on “the peer reviewed literature”. He relies on his careful selection of the peer-reviewed data, and his interpretation which may or may not agree with the writer of said literature, which is entirely different.
And why (for question 346) would a graph entitled “Argo SST Nino-3.4 Anomaly” with no supporting explanation that is apparently an example graph copied off a data portal nail any so-called “lie” about ocean warming and cooling. It looks like he is claiming to his audience that this apparently limited subset of the data represents all 3000 floats? It’s no surprise that Abraham objected to its referencing when there are a few “peer-reviewed” papers he could rely on.
richard telford says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Is it not slightly ironic that Monckton is so keen that Abraham follows his version of standard academic practice, and demands $10,000 from Abraham. This is definitely a novel interpretation of standard academic practice, and might appear as an attempt to intimidate a critic into silence. Not that a Peer of the Realm would stoop so low of course.
toby says:
July 12, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Monckton doing the Gish Gallop.
Did he never hear the saying “I am sorry to write you such a long letter because I did not have time to write a short one” ?
villabolo says:
July 12, 2010 at 3:00 pm
… Lord Monckton has a history of attempted intimidations against scientists, including threats of lawsuits and harassment directed at Institutions that the scientist belongs to or associates with.
Nothing so far has come of those threats.
__________________________________________________________________
If Abraham believes as Villabolo said, that “Lord Monckton has a history of attempted intimidations against scientists…[but] Nothing so far has come of those threats.” Then Abraham’s underhanded attack on Lord Monckton is even more vile that I first thought. It is akin to a school yard bully attacking another student whom he knows belongs to a religious sect that teaches nonviolence at all costs. He may attack knowing no matter what he does he does not have to fear reprisal.
As far as the long letter goes. Abraham took the time and effort to put together a 83-minute rebuttal of Lord Monckton’s talk and spread it far and wide without giving Lord Monckton a chance to clear up Abraham’s misinterpretations in private. Monckton on the other hand, like the gentleman he is, specifically pointed out each point of contention and gave Abraham the chance to look them over in private and correct them.
I am hoping Abraham and the University continue to underestimate Lord Monckton so he can sue the $h!t out of them!.
Slander is the refuge of cowards and liars in my opinion.
I think I agree with the assessment by Pointman. Abraham has placed himself in a stupid position with his grubby attempt to discredit Lord Monckton’s views and also, in his clumsy attempt to reduce his reputation and standing in that series of attacks on Monckton’s personal, academic, and general reputation in a science as an International speaker who relies on reputation and integrity as a speaker of authority on those very issues.
In a court of law it would be extremely hard for Abraham to defend a defamation action unless, he can answer and prove truth of his allegations for each of those 500 questions carefully and specifically put to him. Should he fail to establish truth and innocent motives, then he and his University will surely have to eat humble pie as that is all they will have left when this is dissected by a competent court – My bet is an abject backdown AND apology soon after proceedings are commenced. The good Lord simply handed him more paint and he used his own paintbrush to complete the process of painting himself into a legal corner.
Twill be much wailing and gnashing of teeth from certain quarters…..
Monckton although demanding a retraction wisely refrains from detailing any errors he suspects were made by Abraham. Questions are meaningless ; they provide no clue to the twist in the good lord’s knickers.
Monckton must have heard of Arron Burr and the principle in American law that the truth is defence against a charge of libel. English law holds that you can hurt someone’s reputation by telling the truth if it is unpleasant( hard to hurt Monckton” reputation I know) but not in the US.
Monckton is a great threatener of suits, not unlike our dear Canadian jailbird and discount viscount, Conrad Black. Monckton , of course, threatens but doesn’t actually pay the lawyer to go forward. He, will of course, have been warned by esteemed council that if he is forced to admit a nose stretcher in court , the porkie may be disseminated with no libel restrictions .
Watch out Lord ; do you even remember what you have said that might come out in a court of law.
Steve Milesworthy: July 13, 2010 at 8:59 am
Another double-standard of Monckton is to complain that Al Gore makes claims about 20 feet of sea level rise in 100 years, which of course he didn’t even if he implied it in his film.
Sorry, but in 2007, the High Court found that, in the context of his film, that’s *exactly* what Gore claimed.
Stating that Gore didn’t *say* something while admitting that he *implied* it is kind of lame…
richard telford: July 13, 2010 at 6:25 am
I’m unaware that he has ever claimed he was — all I’ve ever been able to find is talking points, without links or citation that he did.
———————–
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061212_monckton.pdf page 7
“you may wonder why it is that a member of the Upper House of the United Kingdom”
Thanks, richard — always happy to learn something, even if it wasn’t what I expected to learn!
Abraham lost me at “denier”.
Funny!
Actually, that would be ‘a proofreader’s report’.
Abraham is a mechanical engineer who teaches in the engineering dept. at UST (Univ. of St. Thomas). I went tho the school’s website to check his credentials, and from there I copied this:
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“You received the UST Distinguished Educator Award. What does that mean to you?
To me, this award given by students is the most cherished award in the entire university. I work very hard to be a good teacher. The award is a nice way to learn that the effort is well received.
Describe your background and research interests?
I joined the faculty in 2000. I got my PhD from the U of Minnesota. My research interests are: Heat transfer and fluid flow, Bio-medical product design, aerospace design, and being nice to people. Making the office staff feel important. Climate change and renewable energy”
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He proclaims that being “nice to people” is one of his “research interests” and I wonder if Monckton could believe that. But the last two items say it all.
There is also a divinity school there, and after reading some of his defences for Al Gore’s religious convictions, I wonder if Abraham is teaching in the most appropriate department.
Bill Tuttle says:
July 13, 2010 at 11:05 am
richard telford: July 13, 2010 at 6:25 am
I’m unaware that he has ever claimed he was — all I’ve ever been able to find is talking points, without links or citation that he did.
———————–
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061212_monckton.pdf page 7
“you may wonder why it is that a member of the Upper House of the United Kingdom”
Thanks, richard — always happy to learn something, even if it wasn’t what I expected to learn!
__________________________
Nice try Richard but I do not think that bit of mud is going to cling, especially in a court of law.
First Monckton states:
“….Lord Lawson of Blaby, a distinguished former Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
UK, has called for the outright abolition of the UN’s climate-change panel. I concur. We
need honest science. …”
Then he states:
“Finally, you may wonder why it is that a member of the Upper House of the United
Kingdom legislature, wholly unconnected with and unpaid by the corporation that is the
victim of your lamentable letter, should take the unusual step of calling upon you as
members of the Upper House of the United States legislature either to withdraw what you
have written or resign your sinecures.
”
Note he does not say “WRITING TO YOU” he says “CALLING UPON YOU” so the reference to a member of the Upper House of the United
Kingdom legislature could easily mean Lord Lawson of Blaby, especially since Lord Monckton is so very precise in his use of language. Lord Lawson of Blaby is already mentioned in the letter. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989. He was made a life peer in 1992.
Additionally this was written in 2006 and Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, was Special Advisor to Margaret Thatcher as UK Prime Minister from 1982 to 1986. So if he wanted to “pull rank” he could have easily used that connection instead.
So is there any evidence that Lord Lawson of Blaby, a member of the House of Lords, may have been in contact with those addressed in this letter?
“There is such intolerance. This is most politically incorrect thing possible to doubt this climate change orthodoxy.” Says Lord Lawson of Blaby (In 2005 a House of Lords enquiry was set up to examine the scientific evidence of man-made cause of Global Warming and Lord Lawson was a member of it.) He goes on to comment – “We had a very thorough enquiry and took evidence from a whole lot of people expert in this area and we produced a report. What surprised me was to discover how weak and uncertain the science was. In fact there are more and more thoughtful people, some of them a little bit frightened to come out in the open. But who quietly privately and some of them publicly are saying ‘hang on, wait a moment, this simply just does not add up’.”
I think it is up to Lord Monckton and Lord Lawson to clarify exactly to whom he was referring to in that quote.
@Steve Milesworthy
‘What’s cherry-picking is making a silly point about the last 4 years being flat. If you think Monckton should be allowed to get away with this sort of thing just because the others did it first then I can’t argue with that, can I?’
What you do is cherry picking I believe since you leave out, and please try and correct me if I’m wrong, that Lord Monckton underscore the ridiculousness of cherry picking by showing what trend line you get is all pending on which starting point, and stop point, you choose to use.
Cherry picking is to pick only what fits your agenda. Double standard is screaming double standard using double standards one self.
Unless most of you have your tongues planted firmly in you cheeks and this is all a big inside joke, I would say that most of this exchange is a welcome reminder that we yanks do not have a monopoly on damned fools.
“There is a big difference between the two. Ask any real Professor”
In pay grade? Yes.
In addressing the public? Only to idiots and disingenuous fools unfamiliar with common practice in academia.
Ken Hall,
“Am I the only one who reads the above ridiculous defence of model-based evidence and only sees, “Sorry, we can’t get out models to work, because our models are wrong!” ”
You aren’t the only one, I analyzed that up above. Abraham would have had a more scientific approach, if he gave the opposing position every benefit of the doubt and critically analyzed the scientists statements and evidence he was using to support the hypothesis he was currently favoring, and then reviewed what he could really claim to know or unable to reject in the end. But then if he did that he would be a true skeptic and a true scientist.
If someone thought the scientific evidence supported 90% confidence that nearly all the recent warming was due to GHGs (the IPCC says “most” which usually gets translated, it seems, to nearly all) , then these pauses in sea level rise, occasional cooler years and the recovery from 2007 Arctic ice low would raise some questions. The irresistible freight train of forcing that supposedly caused the alarmingly steep rise in temperatures of the 80s and 90s, has increased in strength still further, yet has temporarily become a paper tiger or a random walk while the all the model climates which are claimed to be evidence “show” that things should still be steaming onward. The apologists for the models claim that they too have natural variation resulting in pauses in their future internal climates that last for a decade or so, yet they don’t acknowledge the possibility of a warming contribution from natural variation to the recent steep temperature rise, except for the 1998 el nino. The solar grand maximum, and positive phases of the multi-decadal oscillations are mere coincidences. Where is the healthy skepticism of both the hypothesis and the models? The best minds in the field have zeroed in on the net feedbacks to CO2 forcing in the current climate as the key scientific issue. Familiarity with evidence relevant to the net feedbacks is necessary for an informed opinion on the significance of AGW. In a multi-disciplinary field like climate science very few of the scientists likely have an informed opinion unless they have pursued this issue which is likely outside their specialty. Any scientifically literature person can read the relevant literature on model diagnostics and model independent estimates of climate sensitivity and feedbacks and find out what we currently know and just as importantly, don’t know. You will find that most scientists that sign these “consensus” statements haven’t read the relevant literature, so are uninformed.
I came to this a bit late and I’m a bit disappointed by the document. Monckton does himself no favours here. It doesn’t matter whether he is right or wrong. This document could have been considerably shorter if he had been dispassionate enough to look seriously at the structure of what he wanted to write. This is a repetitive rant which sounds like one half of an argument in a schoolyard.
As so many of you have already commented, Monckton’s letter is a very carefully devised challenge to a legal duel and, unless this Ass. Prof. now finally develops some common sense (an unlikely proposition, I fear), he’ll be hearing, from the noble lord’s seconds and very soon indeed, that his lordship demands satisfaction. Can’t do it with pistols in the Park anymore, so it’ll have to be the High Court.
Teams of beaming QC’s will be rubbing their hands at the prospect of the astronomic levels of fees likely to flow into their chambers. It could be a cause célèbre and we have to fervently hope that Monckton wins – he certainly has a pretty good case in the UK (don’t know how such things are done in the US). Monckton would be unwise and probably very foolish NOT to push this right to the doors of the court – can’t easily back down now without a severe loss of face and authority.
Larry G says above: “I hope the good Lord’s pockets (and those of his supporters) are deep” They’ll definitely need to be but this piece from Ruth Lea and the rightish Civitas think-tank
“Climate change policies risk major damage to the economic recovery”
http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prEnergyPolicyJuly2010.htm
suggests that a lot of British business knows where the cap’n’trade/energy policies which already exist in Britain are headed and are starting to fight back. I’m assuming there are likely to be many British firms willing to give some sort of tacit support to any action. Even the BBC ran a discussion on this report on Radio 4 and allowed Lea to debate with Caroline Lucas (our first Green, and godamnit, my local MP). Lucas adopted the usual sneering put-down approach of course, accusing Lea of complacency (takes one to know one eh?).
Gail,
Monckton inherited his Viscountcy on the death of his father, however the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords was (largely) removed by the HoL reform act 1999. Monckton has never been a member. This did not prevent him claiming membership of the House of Lords in an email to Professor Barry Bickmore:
I am a member of the House of Lords, though without the right to sit or vote, and I have never suggested otherwise
Bickmore contacted the HoL Information Office, who were admirably concise:
Christopher Monckton is not and has never been a Member of the House of Lords. There is no such thing as a “non-voting” or “honorary” member.
This exchange was retailed in a Salt Lake City Tribune article, sadly now no longer online, but Googling the exact phrases above should confirm that Monckton querying Abraham’s credentials and honesty is not totally without irony ….
Let me Google that for you.
REPLY: see his response below, it appears you are in error -A
@Phil Clarke
“This exchange was retailed in a Salt Lake City Tribune article, sadly now no longer online, but Googling the exact phrases above should confirm that Monckton querying Abraham’s credentials and honesty is not totally without irony ….”
I suspect this is an argument by analogy, fallacious and entirely irrelevant to the issues here being discussed. Monckton does not base his arguments’ validity or his standing on the issues we’re discussing on his being a member of the HoL, whether or not one considers that he is somehow being grandiose, boastful, mendacious or some such when he refers to this aspect of his life. Nor does it make his scientific arguments any less cogent. This is about science and the scientific method (as well as law suits). Abe, on the other hand, uses his own title to justify his supposed scientific purity, so it’s therefore entirely relevant and fair game to challenge him on that point in an argument about science. By all means rail at Monckton over what you may regard as his snobbery but you can’t use that here to rubbish his position on AGW. And I speak as a British republican (note lower case please) who’d prefer to refer to Citizen Monckton.
Why are so many people on this blog so fixated on job or hereditary titles? Think, for God’s sake. You could be looking at the defamation trial of the 21st centuary. Monckton has already sent out instruction to his lawyers. Buy some bloody popcorn, stretch your legs out and prepare for some riveting TV. Oprah will be after the rights.
Pointman
I suspect Abraham may be a well intentioned scientist responding to a perceived intrusion into his personally defensible upper MidWest academic territory. This appears to be a type of response not uncommon from genuine academics, capable in their field, but with a tendency to place a little too much faith in the opinions of their academic “betters”.
I am grateful to Abraham for provoking Monckton to an epic encapsulation of this infernally complicated issue- one which, I suspect, will stand the test of time.
In reply to:
Roger Sowell says:
July 13, 2010 at 7:39 am
Thank you for telling me that the correct abbreviation for “Assistant Professor” is “Asst. Prof.”
Gosh! I am so embarrassed I referred to Dr. Abraham as “Ass. Prof. Abraham.”
By the way, I liked your blog.
“I would say that CM is dissembling when he says his presentation relies on “the peer reviewed literature”. He relies on his careful selection of the peer-reviewed data, and his interpretation which may or may not agree with the writer of said literature, which is entirely different.”
I was unaware that people’s OPINIONS had to be accepted as facts, along with the facts that they gathered. Abraham had the same understanding you do. I’m so out of touch with science…
This death-of-100-cuts approach is the ideal method to come to grips with Abraham’s presentation, and also to scare him a bit by giving him a foretaste of the sort of cross-examination a lawyer will subject him to, forcing him to make a series of small concessions that wind up moving him to an awkward position.
And here, for a change of pace, is a nice rhetorical question:
I am most grateful to Anthony Watts for having allowed my letter asking Professor Abraham some questions to be circulated, and to so many of you for having taken the trouble to comment. I have asked a good firm of MN libel lawyers to give me a hard-headed assessment of whether I have a libel case against Abraham and his university, or whether I’m taking this too seriously.
I am charmed that so many of you are fascinated by the question whether I am a member of the House of Lords. Perhaps this is because your own Constitution denies you any orders or titles of nobility. Here is the answer I recently gave to the US House of Representatives’ Global Warming Committee on that subject:
“The House of Lords Act 1999 debarred all but 92 of the 650 Hereditary Peers, including my father, from sitting or voting, and purported to – but did not – remove membership of the Upper House. Letters Patent granting peerages, and consequently membership, are the personal gift of the Monarch. Only a specific law can annul a grant. The 1999 Act was a general law. The then Government, realizing this defect, took three maladroit steps: it wrote asking expelled Peers to return their Letters Patent (though that does not annul them); in 2009 it withdrew the passes admitting expelled Peers to the House (and implying they were members); and it told the enquiry clerks to deny they were members: but a written Parliamentary Answer by the Lord President of the Council admits that general legislation cannot annul Letters Patent, so I am The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (as my passport shows), a member of the Upper House but without the right to sit or vote, and I have never pretended otherwise.”
Caleb says:
July 13, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Yes – Roger Sowell has an interesting and informative blog.
But I prefer your abbreviation for “Assistant Professor” !
Christopher – I’m sure that you have gathered that we all want you to sue the arse off Abrahams and his University because all those charts of yours will come before a Court of Law and scientists will need to be subpoenaed to test their validity, which you know and we know are valid.
Bring it on! 🙂
Kudos to Viscount Monckton, master of all he surveys. For sheer inchoate mendacity, Ass’t. Prof. Abraham’s “Guide for the Perplexed” insults even fellow Green Gangsters such as Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al. Nevermind fluid mechanics: Any discipline that fosters such meretricious bumpf is prima facie unworthy of any credence whatsoever.
Addressing Christopher Booker’s recent revelation of “Amazongate’s” ridiculously malfeasant origin –IPCC disinformation via WWF’s flat-out lie– WUWT’s habitually restrained proprietor called out Abraham’s confreres as purveyors of “CYA BS”. Indeed yes… with each such idiotic episode, frustration builds. After COP-15, Cancun is shaping up to deliver climate cultists a second coup de grace. To Lord Moncton and his stalwart band we say, “For this relief, much thanks.”
As far as i’m aware Assistant Professors have always been called Aspros, and you need ’em like you need a headache. More like pains in the butt though…
This is comment left on the pointer thread (before I realized comments were enabled) by the poster known as “FatBigot”. WP.com has no “move comment feature” so cut and paste is all I have
FatBigot: I can’t comment on US libel law but I can speak about defamation over here on the cricketing side of the pond.
Don’t do it. It achieves nothing other than to give wider publicity to the alleged libel than it ever had in its original form. Actually, there are two other effects: (i) it buys lawyers new cars and (ii) it drains the protagonists (of time and energy).
The last libel trial I was involved in ran-up legal costs of well over £1million. Sadly my share was a mere fraction of the whole (but still enough for a new car and several other treats even after UK taxes).
Sic ’em, melord!
Fantastic read!
If someone has any questions about the mind of Monckton, they can read the .pdf and be glad that they’re not on the receiving end of it!!
Great piece of work Lord Monckton, I would love to see you debate Mr. Abraham.
Feynman, in his 1955 speech to the NAS on The Value of Science
(emphasis mine)
Is Abraham acting like a scientist or a politician?
I’ll bite.. what good is being a member if you’re not allowed to sit or vote? It’s almost Groucho-esque.
Just admit it Mr Abraham – you are out of your depth.
Desist. Give in. Retire. Build a ranch in Montana. Don’t show your face for another 10 years.
.
Dave N says:
July 13, 2010 at 8:12 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/12/a-detailed-rebuttal-to-abraham-from-monckton/#comment-429701
Because, on the death of an hereditary peer, Lord Monckton could be voted to be one of the sitting hereditary peers.
DaveE.
Chris, (and I hope I can call you Chris) I’m only half-way through the rebuttal (I do check some for veracity, mostly for my own knowledge gain) and I haven’t read any of the replies, but you go!! Turn up the heat! The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, is a title you own. Keep it. It never fails to amaze me at the ignorance of some people in America. As you correctly pointed out, we don’t recognize peerage titles, and rightly so. It doesn’t fit well in our society, but it does in others. Many, if not most, Americans have their history firmly planted in the British Isles, why some don’t want to understand our heritage is beyond me.
Polar bears are amazing creatures, anyone whose ever spent time near, at or above the arctic circle, should have a profound consideration of them that goes beyond respect. Man, to the polar bear, is as good a feast as is the seal. Seal is just easier to kill. They will track and hunt man for days if necessary. The previous statement was not peer reviewed, just simple observations from 2 men. One from circa 1960 in Greenland, another from circa 1990 in Alaska. There may be other references.
Anthony, you said “I don’t have a dog in this fight, ….”…:-|…wrong, but you know it already. Most, if not all of the topics in the Viscount’s rebuttal have been covered here, reflecting the same view as the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley’s. If he’s a liar, then so are you, and so are the rest who affirm the various assertions presented here, on this site, including my feeble assertions. Here, at this moment, his fight, and my fight, are the same, as it is your fight, also. This is not a disagreement of two fellows. This is a disagreement of thoughts and ideas. This is a disagreement of the direction of the entire planet. While my words, ideas, thoughts and knowledge have little weight in the light of the Viscount and yourself, I put them fully behind Chris Monckton, the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. I find his words truthful(if not coy at times) and Abraham’s purposefully deceitful. If this were a simple war of words between two characters, I wouldn’t care. However, this isn’t. The argument between the two parties have worldwide implications. While this won’t be the last, (there are many more ahead) we all have a “dog in this fight”.
>>>Maybe we do need to put global warming on trial.
I feel Monckton is angling for another Scopes Monkey Trial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial
At one stroke, the entire saga will be broadcast worldwide and on the front of every newspaper – and it will be the aggressive Goliath establishment vs a ‘poor’ private (if lordly) individual.
A foregone conclusion – the establishment is toast.
.
I have submitted a request for information to St. Thomas University. Hopefully someone on staff will reply.
Below is the content of my e-mail (with my name redacted):
——————————-
Dear Sir or Madam,
Please relay my concerns with the conduct of Dr. John Abraham to appropriate members of your faculty and administration.
I recently happened across a detailed rebuttal of Dr. Abraham’s presentation titled, “A Scientist Replies to Christopher Monckton” and was disappointed to find in it substantial proof of academic dishonesty and outright falsification.
Was the presentation produced as part of Dr. Abraham’s duties at your university?
If not, why did it contain your university’s crest and name prominently on the majority of slides?
If yes, how does a member of your faculty whose “primary focus is the education of undergraduates in mechanical engineering courses with a goal of preparing them for substantial careers in heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and computational methods” come to be assigned the task of rebutting the content of a presentation made by a member of the public?
Was the content reviewed for accuracy by someone at your university other than Dr. Abraham? If not, why not? If yes, how did that person so seriously fail in providing even the cursory review that would have precluded publication of many of the claims in Dr. Abraham’s presentation?
What is your university policy regarding the publication of inaccurate information in e-mails? This practice by Dr. Abraham was manifestly apparent based on his own comments and Christopher Monckton’s rebuttal of those comments. On several occasions Dr. Abraham seems to have willfully or otherwise misinterpreted Christopher Monckton’s actual statements in correspondence to other academics then quoted the response of those same academics to the misinterpreted statements. All this was done with the clear intent to damage Christopher Monckton’s credibility and reputation.
I eagerly await the courtesy of a response to my questions.
Sincerely,
Concerned Citizen
BS, Nuclear Engineering, Oregon State University
MSIA, Carnegie Mellon University
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, as I have now read over 70% of your rebuttal, please take this to a court of law. Even in the U.S., with Abraham’s mention of your alleged source of monetary gain, I believe you can show intentional to harm. I understand the British law is a bit more stringent, but either way, you have shown his intentional mischaracterization of your assertions and he has also shown knowledge the mischaracterizations could damage you. While I don’t believe money is, nor should it be, the motivation, please take this to court. Please.
Lord Monckton’s update settles the question of whether he is or is not a member of the House of Lords.
De jure, he is, as convoluted as that jure appears.
Which now opens up the interesting point that all those sites and commenters claiming he is *not* are open to charges of slander.
This post is sooooo getting bookmarked…
No question about malice in that. His only defense would be that what he says is true.
Take him to the cleaners, Mr. Monckton! All the other attempts have failed, but then, they didn’t have you. God knows we could use a hero – and we really really need a head on a post to point at. They keep slipping away and claiming it’s proof of innocence – and laughing at us as they keep on stealing.
They keep distracting us with details of how the Piltdown skull was assembled and it kills momentum.
The pack needs to smell some blood, sir. If they are roused too late, they will be slaughtered and in sausage skins before they know it.
I pray you can deliver.
It all made my head hurt by the end, but I found one very much a I don’t like what you say so you are wrong and the other a dismantling of of the first and answering of many of the points raised.
There has been some talk regarding “bringing a knife to a gun fight.” It is well to remember the “21 foot rule” taught in police academies. Especially when you consider Viscount Moncton’s response is 500 questions. That rule is fairly simple. In a situation where a potential aggressor is armed with a knife or other edged weapon, and is within 21 feet or less, you had better have your gun out. The knife wielder has a definite potential advantage against someone unprepared. I note that 500 cuts is less than a thousand, but still.
Gail Combs: July 13, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I think it is up to Lord Monckton…to clarify…
And, being a Gentleman, he honored the Lady’s request.
Dave McK: July 13, 2010 at 11:03 pm
No question about malice in that. His only defense would be that what he says is true.
Which would be skating on some very thin ice.
Some very thin *rotten* ice…
Bill Tuttle,
“Steve Milesworthy: July 13, 2010 at 8:59 am
Another double-standard of Monckton is to complain that Al Gore makes claims about 20 feet of sea level rise in 100 years, which of course he didn’t even if he implied it in his film.
Sorry, but in 2007, the High Court found that, in the context of his film, that’s *exactly* what Gore claimed.
Stating that Gore didn’t *say* something while admitting that he *implied* it is kind of lame…”
It’s kind of lame that you missed the point.
Monckton *implies* a heck of a lot of things very directly indeed. But when challenged he can pompously state that he never *said* them. So are people misunderstanding him because he is a poor communicator or because he is a good propagandist.
Like I say. Double standards.
we must not give up the fight I congratulate you . the old saying is use your right foot ######
Christopher, I’ve finally managed to read the pdf. All I can say is have some sympathy for the warmists. They are justly feeling miffed. They rightly thought that a stitch up inquiry by Muir Russell was all they needed to “prove man made warming is true beyond all reasonable doubt” – and restore their kudos (amongst the young anti-establishment i.e. anti Sir Muir Russell. generations ha ha!)
Now they’ve realised that the wave of public interest that swept their cowboy-science to prominence has lost interest in them and is sweeping them under the carpet.
Well I think Abraham lost the plot right at the start of his presentation with the facile assertion that Viscount Monckton is “denier of climate change”. Hardly the basis for an unbiased scientific assessment of the presentation, as Viscount Monckton has made his position clear that he supports the null hypothesis that climate is constantly changing due to natural events – always has and always will.
I found the rest of the Abraham presentation equally shallow and it is obvious that he is a believer in CAGW and, if this presentation is a representative example of his work, not a scientist at all.
Viscount Monckton is to be congratulated on the depth and length of his reply. He is a true sceptic of the failed CAGW hypothesis and his voice is a light in the darkness against the liberal politics of IPCC cargo cult climate ‘science’ which seeks to blame mankind for the ills of the world.
Bill Tuttle says:
July 14, 2010 at 12:22 am
Which would be skating on some very thin ice.
Some very thin *rotten* ice…
Quite- but until somebody with some spine and tenacity properly and finally dunks one of them, they remain convinced they can walk on water.
Which now opens up the interesting point that all those sites and commenters claiming he is *not* are open to charges of slander.
That would include the House of Lords Information Office itself, then. According to them there is no such thing as a non-voting, non-sitting member.
It is good of the Viscount to clarify this rather – most people, on hearing the term ‘Member of the House of Lords’ would assume somebody entitled to sit in that House (that is play a part in the UK legislature).
What’s worse, until then, they have the record to show they can.
tallbloke says:
July 12, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
July 12, 2010 at 8:12 pm (Edit)
tallbloke says:
July 12, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Got any data to show us yet Ben?
No. But supposedly he has a rat on his doorstep.
He’s had Overpeck round to call?
Ohh, that was the smell.
If all people can come up with is questioning if Mockton is a Lord then that is pathetic.
Rules of play in global warming:
Attack the man. Pay no attention to the science behind the curtain.
Steve Milesworthy: July 14, 2010 at 12:51 am
It’s kind of lame that you missed the point.
I didn’t miss your point at all — I was rebutting it.
Monckton *implies* a heck of a lot of things very directly indeed. But when challenged he can pompously state that he never *said* them. So are people misunderstanding him because he is a poor communicator or because he is a good propagandist.
Actually, he *has* stated — in writing — that when he has implied something, he has said it. Come to think of it, read his letter to Associate Professor Abraham, where he not only says that, but points out the differences between what he implied and what Abraham inferred; e.g., questions 27, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 42, 50, 77 — I consider that a reasonable sample, since only one would serve to refute your assertion.
Snip-snippety-snip server burps…
So are people misunderstanding him because he is a poor communicator or because he is a good propagandist.
You assert people are misunderstanding what he says — I assert people are purposely distorting what he says.
But that may just be cynical ol’ me.
Glad to see CM’s post on here this morning (well it’s morning for me) and I wish him every luck. The warmists may well have made their greatest mistake so far. Never mind the manoeuvres, just go straight at ’em! My fingers are crossed.
I would disagree with Christopher Monckton on one point. As an hereditary peer, he does have the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords. That the traitors and usurpers in power purport to have abolished that right and are forcibly preventing its free exercise does not eliminate it; this is merely another example of the ongoing denial of our ancient and constitutional rights, the abrogation of the rule of law and common justice, and the destruction of sound government and traditional British values.
Remember: just because a bunch of politicians say something doesn’t make it so. Not even if they pass a law.
If all people can come up with is questioning if Mockton is a Lord then that is pathetic.
Er, one of Monckton’s questions is about Abraham’s Professorship, and he devotes half a page to the man and his academy.
A Letter Patent is the instrument by which the Monarch creates a peerage, in this case a hereditary peerage. The Reform Act of 1999 could not be clearer
Exclusion of hereditary peers
No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
Mockton’s argument is that his Letter Patent still entitles him to membership, despite the clear intentions of the Act [which was given Royal Assent, what the Monarch grants, the Monarch can remove]. Well, he is entitled to his opinion, but it would seem to be something of a minority view…..
So, Bill Tuttle, if I look at 100 Monckton graphs with 4-5 year periods being given trend lines, I would be distorting what he is saying if I draw attention to these trend lines and say that they are not indicative of the past trend or the likely future trend.
If not, why is he putting trend lines on graphs that are, in any climate perspective, meaningless.
(No doubt I will get a letter telling me that there are in fact only 57 Monckton graphs with meaningless short-term trend lines, and asking me to withdraw the “ad hominem” libel.)
Another curious thing. He aligns himself with some of the findings of Mörner, but seems not to align himself with Mörner’s dodgy analysis of satellite sea-level data. Could it be that Mörner’s vague assertions about the safety of the Maldives and Bangladesh, and the antics of tree-pulling tree-huggers are harder to rebut than the deluded belief that there is yet another world conspiracy on recent sea-level rise? Cherry picking the evidence, perhaps?
As an aside, are there any people from the UK who think CM is Churchillian in any way, and who do not agree that he is an eccentric who harks back to the golden age when oiks were oiks and knew their place?
Didn’t the Americans fight a war to get rid of people like CM?
Phil Clarke: July 14, 2010 at 1:56 am
“Which now opens up the interesting point that all those sites and commenters claiming he is *not* are open to charges of slander.”
That would include the House of Lords Information Office itself, then. According to them there is no such thing as a non-voting, non-sitting member.
Indeed, it would. The 1999 general law changed the rules and limited the number of Lords Temporal allowed a seat in the chamber (to the point of issuing and revoking passes) but absent a specific law redefining Lords Temporal — who, along with the Lords Spiritual, compose the “House,” even when not assembled — the Information Office is dispensing disinformation…
It’s revealing that the immediate response from the warmists/left wingers to this document has been more personal attacks on Monckton and attempts to dismiss the rebuttal out of hand. We’ve seen an example of it on here with Villabolo simply making things up as he/she goes along, another tactic of some people on that side of the spectrum.
I think part of the reason Monckton is so resented is because he refuses to bow to the usual smearing, personal attacks and other rough tactics used by some ‘environmentalists’. Rather, he takes them on at their own game. It’s down to that old school ‘stiff upper lip’ the British used to have. More power to him.
House of Lords Act 1999 section 1
“No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.”
That would seem to be fairly unambiguous.
Steve Milesworthy says:
July 14, 2010 at 3:35 am
says…..’Didn’t the Americans fight a war to get rid of people like CM?’
….No
Although I think America fought in a war once, after they lost a fleet of warships at Pearl Harbour, to Bombs from a Japanese war fleet.
King Monckton, deserves all the pats on the back I can manage and all the support I can give him, although i have no qualifications (I do have a best son in the world mug from my mum?) so my vote doesn’t count according to some people.
richard telford says:
July 14, 2010 at 3:44 am
House of Lords Act 1999 section 1
“No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.”
That would seem to be fairly unambiguous.
_____________________________________________________________
It is also unconstitutional and unlawful. It purports to revoke constitutional laws without repealing them explicitly. The principle of implied repeal does not apply to constitutional law (see the judgement in the metric martyrs case). I would also argue that it is in any case ultra vires. No matter what scholars might claim to the contrary (through misrepresentation of Hobbes and Dicey), Parliament does not have the right to legislate however it chooses, but only in accordance with prior rights. Like the US, Britain is not now, never was, and never was intended to be, a democracy (which enshrines the despicable principle that if two people gang up on a third and rob him, that’s OK). It has a system of representative government, a very different thing, which is supposed to enshrine the opposite principle that a just government must respect all the rights of everyone all the time, and not rob any of them without full recompense.
Steve Milesworthy says:
“Didn’t the Americans fight a war to get rid of people like CM?”
No.
Americans fought a war over taxation without representation. Even while the war was being fought, the majority of Americans supported primogeniture and entail.
richard telford July 14, 2010 at 3:44 am
That was precisely Monckton’s point – that no sweeping act of parliament can cancel, at a stroke, the HoL membership of hereditary peers (or even of life peers such as Lord Lawson, etc). The staff of the House of Lords may say so, and so may the British government (at least the previous one); and they may prevent them from sitting and voting – but they have no legal right to actually withdraw a peerage and therefore a House of Lords membership (the two being one and the same).
A peerage (like a knighthood), is granted on an individual basis by the Crown – in practice, on the government’s recommendation and the Crown’s assent. Likewise, legally, it could also only be withdrawn on an individual basis, again with the Crown’s assent.
That is Monckton’s point (if I have understood him correctly), which would mean that, from a legal point of view, the Blair government – shock! – simply made a mess of the reform of the House of Lords.
Perhaps it would have been wiser from a PR point of view for Lord Monckton to play down the issue, but, from strictly legal point of view, he may well be right (in my opinion – I am not a lawyer, just someone who’s a bit familiar with the arcane aspects of the British “constitution”.
Engineer, actually. I’ve got as much claim to being a scientist as Abraham does. More, I say, after going through the first ten minutes of dreck that was, presumably, intended to be a thorough drubbing of Lord Monckton.
Now and then you see something laughably amateurish masquerading as serious work. If his thesis defense was anywhere near this badly done, the entire Mechanical Engineering department at Minnesota should be discredited. Or even disaccredited.
I contacted Monckton and was informed that sources for his rebuttal were currently unavailable due to the haste with which this document was put together.
I’m finding it nearly impossible to navigate a document of this length without citations for many of the the claims made therein and I would imagine anyone attempting to give it a thorough review is having similar troubles.
Much to my appreciation, Monckton did provide an answer to a specific question and I look forward to examining the sources for the rest.
[snip – read his reply in the update above]
Steve Milesworthy: July 14, 2010 at 3:35 am
So, Bill Tuttle, if I look at 100 Monckton graphs with 4-5 year periods being given trend lines, I would be distorting what he is saying if I draw attention to these trend lines and say that they are not indicative of the past trend or the likely future trend.
So, Steve Milesworthy, haven’t read the rebuttal, eh? He makes that *exact* point when he calls attention to those graphs — which, BTW, are not his, but from several sources, all of which are duly noted — in large print — *on the graphs*.
If not, why is he putting trend lines on graphs that are, in any climate perspective, meaningless.
If you read *carefully*, you’ll see that he isn’t putting any trend lines on the graphs — he is using them as examples to call attention to the fact that you can’t realistically base a long-term trend (a century or more) on short-term observations (less than a decade).
Paul Birch, the UK does not have a constitution, maybe only the only country that does not, so nothing there can be unconstitutional.
Steve Milesworthy says:
“Didn’t the Americans fight a war to get rid of people like CM?”
No.
Americans fought a war over taxation without representation. Even while the war was being fought, the majority of Americans supported primogeniture and entail.
Well yes it was a throwaway remark. But the Tea Act was brought in by the government of Lord North.
Note that Monckton claimed to be a member of the “Upper House of the Legislature”. Yes he might now have some convoluted argument about his title, but the legislature is the body that makes the law and he isn’t or hasn’t ever been part of it, and therefore doesn’t have the influence he claimed to have.
Bill Tuttle,
“If you read *carefully*, you’ll see that he isn’t putting any trend lines on the graphs — he is using them as examples to call attention to the fact that you can’t realistically base a long-term trend (a century or more) on short-term observations (less than a decade).”
Not at all. Question 177 Monckton says he used a 9-year trend because Tom Karl “refuse[d] to admit that since the turn of the millennium global temperatures have been on a declining trend”.
Why would he want a climate scientist to “admit” anything about a non-significant trend unless he wanted to draw attention to the trend?
Look at the way people misinterpreted Phil Jones when he said (with different words) that there was a 5-6% chance that the CRU trend from 1995-2009 was negative.
On the professor thing, in the US, all tenure track faculty, Asst., Assoc, and Full are entitled to use the title Professor except when their rank is specifically called for in such places as on a CV or similar. Abraham clearly labels his rank on the college web site as is correct, and also is entitled to be addressed as Prof. Abraham. In any case, the big step in the US is from Asst. to Assoc. which carries with it tenure.
Monckton may be making a fuss about this, because when he was in University in Britain, each department had one Professor who was head of department, so the title Professor for him is the equivalent of Head. The other faculty had titles like, Lecturer, Reader, etc. However, today, the British, even in Oxford, have multiple Professors in each department.
Go to Germany, France, etc., and the rules change as to who is called what and what that implies, but John Abraham is tenured at a US college, and he clearly has the right to use the title Prof. Abraham. Viscount Monckton is way off base on this one.
[snip, if you want to make a personal crusade against Monckton, take it up with the British House of Lords, but WUWT is not going to publish your opinions on the matter here ~mod]
Re: “Abraham from Monckton” – Monckton takes the World Cup!
PS Re: “Lairds and Ladies” – Americans cannot comprehend the ‘apparent’ difference between members of the British nobility and the ‘commons’. We have an old piece of paper in a vault that says we’re all kings and queens (we wrote it ourselves;-). The world is a crazy place!
I am against hereditary peers in general, coming from a working class background, but if more of them would grow some balls and stand up for us the way that Viscount Monckton of Brenchley does then we would support them.
Lord Monckton,
Thank you for the clarification.
Eli Rabett says:
July 14, 2010 at 7:39 am
Paul Birch, the UK does not have a constitution, maybe only the only country that does not, so nothing there can be unconstitutional.
______________________________________________________________________
A lot of people make this mistake, because there is no single document called “The British Constitution”. In fact and in law, the British Constitution is composed of various statutes, charters, oaths, liberties and customs. Examples include Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1688 and (allegedly) the Single European Act 1972. The last is debatable, because it is arguably unconstitutional itself, breaching several provisions of Magna Carta and the Act of Settlement, but was held to be constitutional law, and thus not subject to implied repeal, in the crucial Metric Martyrs case.
Steve Milesworthy: July 14, 2010 at 8:03 am
“…he is using them as examples to call attention to the fact that you can’t realistically base a long-term trend (a century or more) on short-term observations (less than a decade).”
Not at all. Question 177 Monckton says he used a 9-year trend because Tom Karl “refuse[d] to admit that since the turn of the millennium global temperatures have been on a declining trend”.
So, using a nine-year trend line to illustrate a nine-year trend somehow negates my statement about *long-term* trends — exactly *how*?
I *hate* it when I forget to check the html…
I went back to the presentations to confirm that Professor Abraham had not included the customary disclaimer for an attack of this type and ran across a link on one of the slides.
If anyone hasn’t read this, you really should!!!
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Hearings/Testimony.aspx?TID=2097
PS It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. -Albert Einstein
Randy says:
July 12, 2010 at 5:41 pm
It is more than a rebuttal, it is the basis of a case of defamation. There are plenty of direct comments made that satisfy the definition of defamation in most Western countries for Monkton to have a case against Abraham. He has laid out the challenge logically and in each instance has given Abrahams the opportunity to challenge whether his summary is correct. He has given Abrahams and the University a period of in-confidence consideration to apologise and withdraw and now followed that up with a further opportunity. Should they not do so Monkton has a reasonable case for court action. Losing a case like this would do much wider harm to the AGW believers than just Abrahams and the Uni. My guess is the Uni’s lawyers would not let it get to court and the sum of $110,000 will be miniscule compared to what is to come (never mind the legal costs).
Should be interesting.
——————–
As a practising barrister, Lord Monckton’s letter to Abraham looks to me very like a first draft of a cross-examination plan. He asks Abraham to confirm that he said such-and-such. Abraham of course must confirm it, because he is on record as having done so.
After that, all Lord Monckton’s questions are leading questions – that is, their form suggests the answer that Abraham should give.
I think Abraham would be annihilated in the witness box.
I hope Lord Monckton runs a defamation action because, if structured the right way, it will bring the whole AGW case into disrepute. The US would be be best forum, because the press is not as snowed and subservient as it is in the UK and reporting of events in court is wider than is allowed in the UK. Can you imagine the fun Fox would have with Abraham?
Paul Birch
Lord Monckton’s status as a member of the House of Lords is irrelevant to this debate.
However, it has been said that the Parliament cannot lawfully legislate to deprive hereditary peers of their membership of the House. That assertion seems to be based on a misconception of the UK constitutional position. Its constitution is not at all like the constitutions of the US and, say, Australia, which are both written and restrictive.
The legal position in the UK (at least since the Revolution of 1688) is that the Parliament (which includes the House of Lords) can lawfully enact any law on any subject it pleases. The House of Lords Act 1999 section 1 is quite clear and couldn’t be clearer. There is therefore no merit in the assertion that the right of membership (and therefore the right to sit) has been impliedly taken away.
The Act does not destroy the peerage itself. Lord Monckton is still a peer.
All that said, I think Lord Monckton did a dazzlingly good demolition job on Abraham.
Lord Monckton,
Sent a note to Abraham and copied the dean of engineering and the president of the University of St. Thomas. Abraham showed all of his cards in his opening slide when he accused you of being a climate change denier. When have you ever denied that the climate changes? In fact, your presentations are chock full of evidence demonstrating that the climate does indeed change. Keep up the good fight. We are with you.
I would have appreciated Monckton’s rebuttal even more had he rebutted any of Abraham’s assertions. Don’t get me wrong, like most people on here I respond to a list of irrelevant questions positively if the person is saying what I want to hear, but I worry that people who aren’t so biased might be persuaded by the proofs of Monckton’s distortions and lies and therefore I would like to have seen some of these points adressed.
Don’t get me wrong I am not some psycho Marxist liberal and no amount of proof could ever convince me that AGW is real. I just worry about convincing other people who demand ‘facts’ and ‘truth,’ as if these things are at all relevant.
Bill Tuttle says:
July 14, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Smokey
“Americans fought a war over taxation without representation. Even while the war was being fought, the majority of Americans supported primogeniture and entail.”
In that Lord Monckton is on the same side fighting against unfair taxation going to the UN IPCC, something most of us will have absolutely no say in.
John Murphy July 14, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Agree with your conclusions entirely. See my post of July 13, 2010 at 5:32 am .
Pointman
Steve Milesworthy: July 14, 2010 at 11:54 pm
Steve Milesworthy: July 14, 2010 at 8:03 am
“…he is using them as examples to call attention to the fact that you can’t realistically base a long-term trend (a century or more) on short-term observations (less than a decade).”
Not at all. Question 177 Monckton says he used a 9-year trend because Tom Karl “refuse[d] to admit that since the turn of the millennium global temperatures have been on a declining trend”.
So, using a nine-year trend line to illustrate a nine-year trend somehow negates my statement about *long-term* trends — exactly *how*?
I told you!
Monckton is using a 9 year trend – you disagree with using a 9 year trend.
No, I said there is nothing wrong with using a nine-year trend line if all you are doing is illustrating a nine-year trend.
Tom Karl (according to Monckton) is *refusing* to say something about a 9 year trend. You agree a 9 year trend is unimportant.
Wrong. I said “…you can’t realistically base a long-term trend (a century or more) on short-term observations (less than a decade).”
I expect that in reality, Tom Karl may have said what you said, that a 9 year trend is meaningless (particularly when it is the hottest 9 year period in recorded history).
I expect that in reality, you don’t do well in English comprehension in other areas, either.
Paul, since the Parliament, with the pro forma assent of the sovereign can change any of the rules by ordinary legislation, the UK has no constitution in any sense. See for example how the rule that not testifying in your own defense could not be used against you was changed in the 1980s by the Thatcher government.
I note that Abraham is a Mechanical Engineer. Under normal circumstances most on the AGW side would cry foul at first sight because he’s not a (cough) “climatologist”.
Vigilantfish says:
“Re the Monckton-Abraham online confrontation, I just saw the following posted over at Climate Progress (apologies if this info has been given before):
Andy Gunther says:
July 15, 2010 at 10:28 am
Joe (and all):
I sent an email in support of John Abraham to St. Thomas University and he responded with a request that indications of support for his efforts to debunk Monckton be sent to Dr Susan Alexander (slalexander@stthomas.edu), who is managing the University’s response to Monckton. You should follow up on what is happening with Abraham, and I encourage all CP readers to send in a message of support for him to his institution.”
Thanks, Lord Monckton, Anthony,
I think that this is a most brilliant article, and I fell honored to have individual links to it at “Climate Change (“Global Warming”)? – The cyclic nature of Earth’s climate “, http://www.oarval.org/ClimateChange.htm (an other 3 pages in Observatorio ARVAL)
fwiw, Prof. Abraham is a mechanical engineer who specializes in fluid dynamics. GCM’s started out as global circulation models, e.g. the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere, but if you listen to his piece, he doesn’t claim to be an expert on climate, he wrote to the experts and asked their opinion.
Prof. Monckton, OTOH, did not consult the people who wrote the papers he distorted. Now, yes, distort is a middling strong word, but the very people who work Monckton claims back his POV, are those who say clearly that it does not. Pinker, of course, is the funniest such case. It took a long time for Monckton to figure out that she was a she.
REPLY: “It took a long time for Monckton to figure out that she was a she.” I wouldn’t hold that against him, many people still haven’t figured out what you are 😉 – Anthony
The bigcigarette (July 14, 2010 at 9:32 pm) has a point. Lord Monckton’s enthralling, masterful rhetoric, his erudition, his unmatched command of the language arts, as it were, so to speak, if I may say, that the, umm, let us say, sparcity of substantive points of rebuttal nearly escapes notice. But of course such substance would only detract from the devasting, nay, completely annhilating effect of His Lordship’s discourse. So one supposes.
Thanks for the update. I agree that we need to act on this outrage very quickly. Here is what I wrote to the University last night. Please feel free to use this as a template.
Dear Father Dease
I am a private citizen – and a fellow Catholic, for what it’s worth – living in Melbourne, Australia.
I recently heard about your colleague Prof Abraham’s presentation through the BoingBoing website. I just viewed the presentation and I am very grateful for it. I was never likely to be much interested in the assemblage of half-truths peddled by Monckton and his peers but I admire Prof Abraham for seeking to show the true position in a calm, patient and selfless manner. This is real science and deserves to be applauded.
I am dismayed to see that Lord Monckton is now attempting a despicable ad hominem attack on your colleague:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/14/abraham-climbs-down/
I wish to raise my voice in protest at this and give Prof Abraham and you some encouragement. I am sure that your email box will be full of hate mail from Monckton’s mutton; I cannot stay silent and do nothing in these circumstances.
I am sorry to trouble you with this communication and I wish both you and Prof Abraham well.
@NM:
Dear NM, as a german atheist, I still wounder how that issue can be blown up in such a massive conflict on an acedemic level. Although it’s obvious, that the world is heating up a little bit, it’s also obvious that this man-made (anthropogenic, CO2-driven) global warming issue is a nice marketing hype on the tax payers expense. I think, James Follets Movie “The Church of Global Warming” describes it perfectly. And although we german guys are not famous for irony as US or british ones usually do, it is really an irony that an assistance professor of a private catholic US-University comments on that climate issue in a really unprofessional and offending way. Did he do that for the sake of his “climate pope” in Rom/Italy, called Razinger?
Well, all of us should reconsider the videos of Ezra Levant’s fight with the canadian human rights commission of Alberta. We all might loose a little bit more of our rights (namly: freedom of free speech) if both sides (climate sceptics and climate alarmists) do the wrong thing in that climate case.
By the way: do yourself a favour and download GISS data from NASA and compare station by station with the original temperature datas (if publically availiable) of the real stations cited in that data base. Just compare the data. For example: compare the Dataset of the original monthly data temperature data set of klima-potsdam.de with the dataset of the corresponding station data set integrated in GISS. The original data set is in perfect shape and absolutely complete from the first reading 1893 up to 2010. If you simply compare this data with GISS, you’ll see
a) that GISS dropped out all data of the year 1933 (Hanson disliked Hitler’s gain of
power in that year, I assume)
b) and moved that data completely into the year 1934
c) and dropped all data of 1934 instead
d) and dropped many other data also
e) miscalculated the temperatures sometimes
f) added new temperatures in the data set instead of the old and correct ones
in some cases, expecially in the cold period of the year.
g) and if you make a calculation, than about 40% of all data in the GISS-dataset
are not the same temperatures of the original data set.
i) and if you analyze that using graphic plots (or a statistical programm like SPSS,
R, SAS or something other) you can see, that there is a lower increase of warming
in the original dataset, that is pushed up when GISS finished its manipulations.
You might do that (as I do that at the moment) with all german temp stations mentioned in GISS, which data are publically availiable and you might
be a little bit puzzled about the false claims of GISS-based climate alarmists, that
the temperatures are increasing massivly. This is simply not true and GISS is obviously a massivly manipulated and fraudulent dataset. THAT is scientific misconduct on a much higher level …… and everybody (also alarmists) can check
that out if they would not wail all the time because of dooms day but simply downloading ASCII-data and using their Excel-Programms on their PC’s.
The real catastrophy of our time is, that despite we all have access to the WWW,
no alarmist seems to use it. And instead of using original data even scientists use religion to prove something.
Galileo would rotate in his grave, but Leonardo da Vinci, who faked the winding
sheet of Jesus 500 years ago being present in Turin/Italy until today, would still rotate on the floor laughing…… because thousends of naive believers are lying on
their knees praying at him until today. Well, that was a much better trick that that
of Michael Mann, I assume.
Personally I would recommend friendofscience.org as a good start doing climate
sceptic work.
Best regards, Upjohn
@Phil Clarke
Dear Phil, you gave comment on Moncktons membership in the House of Lords using the The Reform Act of 1999, that “could not be clearer… Exclusion of hereditary peers.
No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.
(…) Well, he is entitled to his opinion, but it would seem to be something of a minority view…..”
Well, plainly spoken: your statement can be refuted within seconds using Google.
Would you mind to visit the House of Lords Homepage at http://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/about-lords/history/.
If so, please read the Link to “Reform and Reform Proposals since 1990”.
If you might have a conspiracy theory text about the present situation you also
might look at http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2010/04/12-april-2010-all-uk-legislation-passed.html.
But to be realistic: the climate alarmist claim is, that Monckton is not a member of the House of Lords because of the Legislation Act in 1999. This is plain nonsense. The
search engine of the House of Lords clears the thing up within seconds. Just put “Monckton” into it and you find out within seconds that Monckton was one of the candidates listed for the Crossbench Hereditary Peers’ By-election (as for some others also!). Would you mind to read the paragraph on the candidates for that election, please? The citation is “Those eligible to be candidates are the hereditary peers on the Register maintained by the Clerk of the Parliaments”. And guess what, Monckton (among many others) are listed as candidates, although he is not listed among the 776 Lords of the House at present. So simple strait forward logic helps at any time: a new Lord can only be elected if he is still a Lord?
So I assume, that everyone, who talks about Christopher Monckton’s Lordship in the House of Lords in the way, that he is not a Lord and because of that not a Member of the House of Lords
a) has no idea what he/she’s talking about
b) was incompetend to do a simple google search for the House of Lords
c) was not competend to put the word “Monckton” in the Search Engine of the
homepage of the House of Lords.
To make it absolutely clear. The reform act of 1999, that excluded hereditary Lords
is simply unconstitutional and for that reason not real law. The numbers of Lords is not
limited to about 90 and obviously not every Lord (as Lord Monckton) is using his right to get his passport for the assembly. I think, Christopher Monckton should fight for his right to attend the House of Lords but as a liberal democrate it should not be me to give an aristocrate such an advice. That would be too ironic, doesn’t it?
Why, Phil, did I had to do your research homework? Or the other way round: why do you post such nonsense despite the possibility to check that within seconds before you do it?
I just shake my head….. Upjohn
Steve wrote:
“(…) It’s just proof of the obvious cherry-picking that Monckton likes to do.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_ns_global.jpg”
well, Steve, I’m not a climate scientist. But I have some problems understanding
that picture mentioned above. If one reads the comment on the main homepage,
than the Jason satellite, “launched in late 2001 as the successor to T/P, continues this record by providing an estimate of global mean sea level every 10 days with an uncertainty of 3-4 mm.”
For me, it is quite asthonishing that the graph shows a Delta sea level rise in mm that
is negative before Jason started its measurements (and there’s no information about
the uncertainty of the measurements of Jason satellite). Should I shiver to the bones because of an estimated increase of 3,2 +/- 0.4 mm sea level rise that lies within the
uncertainty range of the whole satellite measurements? Even if this increase is true, than we will have a sea level rise of about 30 cm within one century. That’s nothing to worry about, because that’s the normal increase rate of the oceans within the last centuries because we are not at the end of a warming phase after the last ice age
10.000 years ago.
Well, I often do medical statistics (nearly every day). And if I would be confronted with such a result I would simply think that there is nothing happening at all, because
standard deviation tells a lot about the problem and also precision is not the same as
accuracy.
For example: If you measure something with an accurary of 3-4 mm, than giving
a result like 3.2 +/- 0,4 mm is simply statistical bullshiting. At best you are allowed
to say 3 mm without giving any standard deviation. The cited value is simple woodoo-science or pseudo-precision. To do it accurate: the real way to cope with the data is to give numbers in total millimeters. Why? Because if you say 3,2 +/- 0,4 mm, the assumed result lies within the range of 3,2 minus 2 x 0,4 and 3,2 plus 2 x 0,4 or statistically said: with 95% certainty the result lies between 2,4 and 4 mm. But this is also woodoo-statistics, because the satellite is only able to measure millimetres and not a 10th of a millimetre. So the real mean would have to be 3 +/- 1 mm (or better give no standard deviation/SD at all because it’s only woodoo-SD-statistics).
But the real situation is much more catastrophic. Because the satellite only has an accurary of 3-4 mm, the real result can never be 3.2 mm but at best a mean of 3 mm.
You should always use the worst accuracy (4 mm) so the correct mean would be
3 that has an internal accuracy of +/- 4 mm. And this means that the real result with 95% certainty lies between the result of 3 minus 2*4 mm and 3 plus 2*4 mm and that range of this calculation is -5 mm to 11 mm (check out Wikipedia for free to learn how standard deviation has to be interpreted).
That, Steve, is scientific interpretation of measurements. You might learn that at
first (and please, do that quick) before you cry for scientific misconduct. I didn’t
learn that at university but in a bavarian high school in the 9th class in maths. How bad have been your school teachers that they didn’t tell you the difference of accuracy and precision?
Let’s be honest: the University of Colorado publishes statistical bullshit on its web page, that’s the plain truth. Someone should tell them basic statistics and at first the difference between accuracy and precision.
You will only see a statistical difference, if the mean sea level change is stronger than
the 95%-certainty-range. That means, you need an increase of sea level of more
than 16 mm from one measurement to the other. This increase (assuming that the
increase is really 3 mm per year) might happen within 6 years of measurement. T/P
is online since 2002, so a significant change can be seen not before 2008. I don’t have
the raw data of that measurements (and only one mean value per year helps nothing if you want to do a regression analysis or something like that) so I can not check that problem out directly.
I hope, that I was able to help you a little bit unterstanding the interpretation of scientific results. So don’t hit Monckton with that graph without having an idea of what is really the result of that picture. And the result is: …. nothing happening, because the increase seems to be within the 95% uncertainty range based on the satellites measurement accurary .
And the non-increase is exactly that, what Monckton said. So, where is your problem?
Upjohn
Monckton should correct the 1 foot/year in his numbers 359 and 360 to a more correct 1 foot/century.
[snip- not interested in your personal smears about the site owner ~mod]
Abraham deconstructed, demolished, and destroyed Monckton. He exposed virtually every claim (all unsupported) that Monckton has being travelling the world and making for years. Monckton thouroughly deserves what he has received. And Abraham does this in consultation with the many scientists that Monckton misrepresents.
I would encourage Monckton to sue Abraham. It would be such a case as would set back the denial industry for years as actual scientists rather than the poseurs speak to the questions. Go for it and become the laughing stock to the world that Monckton is to those who do follow the science.
Debate with Abraham!. Monckton does not debate where the other side can produce evidence. His bluster will not get him far.
Someone should look into Abraham’s credentials/qualifications. (A nudge is as good as a wink to a blind bat. Hint, hint.)
Poor Monckton. A spinmeister runs headlong into a scientist, and what do we get in “rebuttal”? Threats of lawsuits. Wrangling over semantics. Ad hominem attacks(something Abraham painstaking avoided in his presentation). Not much science, however. I wonder, given Monckton’s self righteous anger over the fact the Dr. Abraham did not allow him advance notice of his presentation, did Monckton allow Abraham the same courtesy in his rebuttal – or do two wrongs make a right? Did Monckton give Al Gore, for example, a chance to view his presentation before presenting it to the public?
Monckton is no scientist, this much is quite clear from the Abraham presentation. If he wishes to be taken seriously by the scientific community, let him publish his finding for peer review. Talk about taking a “knife to a gun fight”.
“Abraham deconstructed, demolished, and destroyed Monckton”
Yes, because Abraham uses facts and direct dialogue (with the scientists Monckton serves up in his own citations) to get the more accurate interpretation of the data.
Monckton, stuck between a rock and hard place, lashes out with assertions that he is being personally attacked, and he attacks the institution where Abraham works.
To me this is an odd response. Why not show how Abraham’s interpretation of the data is flawed? Academic debate is about the data. You don’t kill the messenger when someone points out your error — typically you thank them and move on to build a better model. Scientists engage in this back-and-forth peer review process all the time. Good science is made even better with this type of dialogue.
So . . . I see no personal attack in Abraham’s presentation — just an academic intellectual using solid research to reveal the holes in Monckton’s “lies”.
Good job Dr. Abraham.
Everyone arguing Dr. Abraham’s credibility based on the “associate professor” title he has been given is an idiot. Associate professor is refurring to him not having having tenure yet. Great arguments, you have some effort. I’ll give you that.
How do you guys fall for this guy? Can you explain how he brings the Congress greetings from the Parliament, and puts the parliamentary logo on all his slides? He’s not in Parliament! He never was! He leads people to believe something that’s not true. Further, I think his view of the truth is very fuzzy. He imagines himself a peer of the House of Lords. He imagines himself a lot of things, despite reality. I can think of no better cheerleader on the incorrect view of this issue, in order to help along correct policy. More craziness to him!
[This has been gone over time and againYou might want to research it, he’s entitled to his title. He’s a hereditary peer. They do things differently in the UK. The reverse question is: How do you guys fall for Gore? ~mod]
Anderlan,
“How do you guys fall for this guy?”
He’s good at presenting, debunking and entertaining and has a more informed opinion than most. We didn’t have to pay $10 to see him in a movie and he is unafraid to present to challenging audiences and to take questions. What’s it to you? Are you going to discuss the science or not? As much as you seem to want to dismiss or diminish him, it would be a bit embarrassing for you if his opinion is more informed than yours. You appear to take the house of Lords stuff with less humor than he does. He doesn’t argue from his authority.
Who do you “fall for”?
Anderlan, you have three points as far as I can see
a) how do you guys fall for that guy?
b) why does Monckton put the House-of-Lords-logo on his presentations
c) Monckton is just imaging that he’s a member of the House of Lords
My answers are as follows
a) I neither fall (on my knees) in front of anybody, neither Monckton nor
Abraham nor you, because I’m an atheistic liberal democrat. Besides
that, I’m not impressed by beliefers of the church of global warming…..
b) I assume, that because Moncktons father got the letters patent at first and
for this reason had the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords (but I don’t
know, if he really did that) his descendant Christopher, who is obviously also
a hereditary peer is allowed to use the logo. I’m unhappy that you obviously
did not read the links I posted some days ago about the issue. Just see my
posting above and really read them in full this time. You migh eMail Monckton
directly. I had a commentary on another issue and he answered me within 24 hrs.
c) as far as I can see, Monckton did not say that he is an active member of the
House of Lords. But he was participating in by-elections, so you might be unhappy
in the future, if he might be elected. He was a candidate in by-elections of the House
of Lords … this could be easily verified but you decided not to do so.
So my questions to you are
a) why are you not active enough to use a link still being posted above in order to check out things before you post something, that is obviously partly not true?
b) should one accept everything a guy writes in public or tells you on a power point
presentation (even an Adobe Presentation) as absolutely the truth without checking the facts?
c) would Monckton be credible if he will be elected as a member of the House of
Lords in the future?
By, Upjohn
__
who does his research before he writes something or tells publically, that he does
not know the background as I did it above at point b)
I’d like to add the financial aspect about “global warming”, that is often underrepresented in the discussion. One of the solutions of global warming activists is the implementation of photovoltaics/PV and wind mills for producing electrical power. The country with one of the most subsidised alternative power sector is germany. According to http://www.greenpeace.de/fileadmin/gpd/user_upload/themen/atomkraft/Studie_Subventionen_Atomenergie.pdf
Germany gave 60.8 billion Euros directly on subsidies for the development of atomic power plants between 1950 to 2008.
Based on a german university study cited by Instituto Bruno Leoni
http://brunoleonimedia.servingfreedom.net/WP/WP-Green_Jobs-May2010.pdf
Germany also gave direct subsidies (35 billion Euros for PV, 19.8 Billion Euros for wind mills) for only two alternative energy systems between 2000 and 2008.
So just compare: 60.8 billion for atomic power in nearly 60 years compared to
54.8 billion for alternative energy in just 8 years!
I don’t now how many of these bloggers in here are able to read german but if so, check that out: http://www.bdew.de/bdew.nsf/id/DE_Brutto-Stromerzeugung_2007_nach_Energietraegern_in_Deutschland?open&l=DE&ccm=450040020.
To give a short abstracts for all others: Germany produced 596,8 Billion Kilowatt-
hours (KWh) or 596,8 Terrawatt-hours (TWh) in 2009. That was -6,4% less compared to 2008. Atomic power produced 22.6% of it, hard coal and
brown coal gave 42.8%, natural gas gave 12.9%, wind mills gave 6.9% and PV repre-
sented only 1% (!) of the energy production. Water power gave only 4% and the rest (9,8%) was energy produced by other alternative sources (so-called biomass-derived energy). Just keep in mind: Germany threw out 35 Billion Euros for PV, that gave only 1% of our total electrical power production!
You should also keep in mind the following fact: If you want to earn 1 Euro with
the production of PV-power, you need 22 KWh today. Why? The present price of
1 KWh on the free spot market is 4,5 Euro-cent at present. But on the other hand, the private consumer has to subsidise PV produced by commercial enterprises with an amount of 25 Euro-Cent per KWh. In order to make a turnover of only 1 Euro with PV, we as tax payers and consumers have to pay additionally 5,5 Euros on top of that. What kind of financial kamikaze politic is that? This is the best way to go bankrupt! And this chaotic system was implemented by german politicians in order to improve the future. Isn’t that nice?
So, dealing with Lordships or ridiculous internet presentations is one thing. To think about the financial consequences of implementing alternative energy systems only because of state subsidies on tax payers expense is much more important. In Germany, we pay about 30 US-cents (25 Euro-Cents) per KWh as private consumers. This amount is increasing every year with about 5% and this rise is speeding up now.
This is the real problem for the people!
We all depend on energy. In industrialized countries all citizens depend increasingly more on cheep electrical power. Everyone, who is serious about any “climate issue” has to keep in mind that we have to guarantee that kind of power. If not, we are on the best way to the stone ages.
Greetings, Upjohn