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
====================================
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)
============================================
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
============================================
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.”
===============================================
UPDATE2: A new condensed rebuttal for easier reading is here
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