Guest post by The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
UPDATE: A new condensed rebuttal from Monckton for easier reading is available below.
Once again I have much to thank Anthony Watts and his millions of readers for. My inbox has been full of kind messages from people who have now had the chance to dip into my point-by-point evisceration of Associate Professor Abraham’s lengthy, unprovoked, and widely-circulated personal attack on me.
Latest news – sent to me by two readers of Anthony’s outstanding blog – is that Abraham, inferentially on orders from the Trustees of his university acting on advice from their lawyers, has (without telling me) re-recorded his entire 83-minute talk to take out the very many direct accusations of “misrepresentation”, “complete fabrication”, “sleight of hand” etc. etc. that he had hurled at me in the original version of his talk. For instance, he now seems to have appreciated his unwisdom in having accused me of having “misrepresented” the work of scientists I had not even cited in the first place.
Taking out his direct libels has reduced the length of his talk by 10 minutes. To my own lawyers, Abraham’s retreat will be of interest, because it is in effect an admission that his talk is libelous, and that he and his university know it is libelous. Though his new version corrects some of the stupider and more egregious errors in the original, many crass errors remain, including errors of simple arithmetic that are surely disfiguring in a “scientist” presuming to correct mine.
At several points in the new version, Abraham rashly persists in misrepresenting me to third-party scientists, getting hostile quotations from them in response to what I had not said, and using them against me. He thus persists even though – having received my long letter detailing his defalcations a month ago, long before he recorded the new version of his talk – he can no longer legitimately maintain that any of his numerous remaining libels is a mere inadvertence.
Plenty of libels indeed remain in the new version of Abraham’s talk: he has even been imprudent enough to add quite a new and serious early in his talk, having failed yet again to check his facts with me. In the new version of Abraham’s talk, every remaining libel will be regarded by the courts as malice, because he was told exactly what libels he had perpetrated, and was given a fair chance to retract and apologize, but he has wilfully chosen to persist in and repeat many of the libels. And when the courts find that his talk was and remains malicious, then he will have thrown away the one defense that might otherwise have worked for him – that in US law a public figure who sues for libel must be able to prove malice. I can prove it, in spades.
Several of you have posted up comments asking to see the full (and entertaining) correspondence between me, the professor, his university, and its lawyers. The ever-splendid Joanne Nova is kindly hosting the correspondence, so that we can spread the word as widely as possible across the Web to counter the malevolence of the many climate-extremist websites that are now ruing their earlier and too hasty endorsement of Abraham’s libels. Not one of them contacted me to check anything before describing me as “the fallen idol of climate skepticism”, “a sad joke”, etc., etc.
May I ask your kind readers once more for their help? Would as many of you as possible do what some of you have already been good enough to do? Please contact Father Dennis J. Dease, President of St. Thomas University, djdease@stthomas.edu, and invite him – even at this eleventh hour – to take down Abraham’s talk altogether from the University’s servers, and to instigate a disciplinary inquiry into the Professor’s unprofessional conduct, particularly in the matter of his lies to third parties about what I had said in my talk at Bethel University eight months ago? That would be a real help.
It is sometimes a cold and lonely road we follow in pursuit of the truth, and the support of Anthony and his readers has been a great comfort to me. Thank you all again.
====================
See also: A detailed rebuttal to Abraham from Monckton
And
A new condensed rebuttal for easier reading is here
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Where did this global warming begin?
1700 with the restart of sunspot activity.
Who is making a mint of money off this?
People who convinced college students, Congressmen and world leaders (educated people) that the earth was warming up due to too many cows, industrialization and people, an inconvenient truth.
They have built an Enron stock market based on this idea.
The IPCC gained control of our government in 2004 when President Bush placed us in their hands. Thus, Science is settled. Might as well shut down NASA, NOAA and live off Marvel Comics.
The IPCC study is the lead control document in all US documents dealing with National Security, FEMA, all the way down to our Municipalities.
They control our research funding, they are in our universities, colleges, secondary and private schools and all the way down to our youngest children.
Who is the IPCC? The lead man is out of India, the home of a cast system that is still in place.
The IPCC hope to gain control of us in Copenhagen last December and PM Brown was saying we are all going to die. We are still here.
Someone in Siberia unplugged Mann, Hanson and Jones last Nov. 21 and evened the battlefield. Thank you hackers.
Each institution has gathered around their “hockey stick” mathematician and thought it best to protect them. Considering each country’s labor laws and federal employment processes and procedures, the best we could hope for would be an early retirement for each of them.
Having watch the process a few times, the government employee has to pretty much kill or steal to be fired from a federal job slot. The process is enormous and set up to totally protect the employee no matter how much they are paid or how sorry they are.
So here we are. Two good people slugging it out. A college is involved. Numerous blogs and very good people slugging out over the truth.
In this closing comment;
There are no sunspots to speak of. Global warming, based on normal sunspot cycles will not return for 30 to 40 years.
The USA winters have dropped 6 degrees in the last six years. I expect them to drop to between 22 and 29 degrees for the next three decades
The overall US temps have dropped 2 degrees. They are still in the 50s. I expect these to drop into the mid-40s. There is nothing to back me up except history.
Drought will be severe worldwide and crop lost will be severe as well.
Most monthly data is ranked and can be played with on a link inside NOAA.
The world temps have peaked and appear to be dropping. NASA has not updated their chart in two years for it is based on man-made global warming.
Glaciers should be melting, though there should be a slight growth in glaciers closest to the Arctic and Antarctica Circles and higher elevations.
They are still skiing in the Alps and Australia just had its worst winter in 130 years.
There should be a slight growth in glaciers there.
Greenland, much like Glacier Bay’s fjord glacier should be melting. It takes a mini-ice age to replace them. There is something to pray for.
Enough said.
I still hold to a hurricane season of 7 storms of 50/50 mix of tropical storms and hurricanes.
Global warming is over for the rest of my life.
You will need food storage, heavy clothing and winter sleeping bags for your home and auto and “off the grid” alternate heating.
Thank you for this forum.
I await the next thread.
Most Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
Lord Mockton is an idiot and it’s about time that someone called him out on his unsubstantiated and far flung theories and accusations. I find it ridiculous that he has to get his lawyers involved rather then let the facts sort themselves out. How can one person make all kinds of accusations and statements but when they are called out on them rather then having a debate they have to take the low road and try and make them simply disappear.
Evan – Well, he certainly embarrassed the IPCC by pointing out they did their own sums wrong in AR4 regarding sea level and had us all drowning in our beds. (The IPCC made the correction.)
Actually Stefan at RealClimate spotted it earlier, without making a fuss, and without staking a claim to the Nobel.
Despite claims to he contrary, His Lordship has published no papers in the peer-reviewed literature. The Editor of the APS newsletter where he posted his Climate Sensitivity nonsense gets ticked off when people describe the artice as peer-reviewed, as it was not.
[REPLY – Thanks. That’s very interesting. (But note, for the record that Stefan merely forwarded the info along. It was spotted by an alert poster.) But why was it not corrected immediately rather than being left for the dreaded Monck to notice and publicize? ~ Evan]
Dave P: July 16, 2010 at 6:33 am
How can one person make all kinds of accusations and statements but when they are called out on them rather then having a debate they have to take the low road and try and make them simply disappear.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Whatever made Associate Professor Abraham think removing a few libelous statements and making some minor changes to his presentation would fool people?
Re John Brookes
Very well said. The bit that I like best is those vicious scientists making this up since Tyndall or Arrhenius. It must be a secret society worth another Dan Brown book.
I imagine they planning it back then: “Look, here’s the plan: we come up with a fake paper now and then so that they eventually add up to this warming stuff. People will freak out, and in a century or two we’ll be swimming in research fund money! It’s fool proof!”
I.m surprised at the number of pro Abraham comments making it through moderation. Well done folks.
I had a snark from someone calling himself “A” a while ago about Hot Topics thread supporting Abraham. “A ” said that sending an email showed so much more comm ittment than signing a petition. My response could not have been moderated out as I was polite and constructive. Must have just been lost.
Let me point out “A” that Hot Topic specifically suggested that no campaign to flood St.T’s inbox ( denial of service) should be conducted. A polite way is a single thread that will be sent through when done. The thread is much more than a petition . People are submitting thoughtful comments. Locations show the worldwide support Abraham has and the qualifications some include shoe a cosmopolitan well educated cohort.
As a Catholic (traditional) I was perplexed at how a Priest like Fr. Dease could behave in such a non-Christ-like way. ‘I was’ that is until I performed a background search on Fr. Dease. From now on I will refer to the man as Dease as the man behaves far from that of a Father unless his son’s name is Damien.
But make your own decisions about Dease. Here is a link that I found to be quite informative about Dease —
http://www.docsociety.org/saintthomas.html
I encourage all, Catholics in particular, to take a few minutes to read up on Dease and see for themselves the damage he has inflicted on a once Catholic University.
After reading this link it became quite clear why Dease would defend someone with the obvious lack of decency and character that Prof(?) Abraham displays.
Once again as a Catholic, I was considering writing Dease’s Bishop but after reading the above link, it became apparent that would be fruitless. Dease has removed any higher Church officials from a decision-making position of authority from St Thomas while installing individuals that support questionable institutions such as the vehemntly anti-Catholic Planned Parenthood to the Board of St Thomas.
I applaud Lord Monckton for taking on this evil disguised as a Catholic Institution and truly hope the good Lord’s lawsuit will result in St. Thomas losing every penny (including Dease’s multi-million dollar contract, travel expenditures and elaborate housing) they have been given by those trying to destroy the Church and replace Christianity with the worship of power and wealth thinly disguised as climate alarmism.
Smooth move, Hugh.
Extend the ad hominem to the University´s president.
As stated by Abraham himself, “point and counterpoint are the standard in academic discourse”. Anything seems to be fair game here to avoid this. Anything BUT checking whether Abraham´s assertions about the content of Monckton´s speech were accurate.
Way to go, folks.
To Christoph Dollis,
I checked out your thoughts.
Using “Ice Age Earth, Late Quaternary Geology and Climate” page 3 for one.
If we peak sometime soon, I don’t know yet, guess soon, next 1000 years, there is a steady decline towards one half of an ice age that takes about 10,000 years. Then there is a gradual decline into a full ice age over the next 90,000 years.
We really don’t stay out of an Ice age very long.
In summary, we saw the first melt, deluge about 16,000 years ago that wiped life off the map in the Caspian and Black Sea area. About half of the Ice Mass was gone around 10,000 years ago, but enough to leave 8 feet of sediment in the Tigris Euphrates River Valleys around 6000 years ago.
These are estimated dates based on Carbon Dating of objects found under the sediment.
Speculation holds that the Noah epic was 16,000 years ago or about 8,000 years ago. The 16,000 year ago flood is favored to allow for the migration of the story to all parts of the world, to include American-Indian tribes. They (12 known groups from England to the Americas) all tell the story about the same.
Sincerely,
Paul Pierett
You say climate-extremists
“careful avoidance of any debate”
Yet here you are attempting to censor that very debate
“Please contact Father Dennis J. Dease, President of St. Thomas University, djdease@stthomas.edu, and invite him – even at this eleventh hour – to take down Abraham’s talk altogether from the University’s servers, and to instigate a disciplinary inquiry into the Professor’s unprofessional conduct”
Kettle meet Pot.
Jeremy Thomson
“May the Farce be with you!”
Excuse me Alexandre.
Did Abraham not start this trite politics of personal destruction against Lord Monckton?
Did Dease not support this questionable behavior by Abraham?
Are you suggesting this is proper conduct by a university president….much less a supposed priest?
And after this sorry display of character assanination by a University, are there still those that say this is about ‘the science’ and not politics?
Yes, I’m quite sure you would like for those that disagree with your politics of personal destruction to roll over and ask for another attack. Well sorry, that dog won’t hunt any more. Abraham and Dease opened this can of worms. And only through a sincere apology to Lord Monckton can Abraham and Dease put the worms back in the can. Short of that, they can expect to reap exactly what they sow in a court of law and the court of public opinion.
There is no doubt in my mind you aren’t the least interested in the accuracy of Abraham’s verbal assault on Lord Monckton. You would prefer that this sordid display had ended with Abraham’s snarky original video character assaniation of Lord Monckton. Do you really think post climategate that you can continue this charade of attacking those that disagree and then playing the victim when cornered? Does your conscience never weary defending those that personally prosper on the gullibility of others?
This post and thread are overflowing with arguments addressing the supposed accuracy of Abraham’s assertions. What more can be added? However, very little was offered in the way of Dease or his involvement which roused my curiosity. If you are interested in challenging accuracy, perhaps you would prefer challenging the assertions made in the link about Dease. Hopefully you will find the excercise enlightening. You might just begin to comprehend the uncomfortable position Abraham, with Dease’s full support, has avoidably placed Lord Monckton. Or is your feigned outrage at ad homenin attacks only confined to those with whom you politically agree?
Science. Substance.
Monckton regularly encourages his audiences to check the science themselves rather than take his word for it. Abraham did this, even going as far as contacting the scientists on which Monckton based his lecture (the ones that were cited). 99.99% of this thread is devoted to talk of libel and lawyers, announcements of support, and name-calling – at the request, and by the example of the Viscount of Brenchley.
There has been in no way any discussion of the scientific points raised by Abraham in this thread. It’s virtually all meta here. And so is this post, in keeping with the theme.
It would behoove Monckton – and the denizens of this board – to deal substantively with the arguments instead of whining about the tone in which they were delivered. Abraham and his university have replied to Monckton, and have rightly given his laboured, repetitive, bully-boy tactics short shrift.
I viewed the first version of Abraham’s rebuttal video, by the way, when it first came online, and managed to slog through most of Monckton’s recent, turgid distraction. Judging by the comments here, I might be amongst a small pool of people who have done this much.
I’ve reviewed parts of other of Monckton’s presentations for myself – that which was referenced. I didn’t need Abraham to tell me what I’d already determined, but I applaud him for tackling Monckton’s rhetorical ‘science’ so extensively. Until I see a substantive reply from Monckton, I’ll be ignoring his antics and hopefully soon forgetting the disgust they have engendered. Perhaps y’all could petition his Lordship to do that instead of clamouring for censorship.
To: Quentin Wallace
Appreciated your comments but I’d like to suggest you investigate what other sources
have to say on these subjects – i.e. what do the various proxy temperature reconstructions show for global temperatures in the early 1700’s or what are the results of other ice extent measurements for the Beaufort Sea. You could also look at the papers that cite the 2 papers in question using Google Scholar and see whether they support or rebut the original papers.
It will be very good if many independent investigators do a good job of presenting a balanced view on the issues brought up in the Monckton Abraham debate.
What would also be good is if someone could answer the damning criticisms Quentin Wallace made of Monckton’s representation of his data.
It’s not the end of the world to acknowledge error. But not doing so while criticizing in detail someone else’s errors… well, you tell me what that is.
The cause of science is truth. substance, when will good people all stand against the lies. Silence is acquiescence to lie. Even Einstein was wrong, but he did not malign others.
barryb: July 17, 2010 at 10:58 am
Monckton regularly encourages his audiences to check the science themselves rather than take his word for it. Abraham did this, even going as far as contacting the scientists on which Monckton based his lecture (the ones that were cited). 99.99% of this thread is devoted to talk of libel and lawyers, announcements of support, and name-calling – at the request, and by the example of the Viscount of Brenchley.
Associate Professor Abraham contacted one of the scientists, several third parties who were *not* the scientists, and some he did not contact at all. In no way did he contact “the scientists (plural). In those cases where Abraham made contact with *someone*, he misrepresented Lord Monckton’s stance.
There has been in no way any discussion of the scientific points raised by Abraham in this thread. It’s virtually all meta here. And so is this post, in keeping with the theme.
The scientific points are not the subject addressed in the post. There’s plenty of science being discussed in the other posts here, though.
Until I see a substantive reply from Monckton, I’ll be ignoring his antics and hopefully soon forgetting the disgust they have engendered.
So, you either did not read his reply, or you did not understand it. My condolences on your upset tummy — tried milk of magnesia?
Nice try at misdirection from the topic, BTW. I give it a five out of ten — would have been higher, but your ennui came across as forced…
We have a problem. A University is offering it’s name and web site to smear a political opponent. The Head of the school really doesn’t appear to care about what Monkton supporters think. Many have sent direct messages.
I still suggest direct messages and have each message openly be carbon copied to a member of the board of trustees.
The trustees are the only group that can put heat on the Father Dease. It only takes a short e-mail from a connected donor to ask what is up with thise use of the school to smear people.
Helen Thomas was committed to a century as a news reporter from the Whitehouse.
One of the Hearst daughters that is not employed by the news empire sent a note to the media conglomerate and asked the Hearst family name not be smeared by Helen. She was fired on a Sunday.
Bill Tuttle says: July 18, 2010 at 2:37 am
Hi, not sure if you read my posts here that respond to actual scientific claims made by Christopher Monckton ?
My responses were in no way complex, esoteric or difficult to understand.
They seem to have been ignored ?
I would like to be challenged on them.
If you think they are in the wrong thread maybe you could direct me to the correct thread and I will gladly post them there.
So I started to listen to Abraham’s updated presentation- he restated Monckton’s disagreement now being with “almost all” instead of “ALL” scientific organizations- and then it looks like he inserts a section about John Houghton’s statement regarding a disaster being needed to get people to listen, and what a fabrication that is.
Perhaps Abraham should have read this article: http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/houghton-and-god.pdf
Abraham wants to claim for certain that Houghton never said what Monckton reported in light of this? How could he? Certainly not because Houghton had never expressed the sentiment before.
It seems Abraham hasn’t learned anything about the need to make precise statements, especially ones that convey a view that is 180 degrees from reality.
I won’t waste any more time with Abraham at this point.
@Bill Tuttle.
You have clearly not viewed the video, or paid attention if you did. I have bolded the names of the authors Abraham contacted, who wrote the papers that Monckton cited, and who replied to Abraham.
Observations of mortality associated with extended open-water swimming by Polar Bears in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea (2006), C. Monnett and J. Gleason
Norris & Rosenstrator (2002)
Esper & Schweingruber (2004)
Kiegwin (1996)
Johannessen (2005)
Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea level rise (2008), C Domingues et al.
What the sun-spot record tells us about space climate (2004), D. Hathaway & R. Wilson
IAU (2004) [This is Monckton’s reference for a conference held by the International Astronomical Union]. Abraham contacted the president of the IAU, who chaired the conference.
On sea ice, Abraham contacted the chief scientist, John Walsh, and the director, Larry Hinzman at the IARC, from where Monckton had copied a graph claiming sea ice had been steady for a decade.
Monckton references a graph from Uni of Colorado on sea level (<a href=http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_ns_global.jpg.this one). Abraham contacted the researcher who maintains that grapg, W Pfeffer.
Sometimes Abraham searched for other papers or web pages by the authors Monckton cited, and discovered they were saying the opposite of what Monckton claimed.
Where Monckton did not give any references, Abraham hunted down recent papers and sometimes contacted the authors.
The replies were very consistent – “Monckton is wrong.”
I wonder how many of these authors Monckton contacted before misrepresenting their work.
But back to your point – you are quite wrong. Abraham contacted many more than “one” author. Clearly, you are another who hasn’t viewed, or didn’t pay attention to, Abraham’s presentation. I expect this is common deficit amongst the majority of pro-Monckton commenters here. So here’s the original presentation again.
http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/jpabraham/global_warming/Monckton/Original%20Presentation/index.htm
Oh, I agree. I was replying to a Monckton supporter who said:
“This post and thread are overflowing with arguments addressing the supposed accuracy of Abraham’s assertions.”
I appreciate you verifying the invalidity of that statement.
Having reviewed Abraham’s presentation again, I can see not one example of offensive or libelous language. Abraham often says that Monckton is ‘mistaken’, or has ‘misstated’, or implies that he doesn’t cite, annotate or use values properly. And that’s it!
That such tiny sparks can ignite such a bonfire says more about the tinder than the flame.
Nor does he care about Monckton’s overwrought, fussbudgety list of complaints. Why on earth would he take seriously a minor celebrity challenging one of his scientists on science and scientific conduct, let alone that celebrity’s fans?
barry,
With all the spin going on, it’s hard to believe your claims that those authors all contradicted Lord Monckton, who is a stickler for accuracy.
So to see if there were leading questions asked by Abraham, let’s see all the relevant communications between him and the others. Until then, you’re just throwing out gossip based on hearsay, and it doesn’t pass the smell test.
Stickler? He even got the gender wrong on an author he cited (cf Tim Lambert’s debate with him).
Smokey, have you seen Abraham’s presentation at all, or are you, like Bill Tuttle, blowing smoke? Seriously. Have you?
Abraham provides copious scientific references and gives Monckton a lot of concessions. Is Monckton disqualified because of his lack of credentials? No, says John Abraham. He looks directly at what Monckton claims and goes to the sources where possible. It’s pretty reasonable language, the tone of the commentary is relaxed, not aggressive and not at all inflammatory. The fuss being made about it is a complete overreaction, and the scientific point-for-point he encourages has been choked by this preposterous action to censor free opinion.
Check it out before you comment.