This is a press release from CFACT sent to me. Post your Kicks or Kudos here, your choice, but play nice and be mindful of blog policy as moderators are standing by to snip your call. – Anthony
Target: Monckton
Have you noticed the kicking around that CFACT Advisor Lord Christopher Monckton’s been getting lately?
Add to the title “Viscount of Brenchley,” “whipping boy du jour.” Seldom a recent day goes by without some new name calling or conspiracy theory attacking Lord Monckton echoing through the left-wing blogosphere.
Why is Chris Monckton the victim of a global warming attack campaign? Effectiveness. Few have been so brilliantly effective at debunking the global warming scare as this compellingly articulate British Lord.
Lord Monckton does his homework. He scours the scientific literature. He devours every word and graph. He is in constant contact with a vast network of leading scientists throughout the world. He wades past the executive summaries and masters the details. He checks the math, checks the logic, and checks the consistency of what is claimed about our climate. He synthesizes global warming science and policy raising vital questions that provoke thought in the mind of any expert or layman with an open mind.
Despite the nearly unimaginable sums available to the global warming folks – despite their command of the media, the politicians in their thrall and the carbon profiteers lining up at the taxpayer’s trough, Lord Monckton and his allies are winning. Like the child who revealed that the Emperor had no clothes, Lord Monckton wakes the good sense of those who hear him. The public has caught on.
The warming propaganda machine has lost its momentum and is desperate to get it back. They want to silence Lord Monckton and remove him from the field. To that end they’ll say anything. They attack his title hoping we won’t notice that every British Viscount has a right and by long tradition is called “Lord.” They attack his graphs and charts, hoping we won’t bother to learn that most of his data comes straight from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the sources it cites. Lord Monckton had hoped that by using the IPCC’s data warming advocates would be forced to debate the merits. Sadly, they continue to alternate between mocking the data and restating their conclusions as received wisdom. Yet when granted a fair forum for debate, it is Monckton who triumphs. Just weeks ago his team of experts were voted the winners in a warming debate at the Oxford Union – a treasured haven of free thought.
Last year Lord Monckton gave a presentation on global warming in St. Paul Minnesota that became a sensation on YouTube. This inspired Prof. John Abraham of the University of St. Thomas to attack his presentation in a lengthy video. Lord Monckton has refuted Prof. Abraham using his own medium. The first of a series of videos setting the record straight are being released today and we invite you to view them.
As CFACT has said before, the chain of logic behind global warming claims does not hold up. Lord Christopher Monckton will neither be silenced, nor ignored. As Mahatma Gandhi told us, “first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
I think you’re mixing the UKIP up with the BNP. (Excuse me if someone has mentioned this before.) As for being a senior member, I think he only cast his lot with them within the past year.
“”” Anne van der Bom says:
August 13, 2010 at 5:54 am
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 12, 2010 at 10:22 pm
…………………………………………….
Let’s forget the short term trends, let alone the ultra short term trends, shall we? They are dominated by noise and therefore tell you exactly nothing. “””
I’m a bit puzzled by your terminology Anne. Your usage of the term “Trend” for example; which I presume is a technical term having some specific defined meaning; at least as used in the field of climate science; and not to be confused with lay usage of the word “trend”.
So what would comprise “short term trends” or “ultra short term trends”, and how would those differ from simply “changes”.
In my mind, a “change” would be something like when some specific variable goes from having a value (a) to a new value (b) where (b-a) would be the “change”.
To me “trend” would imply the replacement of real experimental observed values of some variable with completely fictional values that are never observed ; for some purpose or other.
Then you say that short or ultrashort trends are dominated by “noise” .
I’m quite familiar with “noise” which represents anything appearing in an output value, of some variable that is neither present in the input nor dependent on any input value; and of course that “appearance” could be real as an actual component of an output signal, or it could be the result of experimental measurement error; due to limitations of the experimental method or equipment.
So are short or ultra short trends “noisy” by virtue of instrumental limitations; or are they noisy because of actual components of the output signal to be measured.
For example; when I look at a plot of GISSTemp over whatever time frame the graph drawer has chosen to plot, I see what by itself could be classed as a “noisy” function; in that at no point in the function is it possible to predict, deduce, or otherwise project what the value of the function would be after the last point plotted; and that is true no matter where in the function the last point plotted happens to be. Not only is the next as yet unplotted point not determinable; but it is not even possible to project in which direction the function will move to the next point.
Now I assume that Dr James Hansen is competent to read a thermometer and that he has available to him thermometers of whatever precision he could want; so I take the position that mostly the GISS graph is an actual plot of nearly noiseless values of a variable; and the plotted value at any time represents what the actual signal observed was at that particular time.
Despite my belief that the plotted values are real observed values of some defined function; I have not the slightest idea what that specific function is; or how the instantaneous value of the function is obtained.
Yet the function as plotted exhibits the sort of viual “noisiness” that says that no future value of the variable may be discerned from any amount of past data about the function; nor can the direction of change from the current value be discerned.
So to me; for a function of that type; the entire concept of a “trend” is without meaning; there is no trend; the variable simply changes value from one observed number to a next observed number; which contains no information relative to any prior values of the function whatsoever.
And of course, in the case of GISSTemp (or HADCrut if you prefer) what is plotted is not Temperatures; but “anomalies” or deviations from some other function which itself is indeterminate.
GISSTemp cannot possibly define the mean global Temperature of the earth; since it is not even possible to determine what the baseline value to which the anomalies are indexed is; given that the sampling regimen does not comply with the Nyquist Sampling Theorem requirement for Sampled Data Systems.
So as I have often remarked; GISSTemp is a plot of GISSTemp, and nothing else; and has no scientific connection with anything real. So long as Dr Hansen does not change the algorithm; he can continue to spend budget money extending the plot of GISSTemp till the cows come home; and add no knowledge to our understanding of planet earth.
Noelene wrote : “He clearly states that
‘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.'”
Are we to assume that the Viscount is now a legal expert as well as being a Climate expert ? Does the man’s knowledge know no bounds ?
Anyway, here is another legal opinion – from an actual lawyer :
“On Ashley Mote’s idea, you should always be sceptical of a claim that Parliament ‘can’t’ do something, or that something it has done is ‘invalid’ – a type of claim that only makes any sort of legal sense if you mean Parliament has breached human rights or especially EU law, yet which seems to be coming increasingly often from Eurosceptics, who ought to support Parliamentary sovereignty, you might think. He argues that Letters Patent creating peerages can’t be amended by general legislation – but his only basis for this argument appears to be a written answer from Baroness Ashton which he’s misconstruing. All she was saying was that Acts don’t have the effect of changing the legal effect of Letters Patent incidentally – it needs to be clear that Parliament does indeed intend to change their effect. She actually cited the House of Lords Act 1999 as an example of an Act plainly intended to change the membership of the House. In any case, Letters Patent are irrelevant anyway. The entitlement to sit in the Lords is not created by Letters Patent but by the Queen’s writ of summons; the only question is whether she has failed to summons anyone qualified to sit. But the House of Lords Act 1999 makes clear the old hereditaries are no longer qualified. Plus, he’s forgotten the enrolled bill rule in Wauchope and in Pickin. The courts wouldn’t entertain any legal challenge to Acts of Parliament based on arguments like his.”
” Mikael Pihlström says:
August 13, 2010 at 10:42 am
On Lord Monckton pretending to be part of the actual legislative
process in UK: the case is quite clear, he has given that impression.”
In his OWN words again: ” … a member of the Upper house but WITHOUT the right to sit or vote …”
I see people defending a ClimateGate scientist. Defending the indefensible.
And Morano. (3M!)
Back to the subject of today: Monckton
Although I disagree completely, I can respect
a sceptic stand based on honest conviction: that IPCC is
wrong, alarmist and motivated by a hidden agenda.
Monckton expounds along these lines, but then he
suddenly wants to claim share of the honour: the Nobel
Peace prize, awarded to the organisation he despises?
Not much moral integrity here. If I were an honest
sceptic I would be really disappointed.
And I would start questioning his judgment: he really
thinks submitting a comment during the review process
means he has ‘earned’ the Nobel prize?
And he really believes that a sceptic colleague from Univ
of Rochester has the mandate to mint a Nobel prize
pin and decorate him?
reference: Monckton presents himself in the introduction to a
letter addressed to John McCain
“His contribution to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 –
the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats that had
overstated tenfold the observed contribution of the
Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise
– earned him the status of Nobel Peace Laureate. His Nobel prize pin,
made of gold recovered from a physics experiment, was presented
to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester,
New York, USA.”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/letter_to_mccain.html
(open the PDF to verify)
“”” Mikael Pihlström says:
August 13, 2010 at 10:42 am
Smokey says:
August 13, 2010 at 10:08 am
Mikael Pihlström says: [ … ]
………………………………………..
On falsification of AGW: you sceptics have had 30 years to come up
with some plausible theory or your own model: nothing. “””
Well not true Mikael; and why the 30 year time limit ? I thought anything that happens in less than 30 years is weather; not climate.
The “plausible theory” which you declare is absent; has in fact always been present and for thousands of years; not just 30.
That theory; which AGW proponents have yet to disprove, is that CLIMATE CHANGES, and always has, and always will and nothing that has happened over in fact milions of years can be shown to be outside the bounds of natural variability.
If we would choose to define the era of “un-natural” as being that part of earth’s history since the appearance on it of the mammalian species; homo sapiens sapiens; then clearly anything that happened to climate prior to that time falls into the realm of the range of natural variability; by definition; since no non natural influencing mechanism is known prior to that time.
So ACC or man-made climate change, can only have come about since the appearance on earth of homo sapiens sapiens; and to prove it has happened would require demonstration that changes have occurred since that time; that have never been found to have occurred during the range of times for which natural variability was in charge of climate change.
So don’t come over here and claim that “Skeptics” have not posed any response to your AGW nonsense; the “skeptics” model has always been in existence since the formation of the earth.
You just wait; climate is going to change, just like it always has; and nothing you or anybody else can do is going to alter that fact.
By the way; I’m NOT a “skeptic”; I’m quite sure that”the science” is wrong. IT’S THE WATER !!
Mikael Pihlström: August 13, 2010 at 10:42 am
On Lord Monckton pretending to be part of the actual legislative process in UK: the case is quite clear, he has given that impression. Do you think the UK parliament and Queens representative would go public on such an issue without a strong case?
Despite several elucidations, you’re stuck on this topic. Do you think if the UK Parliament and Queen’s Representative would hesitate to get a “Cease and Desist” order if they *did* have a strong case?
On falsification of AGW: you sceptics have had 30 years to come up with some plausible theory or your own model: nothing.
Wrong answer, boyo. The skeptic point of view is that it’s natural variation, as demonstrated in the historical and geological record — we don’t *have* a model, we have the data. You just don’t happen to like that.
The IPCC models are not perfect, but if drawn correctly and not Moncktonly distorted as yoy prefer, they do fit observations rather well.
Can they hindcast? No. Because they can’t hindcast, they are worthless as predictors.
To the extent that they don’t fit, the message is that there is a lot of work to be done, but for instance adding biogeochemistry feedbacks will likely not lessen the RF, on the contrary.
“To the extent that they don’t fit” means that they don’t fit. Period.
Noelene says:
August 13, 2010 at 10:36 am
He clearly states that
“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.
——-
Noelene, those are his words. The UK Parliament officials says he is
misinterpreting (surprise, surprise): the voting, sitting and membership
go together. The Letters patent is a document he can keep in his drawer.
Actually, the Queen has demanded him to cease using the portcullis
emblem (slightly modified copy), which is her property. So their position
is unequivocal.
Mikael Pihlström says:
August 12, 2010 at 11:07 am
As a a person hopelessly contaminated by AGW theory, I am very happy
that Monckton is your front man.
Did you note that the House of Lords wants your Vicount to stop saying he
is a member of the upper house and that Queen’s Chancellor wants him to stop
plagiating the Parliament portcullis emblem? If he wasn’t so great in climate
science one might suspect that he is a pompous clown.
Of course Mikael, they can’t debate him so they must threaten him or focus on the man and not the facts. Contaminated might be the proper analysis, your words not mine. Lord or not, he has your panties in a wad. You can’t do anything about it except for using Alinsky tactics on him and still he wins.
For those trying to say Hansen’s 1988 projections are good, here are the actual numbers.
Scenario B is at +1.035C for 2010 while GISTemp in a high cycle El Nino-impacted year is going to be a little over +0.600C (which is still lower than Scenario C (+0.632) which stopped CO2 increases in the year 2000 at 367 ppm – while we are already up to 388 ppm.
http://www.realclimate.org/data/scen_ABC_temp.data
http://www.realclimate.org/data/H88_scenarios.dat
Now when the La Nina starts impacting temperatures going into the Winter and next Spring, one might find that the most accurate forecast Hansen could have submitted would have been a “Scenario D” – where GHGs stopped increasing in 1988 – that would be not far off.
Mikael Pihlström,
“On falsification of AGW: you sceptics have had 30 years to come up
with some plausible theory or your own model: nothing.”
Ah but with vast funding, direct access to the best students each university has had pass through their doors and the luxury of being able to place desired results (the cart) ahead of the methodology (the horse), “That’s the best YOU could do?” is the real question to be asked. The “sceptics” have just gotten started and their coffers are empty as compared to the fortunes already having passed into and out of your own.
AGW is an intergovernmental monopoly with tens of thousands of fortunes and careers riding on it. You are slighting those trying to break through barriers erected in both governments and academia to protect their “precious” from scrutiny? Belittling their successes made on threadbare budgets against the great and powerful intergovernmental AGW machine is truly a sad position to take. You must be working for The Mann.
JSmith: August 13, 2010 at 9:01 am
I’m afraid that it DID change the composition of the House of Lords, because :
“The House of Lords Act 1999 removed the right of most hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords. 92 hereditary peers remain in the House until full reform.”
http://www.parliament.uk/about/faqs/house-of-lords-faqs/lords-legislation/
No, it didn’t change the *composition* of the House of Lords — it merely removed the right of most hereditary peers to sit. Now, bear with me: by long-standing tradition and *definition*, the House of Lords is composed of *all* Lords (regardless of actual title) of the realm —
1. the Lords Spiritual, prelates of the Church of England, who are members by virtue of position, and
2. the Lords Temporal, who are members by virtue of Letter Patent granted by the Sovereign.
The act of 1999 did not legally re-define the House of Lords, all it did was remove the right of most of the hereditary peers to sit and vote. In order to re-define the House of Lords itself, Parliament must pass a law specifically declaring the House of Lords to mean only those peers who have been either elected or selected to seats in the House. Parliament didn’t do that — in fact, it specifically allowed several hereditary peers to remain seated on no other basis than to obtain the votes needed to pass the “reform” act.
Next question : Since he claimed to be a member of the Lords AFTER his right was removed (and while his father held the title), how can you defend the indefensible?
What makes you say it’s indefensible? Again, the act merely removed his right to sit — removing his membership can only be accomplished by a request from the Sovereign to return the Letter Patent which was given to his forebears.
This is fun.
I’ll take “Parasite Drag In A Fully-Articulated Rotor System” for $200, Alex…
Because at the time Hansen thought it most plausible that an intermediate level of CO2 reduction would occur as a result of legislation. But it didn’t. What happened instead, with the exception of Europe, was Business s Usual, Scenario A. (Looked at another way, what happened is that carbon emissions tracked Scenario A most closely.)
Except Roy Spencer’s recent insight in teasing apart the confusing influence and interaction of forcings and feedbacks in ch. 5 of his book, The Great Global Warming Blunder, where he argues that the climatological community has mixed up cause and effect (and which should therefore have been titled, An Inconvenient Goof). Here’s a brief synopsis and link to a review:
JSmith says:
August 13, 2010 at 9:57 am
James Sexton wrote : “Yes, you need to familiarize yourself with British constitutional law. If you don’t understand it, you probably shouldn’t speak of it. You should ask a British citizen to clarify for you.”
“Oh, I see. Well, as a British citizen with a long and deep interest in “British constitutional law”, I will ask myself. Thanks for the advice.”
No problem :-). I’ll take my own advice and only ask a question. When determining peerage, is it the legislative branches that determine such? By what authority did the House of Lords come into existence?
I forgot to add a couple of questions, why is there such obsession regarding the Monckton’s title? Isn’t’ this simply a ploy to divert attention from his statements regarding climate change? Or is there some other deeper meaning regarding his peerage status of more importance than climate change? Or is there, in a way that isn’t obvious to me now, that his peerage status is directly related to the CAGW issue? I’m simply astounded and fascinated by these diversionary tactics.
Mikael Pihlström apparently had to take a time out because Oprah is on.
MP is an amazing poster; the citations and links of others simply fly right over his head. Earth to Mikael: read the original article. It is making fun of people who make Monckton the issue.
A friend of my mother’s was a clone of the people here who are so anxious to split hairs over things that matter little to normal folks. She couldn’t talk about anything but the Royal Family and Princess Diana.
Mikael needs something else to get interested in. ☺
Smokey says:
August 13, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Mikael Pihlström apparently had to take a time out because Oprah is on.
Could not find Oprah, so I had a beer.
The credibility of your front man should be an issue, above all
for your congregation itself. I am just curious – how you can rationalize away
obvious embarrasing facts about your star player. Mostly the Nobel
prize golden pin!
James Sexton says:
August 13, 2010 at 12:40 pm
I forgot to add a couple of questions, why is there such obsession regarding the Monckton’s title? Isn’t’ this simply a ploy to divert attention from his statements regarding climate change? Or is there some other deeper meaning regarding his peerage status of more importance than climate change? Or is there, in a way that isn’t obvious to me now, that his peerage status is directly related to the CAGW issue? I’m simply astounded and fascinated by these diversionary tactics.
———
Well, one explanation is that everything else about him is, sorry,
utterly boring. I mean his reply to Abrahams – it’s unreadable.
Alan F says:
August 13, 2010 at 11:57 am
Mikael Pihlström,
“On falsification of AGW: you sceptics have had 30 years to come up
with some plausible theory or your own model: nothing.”
Ah but with vast funding, direct access to the best students each university has had pass through their doors and the luxury of being able to place desired results (the cart) ahead of the methodology (the horse), “That’s the best YOU could do?” is the real question to be asked. The “sceptics” have just gotten started and their coffers are empty as compared to the fortunes already having passed into and out of your own.
AGW is an intergovernmental monopoly with tens of thousands of fortunes and careers riding on it. You are slighting those trying to break through barriers erected in both governments and academia to protect their “precious” from scrutiny? Belittling their successes made on threadbare budgets against the great and powerful intergovernmental AGW machine is truly a sad position to take. You must be working for The Mann.
——-
1/ The tenured scientists are most important; I would think your
Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Soon, Idso, Michaels etc were tenured
(that is financially secured) way back? They just did not convince
the world, were not proliferate article writers (spent to much touring
with Heartland etc?).
2/ Of course students tend to go were money and reputation lives.
But, the question you have to ask yourself: why did not your side
build up the scientific reputation.
3/ There is no intergovernmental AGW industry; that is pure
fantasy.
Mikael Pihlström says: [ … ]
………………………………………..
“On falsification of AGW: you sceptics have had 30 years to come up
with some plausible theory or your own model: nothing. “””
Mike that’s a beautiful bit of logic. Let’s test that.
I say the sky will fall in 100 years if we don’t tax energy into oblivion and force people to give up their individual liberties and freedoms for the collective good.
By your logic the onus is upon you to disprove my outrageous assertions and if you don’t I should be free to commence with the usurpation of liberties and start taxing modernization and industrialization? Do you see a flaw in the thinking there?
No, the whole concept that some men are “Lords” because of their birth is offensive. (Further, he doesn’t seem to be one, even, but regardless.)
JSmith says:
August 13, 2010 at 10:41 am
“That’s not quite how those scenarios were determined – the temperatures are determined by the amount of GHGs emitted. From the link you gave, you can read the following, which explains what the scenarios actually are :….”
Yes, thank you, oddly, I’ve already read the referenced .pdf I’m fully aware of what methodology he stated he used to make his various predictions. It doesn’t change what I stated. The fact is, while he claims he was correct, there is a difference of opinions. See links provided above. I’d be lot more impressed if he made one prediction and got it right. and is validated by someone other than himself. The only study I’m aware of that validates his predictions is his own work. I can’t believe alarmists actually use this in arguments regarding the validity of his work. The only reason I even mention it, is because I start to laugh when I type it and my co-workers think I’m nuts and leave me alone. 🙂
I’m older still, but my memory is not faulty yet. The global cooling scare was much bigger than a single story in Newsweek. This is an interesting myth that people are trying to transmute into truth. Try National Academy of Sciences. Ever hear of them? There were others as well. The point was that the snowpack considered “permanent” in North America jumped by something like 20% in the early 1970s. Many people believe that something like this is the opening act of an ice age. So they were worried. It didn’t turn out to be so in this instance.