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.”
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BillyBob & Mike re: rifle sights
a) this an image from the original CFACT press release;
b) this is a common graphical item used when the context “targeting” is applied, see, for example:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/24/sarah-palins-pac-puts-gun_n_511433.html
Note the blue map used in the article. This too has been criticized. But My point is that WUWT only used the original but didn’t create it.
John Egan says:
August 12, 2010 at 11:27 am
Monckton ain’t exactly a poster boy for tolerance and civility, either.
–
I can’t hesitate to answer that statement. There is a time in the process of a spreading epidemic where containment is possible. We routinely do so with Ebola outbreaks, funded by developed nations and their agencies. That at one point in the early brainstorming, also on the need for more information, is no shocker. We want the system to ask all relevant questions and see the substantive angles discussed. The question of containment is always discussed in dealing with a new disease. I can’t help but feel that your criticism was an empty and wikifluff attempt to attack somebody’s character.
As to his title. Same again. I suppose you would scrap the USS Constitution for being ‘archaic’? Would you assume that one of her retired crew, who perhaps advised a President, was a buffoon? I don’t get you.
Our three nations share proud traditions, have and do shed blood together in common cause, even today. Some traditions only exist as symbols. That Chris Monckton is also tied to history in a symbolic way is no reason to chide readers on hearing what he has to say. Compared to the Peerage system, Lord Monckton has actually done something. Unlike you in your nasty attempt to ‘discredit’ him.
John Egan says:
“He proposed placing people with HIV in detention camps.”
Well, John, people in America propose putting those who made personal choices into HIV detention camps, too. The purpose is to keep others from unknowingly contracting the fatal disease.
And besides, John, what does that have to do with carbon dioxide?
sandy jardine says:
“Monckton is a charlatan and a fraud. Watts Up has thrown its credibility to the wind defending this bum. You dont have to be a raving warmist to see he fabricates evidence.”
Sandy baby, I read your link, and it is nothing like you portray it. Lucia’s conclusion:
That is not “fabricating evidence.” That is just another scientist looking at a chart, and trying to determine how it was constructed. Apparently Lucia never contacted Lord Monckton, but was instead speculating on various implications as a response to a question by another commentator. Where do you get “fabricated?” Where I come from, that is bearing false witness. Prove a “fabrication” with chapter and verse. If you can.
The ad hominem attacks we see here are a diversion from Monckton’s science, and follow the Alinsky script: always personalize the attacks against the individual, and don’t ever respond to what he is saying. No one is right 100.0% of the time, but Monckton is open about his work and corrects it when [rarely] necessary.
Contrast that openness with someone like Michael Mann — who hides out from any questions that are not pre-vetted through a trusted propaganda outlet. To this day, over twelve years after MBH98, Mann still refuses to disclose his Hokey Stick methodology, even after Steve McIntyre proved that he had used the Tijlander data upside down, and many other equally egregious blunders.
If it were not for psychological projection, Monckton’s attackers would have nothing. Lord Monckton is not afraid to stand up toe to toe and slug it out — while his opponents like Mann and Abraham stay cloistered in their Ivory Towers, knees shaking, afraid to come out and fight it out in a real debate with someone who isn’t afraid. The fear is so thick on the part of people like Mann and Abraham you can smell it.
Like most of us here, I am glad not to be on the side of bed-wetting cowards who hide out and take pot shots as they drive by — and then run back to the safety of their institutions, tails between their legs and yelping about the onslaught of scientific skeptics armed with real facts.
OT but not irrelevant.
Official: Satellite Failure Means Decade of Global Warming Data Doubtful
“US Government admits satellite temperature readings “degraded.” All data taken offline in shock move. Global warming temperatures may be 10 to 15 degrees too high.
The fault was first detected after a tip off from an anonymous member of the public to climate skeptic blog, Climate Change Fraud (view original article) (August 9, 2010).
Caught in the center of the controversy is the beleaguered taxpayer funded National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA’s Program Coordinator, Chuck Pistis has now confirmed that the fast spreading story on the respected climate skeptic blog is true.”
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/7491-official-satellite-failure-means-decade-of-global-warming-data-doubtful
Well, at least the global warming alarmists will have a non-human scapegoat to blame for their misunderstanding of climate science that led to their environmental psychosis.
” John Egan says:
August 12, 2010 at 11:27 am
He fabricates a position for himself in the House of Lords which he never held.”
Nonsense. In his own words: “… a member of the Upper House but without the right to sit or vote…” (That right now belongs to Tony Blair’s cronies).
Why should Americans have a hangup about Lords? They have more, a president who is “sort of a God” (Evan Thomas from Newsweek). Yeah, yeah (Chris Matthews from MSNBC).
Robert says:
August 12, 2010 at 9:58 am
“It may be true that Lord Monckton is being targeted but he didn’t do himself any favors over at real climate by being shown to be incorrect. And then being shown incorrect by tamino at
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/mo-better-monckey-business/
which monckton not so surprisingly did not respond to. ….”
Robert, did you bother to read the post you referenced? First, they were arguing one point out of the plethora of points Monckton has made. If that’s the best they can do, they need to quit now. Further, the argument is side-splittingly laughable.
From the second sentence in the link you provide—–“It included this passage about Monckton’s claim that CO2 concentration isn’t rising exponentially, but only linearly:”
Now, I’m a bit rusty with graphs and graphing data using formulas, but to my recollection, a person can have a line(linear) on a graph that is both exponential and linear. I wouldn’t have responded either. But, I’ll slow it down for some.
2+2=4, 2*2 =4 and most amazingly 2^2 = 4 <—-(example of exponent!!!)
I'm not saying they didn't have a point, but again, if that's the best they can do against Monckton, they need to cut their losses and throw in the towel.
[SNIP]
Every single claim that Monckton has made about Climate change has been proved false. Every attribution he has made to respectable scientists has been show to be a fabrication. Those scientists have said so – now publicly.
[SNIP. Not amused by the ad hominem insults to both Monckton and this site. ~dbs, mod.]
John Egan: August 12, 2010 at 11:27 am
Monckton ain’t exactly a poster boy for tolerance and civility, either.
Have you ever lost your temper when someone insulted you, or something you cared greatly about?
He fabricates a position for himself in the House of Lords which he never held.
Oddly enough, there was a post at WUWT that put that pretty much to rest. Read down a few paragraphs, and then the comments.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/12/a-detailed-rebuttal-to-abraham-from-monckton/
He proposed placing people with HIV in detention camps.
Detention camps or isolation wards? I’m not up on that one, but contrast that with the UN’s Year of the Woman speaker who advocated unprotected sex for teenage girls *and* claimed that being tested for HIV violated “human rights.”
And I am rather aghast that Americans who call themselves conservatives flock to the banner of someone who flouts his title of nobility.
See the comments in the link above.
There are far better skeptics out there.
If I may indulge in a military simile, “A good plan ready now is better than a perfect plan that won’t be ready for another week.”
I had the extraordinary opportunity of meeting and talking with Lord Monckton at the 2nd ICCC.
I was humbled by his willingness to take a few minutes out of his busy schedule to talk one-on-one with someone he never even met before.
That is the difference between the Al Gore and Lord Monckton. The former is a noisy empty barrel who refuses to discuss issues with anyone. The latter, even with a Title, is not so big that he cannot take the time to discuss issues with an unknown engineer.
John Egan says:
August 12, 2010 at 11:27 am
“Monckton ain’t exactly a poster boy for tolerance and civility, either.
He calls himself a Tory, yet dashes off to the UKIP whenever convenient.
He fabricates a position for himself in the House of Lords which he never held.
He proposed placing people with HIV in detention camps.
And I am rather aghast that Americans who call themselves conservatives flock to the banner of someone who flouts his title of nobility.
There are far better skeptics out there.”
Here’s the thing you guys don’t get. I don’t hold Monckton as some sort of godlike role model. I simply see his arguments as logical in regards to the CAGW debate. He continually brings up points that should be regarded and answered. In regards to the CAGW debate I really don’t see how a 25 year old position on treatment of HIV infected individuals is pertinent, but just for the record, using the precautionary principle, I, too, was in favor of the quarantine method. Oddly, the HIV/AIDS issue turned out to be yet another over-hyped potential end-of-world scenario that didn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, it is still a devastating disease, it just hasn’t killed everybody like was soo feared for a few years. I wonder if there wasn’t a teachable moment in all that which may apply to today?
Marge says:
August 12, 2010 at 11:44 am
“Monckton is a “target” because he has been caught making numerous false claims regarding Climate Science. He is to AGW skepticism what Al Gore is to AGW alarmism.”
Once again, a baseless ad-hom attacking the person rather than discussing the science.
I am calling your bluff, Marge. Give us a specific, verifiable. itemized list of each of those “numerous false claims.” Be specific, and have citations we can verify. Then we can discuss whether your claims are valid or not.
I’ll wait, while you run along to RealClimate for help and encouragement…
The RealClimate and Tamino posts more-or-less confirmed Monckton’s numbers but the “followers” of those websites are not able to see that since they only respond to the emotive tone of the posts.
There is one problem, though, in that Monckton uses linear charts (maybe just to simplify them for the audience) when the IPCC A2 scenarios are slightly exponential which makes a small difference for the current period.
The IPCC A2 scenario increases by +3.4C in the 100 years up to year 2100. the more realistic A1B scenario increases by +2.8C over the same period. RealClimate likes to say there is a range of projections which even includes some model runs which hardly increase at all in the current period. Therefore, the current period with no warming is perfectly consistent with the models.
http://www.realclimate.org/images/bickmore_Fig8.png
Well, the IPCC doesn’t exactly say that the projections include no warming at all do they. If that was true, then there is no problem. A2 increases by 0.34C per decade on average and A1B increases by 0.28C per decade on average for the next 90 years. Tamino and RealClimate can pretend no warming is consistent with that if they want to.
Marge says:
August 12, 2010 at 11:44 am
“Monckton is a “target” because he has been caught making numerous false claims regarding Climate Science. He is to AGW skepticism what Al Gore is to AGW alarmism.”
Marge, if you’d be kind enough to supply us with the errant information, in other words, proof of the false claims, we could all acknowledge and move on. But you or a Prof. Abraham saying “is not!”, doesn’t suffice as proof of false claims. While there isn’t a person involved in the debate which can remain uncontroversially error free, equating anyone with a person who financially benefits from selling fear of sea-level rise and then buys a house on ocean-front property is a bit of a stretch.
About the only person I can see in the entire debate that we can make a direct comparison with algore to, is our smut-writing, climate scare profiting friend at the IPCC, Pachy.
Christopher Monckton gets my vote.
From my point of view the skeptics could not have
a better frontman.
Have you noticed that the House of Lords wants your Viscount to
stop saying he is a member of the upper house? and that the Queens
Chancellor wants him to stop plagiarizing the portcullis emblem?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/11/lords-climate-christopher-monckton
Maybe petty of them, but what kind of clown goes appropriating
fancy titles and emblems not belonging to him?
‘Ad hominem’ you will say – but, if you are honest, does he have
good common sense in his head?
Smokey, do try to keep up. Google Prof John Abraham. Read, or in this case watch, the very evidence you asked for.
Oh, and please learn the meaning of the Latin abbreviations you keep throwing around.
Lord Monckton is, by trade, a reporter educated in the classics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Monckton,_3rd_Viscount_Monckton_of_Brenchley
At a time when the National Academy of Science is berating scientists for not utilising the services of deeply involved statisticians to crunch some of the most challenging data ever produced by human science. Not because they got it wrong, but because they can be queried for the statistical methods…….
This non scientist comes out with article after article claiming that the scientists have got it wrong.
The articles are scientifically debunked. If you don’t know what that means, it means that the scientists who review and comment on Moncktons articles have to have them peer reviewed and approved before they can publish.
Yet the press keep on referring to articles which are scientifically proven to be wrong.
Then answer to that conundrum is in the first sentence…..
I’m sure he’s a nice fellow and all that. But when there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of lives at stake on this issue, I’d prefer a bit more evidence than an amateur who gets his figures wrong!
And before everyone drops on me like a howling banshee, please consider that the NAS has completely exhonerated Michael Mann over the whole hockey stick issue. In fact, the only way to read the data and NOT get a hockey stick is to deliberately pick the only sequences which do not show one.
Worth considering before raging off on one.
re: Robert says: August 12, 2010 at 9:58 am
Oh, gee he failed to respond to something posted all off two days ago. That’s real significant (NOT). Did Tamino even bother to notify Monckton of the post? And if he DID notify Monckton, just how long ago, an hour? And, even if notified (bet he wasn’t tho) you think it might be reasonable and warranted to give someone a reasonable time period to prepare a reply? What a joke, using a supposed “lack of reply” as if it had any meaning and somehow proves inability to successfully reply when its to a blog post the person may not even have a clue exists yet. Its pretty childish and disingenuous at best. As others have noted also, even if this single issue turns out to be wrong, so what? That is no reflection on the bulk of Monckton’s points. For you to dismiss the science points on this basis is just silly.
I agree and very well written Anthony.
Its odd that they are attacking him, he’s about to become a hero when they realize they could lose their jobs from all the companies that have yet to report their carbon emissions and are about get fined only to discover their power bill etc. going through the roof as the companies hand the tax and fines on to the consumer.
The Gandhi quote is disputed by wikiquotes, which credits Nicholas Klein with a similar one:
“First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you. And that, is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.”
Gandhi gets hero-worshipped enough as it is without misattributing clever quotes to him.
Why aren’t crosshairs over someone viewed as particularly offensive? It does imply physical violence in a way I know is not intended, but why imply it at all.
Lord Monckton is one of my heroes of the anti-AGW scene. He may be somewhat over the top sometimes, but in a very funny way. He hits the nail on it’s head with what he says. People like Al Gore don’t dare to debate him, because he lights the fireplace with their arguments. If their was a Nobel price for debating, he surely would win it!
Go get them, Lord Monckton!!!
“”” John Egan says:
August 12, 2010 at 11:27 am
Monckton ain’t exactly a poster boy for tolerance and civility, either.
He calls himself a Tory, yet dashes off to the UKIP whenever convenient.
He fabricates a position for himself in the House of Lords which he never held. “””
Well John; there’s a scientific term for your assertion; “Sheer Balderdash.” You haven’t a clue what you’re even talking about.
Lord Monckton; never was and never has claimed to be a member of the Britich House of lords. He has I believe run for elective office to the House of Commons; and did not succeed.
He IS a Viscount; the Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to be precise; which title he inherited from his father who was the Second Viscount Monckton of Brenchley; who inturn Inherited the title from his Father; the First Viscount Monckton of Brenchley; and the History books record what that man did to earn the Hereditary Title.
True the Title was not given till years after the 1936 era events which earned it.
Ahead of Viscounts in the British system of Titled Nobility would be Barons and Marquis; the latter being the senior.
The official mode of address for Marquis, Baron, or Viscount is in fact “LORD”. To the best of my knowledge there is no such thing as a “Lord” as far as a rank of Nobility is concerned; so there are precisely NO LORDS in the British House of Lords. The word is simply the accepted mode of address; just as Queen Elizabeth II is properly addressed as “Your Majesty”. There aren’t any Majesties either in the British Hierarchy.
A Knight on the other hand such as Edmund Hillary became (twice) is simply addressed as “Sir”.
The US Constitution specifically prohibits Titles of Nobility; which did not prevent Mrs. Barbara Boxer from demanding that she be addressed as “Senator”, when Military Protocol specifically calls for Military personell to address someone such as Mrs. Barbara Boxer as “Ma’am”; which the General on the hot seat did in that instance.
So stop prattling idiotic nonsense that you know nothing about. The correct mode of address for Viscount Christopher Monckton, IS “Lord Monckton.” So get over it. And no I suspect he doesn’t expect Americans to use the term; he doesn’t even mind being referred to as Christopher.
Although I am now an American; my heritage is British; and all that that stands for; and common courtesy for me, commands that I refer to him as Lord Monckton; but he has not complained when I have slipped up.
Maybe in another thousand years or so; Americans will come to understand what THEIR heritage means, and come to cherish that. Well assuming that the current clown bunch in Washington haven’t totally destroyed what the Founding Fathers set out to achieve here in America.
You know what they say; People who won’t stand up for anything; will fall for anything.
Beacause being generous he is a typical slightly eccentric English Lord with a bee in his bonnet or being less generous he’s a very eccentric Enlish Lord with an entire beehive between his ears.
Andy
“first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
They began ignoring after it was stated that the science was in and that a ‘consensus’ was arrived at.
Immediately after that they began ridiculing sceptics as crazed voodoo scientists or such like.
After Climategate they moved onto ‘negotiation’ which failed and we are now in the fighting stage which still includes ridicule. The Chicago Climate Exchange is in trouble, public opinion is turning, some green groups are moving away from cap n trade etc. Be under no illusion we are in for a fight and they fight to defend their lucrative ‘research’ funding and interests in carbon credits etc.
All we need to win now is the weather to turn in the opposite direction to what the alarmists predict and stay there for a couple of decades.