UPDATE: Monckton offers apology, see below
Given the recent elevated rhetoric in Australia, the claims of death threats, and the media suggestions of skeptics getting tattooed and gassed, I was dismayed to see this in news.acom.au:
h/t to WUWT reader AdderW for the link to the above story.
Since I was invited to tour and speak in Australia last year at many of the same venues, I feel I should comment on this.
Alarmists in Australia are doing enough damage to themselves with over the top rhetoric. We don’t need to weaken our position on our interpretations of the data uncertainty and the science problems by committing rhetorical suicide.
Nobody has ever won an argument by invoking Godwins Law.
While Lord Monckton is free to speak his mind however he wishes, it is my opinion that this has no place in the debate, nor do the recent ugly calls from Australian columnists Richard Glover and Jill Singer.
I’m certainly not blameless in the issue of civility in the climate debate, as I’ve had my moments where I’ve rattled off an angry comment missive or a post that was misinterpreted that I have later regretted. There’s plenty of “heat of the moment” examples of that on both sides.
However, putting swastikas in planned public powerpoint presentations, and linking that by name to a person, is in my opinion, way over the top and in very bad form and totally hijacks and negates the important messages elsewhere in the presentation.
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UPDATE: Lord Monckton responds in comments
Monckton of Brenchley says:
I have been a very bad Lord. My remarks about Professor Garnaut were unparliamentary and unstatesmanlike. Mea maxima culpa. I have apologized to him unreservedly, and I deserve the criticisms that Anthony and many commentators have posted here. Sorry to you all. I shall try to keep my cool in future. – M of B
He says similar things in this Telegraph article:
Lord Monckton has since apologised for the remarks.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, he said: “I have written to Ross Garnaut to withdraw unreservedly and to apologise humbly. What I said about his opinions was unparliamentary and unstatesmanlike.”
Peter Kovachev:
Having failed as a wannabe forum clown, you engage in a long, foundering barrage of baseless personal insults. Is that the best you can do?
In everything you wrote above, there isn’t a single logical or factual argument; therefore, there is nothing that deserves an answer.
P.S. Work on your writing style: it’s as talentless as photo portraits touched up in Photoshop.
In this thread, I’m pleased to read a balanced discussion about Christopher Monckton’s small misstep into the minefield of Godwinland. I’m also pleased that Anthony insists on playing by Queensbury Rules–even when his adversaries are using nuclear weapons!
Here and elsewhere, I’ve seen comparisons between between Warmist ideology and Fascism (the “Eco-fascist” label) on the one hand, and Communism (the “Watermelon” label) on the other hand. This may date me, but I’m reminded of a parody from Mad Magazine many years ago.
Certs is a candy mint. No, Certs is a breath mint. Stop, you’re both wrong. Certs is a laxative!
Warmism, which at the moment, eclipses all other environmental issues–legitimate and otherwise–has commonalities with the two traditional flavors of Totalitarianism. The closest comparison that I can make is with Khmer Rouge ideology. However I think that Warmism, and Green-style environmentalism in general, deserves to be recognized as an incipient Totalitarian flavor in its own right, promoted by 21st Century True Believers. We should all be brushing up on our Eric Hoffer.
Erratum: My last sencence in the fifth paragraph above should read, “…as those other guys,” not goys.
Lest anyone wrongly interpret my typo…resulting from texting while flying a passenger-filled 747 at 35 432 ft with a sleeping co-pilot…as a character-revealing Freudian slip, I assure them the word would have been capitalized and in its proper plural form, as in Goyim.
Ok, I made up the flying bit; I’m actually typing one-handed on a mini laptop, in a Lamborghini Diablo, in the passing lane, with the roof off exposing the white leather seats and console…and it just started to rain.
I struggle with this sort of thing. Unlike many of the folks who comment on this site, and who use Anthony’s material and postings regularly as research material, I am not a climate scientist; I am an historian. This means that I struggle manfully with radiative forcing equations, relying on second-year mathematical physics classes from a quarter-century ago to make my way through the arguments. But it also means that I pay attention even more attention to the sociocultural nuances of the “climate debate” than I do to the technical and scientific arguments. And one of the things that is unequivocal about much of the extreme end of the alarmist camp is their explicitly exterminationist position. There are undeniable historic parallels between those who sterilize themselves to avoid Gaia-poisoning children, and those who sterilized “mental defectives” in the name of eugenics. The only difference between such lunatics and the Nazis is that the Nazis were racist, whereas the extreme environmental crowd are species-ist. I’m not sure that advocating the extinction of the whole of the human race is in any way morally superior to attempting to engineer the extermination of only a small part of it.
I don’t call my scientific or political opponents Nazis, and I walk away from debates where ad hominem arguments displace sound science. But that doesn’t mean that the shoe doesn’t sometimes fit. There are historical parallels for tattooing and gassing one’s opponents, after all, and they are obvious to anyone with even a cursory familiarity with the atrocities that were committed in the past century, all in the name of ideological purity. Maybe pointing out the comparisons isn’t “cricket”; I’m not sure. But the comparisons aren’t always inaccurate.
I have to agree that his reference to the photo and saying “Heil Hitler, on we go,” said Lord Monckton in discussing Prof Garnaut, as a quote was displayed beside a swastika.
However that Garnaut’s proposals are indeed a description of economic fascism and should have been stated it that way.
Attacking what the person says is far far better than attacking the person who said it.
Lord M in a moment of ire
Cast fuel to the flames on the fire
Now he’s really contrite
But try as he might
He can’t stop Jules fanning them higher
Maybe the best commentary ever on this blog! I stand with the Europeans and Aussies who support Monckton.
The message for us here in the US is to get active in politics; open your wallets to those who oppose the AGW propaganda and thought control; be active in elections; and vote early and often 😉 (there are many dead, illegal, and simply invented “voters” that we have to overcome).
For those who are members in professional societies, again be involved. Look at who is seeking the “secretary” position in the society (recall that the head of the Soviet Communist Party was “The Secretary”). This position controls entirely the communications process of the society and what in fact is communicated. Often, the President is just a figurehead. I suspect that if we dissected the governing bodies of all these scientific organizations that are AGW supporters, we would find that the Secretary is a true believer and has moved mountains to sway the board or other governing body to support his beliefs.
It’s one thing to read and comment on a blog. It’s another entirely to put your beliefs to work in a way that can actually effect an outcome that you believe is sensible. If you are really concerned about your future, or that of your kids or grandkids, then take a deep breath, commit to doing something about it, and act.
Lord Monckton is acting. Anthony Watts is acting. What are you doing?
You have vanquished me, Mr Feht. Here I am, a pitiful heap expiring on the bloody battleground, bereft of facts or logic, without talent of any kind and, worst above all, unworthy of a serious response from you. Are we done now?
tallbloke says:
June 23, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Bravo HoN, encore encore
A good apology, made necessary by political correctness.
I think Adolph and his socialist workers party were a good example of very bad politics to say the least. And, treating anyone the way he and his followers treated minorities was clearly criminal.
However, I wonder if, before Adolph seized power, there were any “activists” comparing him and facism/naziism to a past pariah. Were those activists silenced because of their bad form?
I think fascism is a problematic ideology, not merely because the nazi version resulted in mass murder. The fascist philosophy should be identified wherever it rears it’s ugly head, if only as a warning. Are we getting to a point now where climate catastrophe non-believers will be persecuted?
Perhaps Lord Monckton should have been more subtle. Perhaps.
“DN says:
The only difference between such lunatics and the Nazis is that the Nazis were racist, whereas the extreme environmental crowd are species-ist. ”
I must disagree with this statement. One of the hallmarks of collectivism is to create collectives, the most common is “race”. Today race means pretty much anything that can be created out of thin air as long as it furthers the “agenda”. Hitler did this with the german/ayran/national socialist “race”. Japan did this as well… nothing drives me more up the wall wanting to scream then reading a text book that says we were racist against japan… and in case anyone doesn’t know IT’S A FKING COUNTRY/NATIONALITY NOT A FKING RACE… anyone claiming we were racist against japan should be shot on sight unless they are also claiming we were racist against the germans…
To we have many “races” highspanish(hispanic), mexican, etc, etc, etc, etc 100,000x where every issue is sub divided into “special races” aka non-white male and everyone gets their own little group. This is at the very center of global warming ideology. The names have changed but the belief and style are the same. The highspanish “race” is in fact a direct result of the fascism from spain and is exactly the same as “hitlerism” just is “francoism”.
For the warming cultists they are the gaian “race”(enlightened, intelligent, blah blah blah, etc, etc, etc) using a similar “ethnic” or other joke excuse to say “we are the better group”. In the end its just more racial supremacist “science” used to “cull” out the “unneeded/weaker/stupid” sections of “humanity”.
Eugenics is everywhere nowadays they just use bigger or different words to express the same belief system. In fact its truly scared just how little has changed when you peel back the science to its simplest arguments and direction of action.
If this was a debate about real world science,fair enough,stick with the high standards and use restraint.
Seeing it’s about government with an agenda to rip you off,KNOWINGLY using fraudulent so-called science,then using the “Nazi” reference is completely appropriate
Giving appeasement to fascists never work’s,ask Chamberlain.
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an> IRATE<, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." – Samuel Adams
Cool but, the claim this was a spur of the moment anger thing, seems strange given that there was a prepared slide with a swastika sticker in the presentation that’s more like a well planned spur of the moment thing.
But sadly this is far from the first time he has made such remarks his own vids on Youtube regularly make such references to nazis and one rather bad one accosting some teenagers and repeated calling them hitler youth hardly adds to his reputation in the same vid he is asked to stop doing this by the 20somthing minder of these kids (who are at a conference) Monckton then says the same thing to him, the man quietly informs Monckton he is Jewish, which seem to make no difference to Monckton at all.
Mike Borgelt
…wasn’t it Barry Goldwater who said “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice” ….
Senator Goldwater lost.
Good to read this, good to read this here.
Apology by Monckton accepted.
“We don’t need to weaken our position on our interpretations of the data uncertainty and the science problems by committing rhetorical suicide.” Fine words by Anthony, a rhetorical phoenix 🙂
Dan,
Regarding your video and comments, this is quite different. From what we can see, the “kids,” as young adults now all seem to be called, weren’t just hanging out like little wall flowers at the conference, to be “accosted” by Lord Monckton. They had just finished an organized disruption of a conference, a tactic frequently used, popularized and identified with the Hitlerjugend. His Lordship, who looked pretty angry, was clearly addressing their disruption tactics, comparing them, rightly, to those of the Hitler Youth. True, this effective tactic of using children and youth to disrupt and intimidate, while enjoying protection has been used by others, but everyone knows about Hitler Youth, so it would have been pointless to refer to Soviet Pioneers or the Pol Pot version. I’m not a big fan of using Nazi comparisons myself, but his Lordship has obviously a different take on the tacticals and I can’t fault him for that, unless he veers off into specific personal attacks or over-the-top comparisons which harm the skeptic side.
I would be far more sympathetic to the left’s complaints about general comparisons with Nazis if they themselves dropped this comparison from their lexicon, especially when they wrongly and obscenely direct it against Israel and its supporters. As for the bearded “youth” claiming to be Jewish, my question for him would be, if your sense of Jewish identity is so important to you, why are you aligning yourself and wasting your time with these people and using such tactics at a time of dangerously rising world-wide antisemitism and unprecedented attacks on the legitimacy and existence of the Jewish state?
Dan says:
June 23, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Cool but, the claim this was a spur of the moment anger thing, seems strange given that there was a prepared slide with a swastika sticker in the presentation that’s more like a well planned spur of the moment thing……
————————————————
I applaud anyone with the courage to, peacefully, stand up to those who represent totalitarian/fascistic ideologies and their methods of coercion, whether the ideologues are naive youth, cynical climate “scientists”, or opportunistic politicians.
Monckton has my vote..
Dan, not to say you are, but your statement smacks of racism and anti-semitism. Monckton clearly states that “as long as they act like…”, and re-iterated the point. That the man in question is a Jew is irrelevant – unless you somehow attach a handicap to just being a Jew – which as I stated at the beginning is very racist and anti-semetic. The 20 year old man is a human, and can act like a saint, sinner, pope or idiot. His religion and/or ethnicity is not an excuse of or justifcation for any of his actions – just like any other man or woman.
I find the term “denier” is just bad, with its obvious association with holocaust denial. Those guys throw the word around with something approaching glee, like children suddenly gaining permission to use a “bad word.” I don’t recall ever hearing an apology from one of them, no matter that it is in fact a dirty, lowdown lie given the many legitimate scientific questions regarding AGW as per the recent Supreme Court comments…
The man’s apologized. Let it go..
I have been a very bad Lord. My remarks about Professor Garnaut were unparliamentary and unstatesmanlike. Mea maxima culpa. I have apologized to him unreservedly, and I deserve the criticisms that Anthony and many commentators have posted here. Sorry to you all. I shall try to keep my cool in future. – M of B
“Keep my cool”? Huh? It was a prepared slide.
Moderate Republican,
Quit your incessant nitpicking. Lord Monckton promptly made a sincere apology. Compare that honorable action with the reprehensible scientific fraud, charlatanism and misconduct practiced by Mann’s clique and their claque of true believers, including the 10-10 clowns and their ilk, and Steven Schneider, who advised lying to further the alarmist agenda, and Phil Jones, who was so delighted at John Daly’s death, and the conniving shenanigans found throughout the Climategate emails, where they strategized on how to make the journals toe their line and how to get rid of skeptics who were too honest for them, and… well, you get the picture. When have any of them offered a sincere, no strings attached apology like Lord Monckton’s?
Run along now to Skeptical Pseudo-Science and try to find a talking point to rebut the glaring discrepancy between scientific skeptics — the only honest kind of scientists — and the self-serving alarmist crowd.
Take your time, I’ll be waiting.
Hat tips to Smokey, Lubos, Slabadang, Deadman, Wil, David Hagen, Jim Karlock, boballab, Dave, DesertYote, Przemysław Pawełczyk, Alexander Feht, Temp, Legatus, Tucci78, Val Majkus, Blade, Tom Vonk, Ferd Berple and a number of others, forgive me if I have left anyone out. All of you made excellent points in my opinion.
While I can appreciate and defend Anthony’s desire to pursue cordial discourse, we must recognize the whole intent of the opposition- and say with respect I believe Anthony is incorrect in this case. It is not a matter of science to them, hence the problem in engaging debate to start with. Al Gore wherefore art thou oh Al etc. It is the opposition that is vile and repugnant and failure to recognize such is failure to recognize that rain is wet. They mean to rule the world by force and we should well see this at this point. There is a storm brewing and Lord Monckton is justified to decry the face of the enemy as it is blatant. Failure to recognize reality will not stop its impending doom. See the history of the world for numerous references. Chamberlain is singing now.
Decorum and moral high ground are of little value from the bottom of a pine box in the bottom of a hole- if we are fortunate enough to even receive such gracious treatment from the Tyrants. The only thing left of moral high ground will be the ebbing tide of blood from the corpse of the civil and righteous and the remains of their distant memories under the boots of the Tyrants. See all- Eco-nazi /fascist/Marxist/Socialist/Communist etc-histories and the hundreds of millions of lives that they have massacred. See the history of DDT if one is having difficulty drawing the string of logic to Eco-Nazism/fascism. One can cut as many facets into a diamond as one likes and while it changes the appearance of the diamond, it is still a diamond. Failure to recognize ones enemy when they are boldly and literally defining you as such is a dangerous game to lose. I realize there are some that are open to reasonable discussion of the issue, I don’t believe that is the case under discussion here.
I have frequently been labeled privileged and lucky for living in the USA. This is of course not the case. The escape of my great grandfather from Lithuania, hiding under a pile of fish in the back of a truck gambling the soldiers bayonets would miss when they ran the fish through to check for fleeing citizens was an outcome of a personal decision. Providence is a measure of choice and my ancestors made the decision to come to the US and flee from tyranny. In the future, if the current trend continues, there will be no place left to flee to or from. So much for freedom and so much for the right to self determination and human rights.
I shall take a quote from Churchill “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”, this is of course an adaptation of Edmund Burke. While words and ideas are powerful things and can still win the day, tyrants wish to do away with them under the edge of a blade and at the end of a barrel -oppression is never kind.
Godwin’s Law is an illogical assertion no matter who invokes it. It is simply a fancy way of describing a logical fallacy, and frequently incorrectly by those who use it. Logical fallacies are usually engaged in by those who are incapable of debating the merits (Fraudulent Republican for example) or are unaware of the boundaries of logic. I am quite surprised by the outcry against Lord Monckton here.
I find it shocking that some of the sheep in this thread are upset when someone alerts them that they are being led to slaughter only to become upset that someone has told them that they are sheep. Why are they not upset that they are to be slaughtered?
I hope that civil discourse wins the day indeed, but we should not fool ourselves into believing that it will be the case simply because we are right. I believe most of the people posting here work for that and have confidence it can be achieved, but it is not written in stone and our opponents are most assuredly planning otherwise as they have stated repeatedly. Veritas vos liberabit – Truth will always win out, but there is often a terrible price to be paid for said truth to win out.
My best to you Anthony, your website is an excellent forum for excellent discussions, but I disagree on this one.
Churchill warned about Hitler but many people liked Hitler. Example: (there are countless others) Edward VIII toured Nazi Germany after he abdicated. Churchill became increasingly isolated for what were at the time ” radical” views.
There is a wake up call here!
Hitler was immensely popular!! He created strong Nationalism. He believed every citizen had a duty to place the needs of the Nation before the Indivdual. He unleashed a grand popular groundswell of pride and collective duty to the Fatherland. People were connected by their race. In summary, they felt connected;Their lives had profound meaning; They swelled with pride and duty.
Nationalism = Environmentalism (it is the movement that unites us)
Fatherland = Earth or Gaia (to what we owe our collective duty)
Race = Nature (what connects us, what is pure, as distinguished from man-made things)
Read the wiki definition and apply it to Environmentalism, Gaia, Nature
Fascism ( /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a radical, authoritarian nationalist political ideology.[1][2] Fascists advocate the creation of a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy including eugenics.[3] Fascists seek to purge forces, ideas, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration and produce their nation’s rebirth based on commitment to the national community based on organic unity where individuals are bound together by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood.[4] Fascists believe that a nation requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.[5] Fascist governments forbid and suppress opposition to the state.[6]
M of B may be wrong to draw Nazi comparisons due to the hideous things the Nazis did after 1933, however, if one is to look at what happened between 1922 and 1933 then it is easy to find many deeply concerning parallels. A generation of children were brainwashed in such a manner that hideous things became possible (ultimately individual rights were successfully subjugated to the supra personal collective cause). To a large extent the rest of the world stood by and watched this total train wreck (and that is a euphemism!) happen. Remamber that most ordinary Germans were initially proud of the cause and felt renewed esteem (who wouldn’t? look at MASLOW) and no doubt willingly sent their children to youth camp. By the time these ordinary Germans eventually saw where this was going, they were too frightened to stop it and did not begin to know how to stop it as those who tried were ultimately risking the lives of themselves and their families.
It is wake up time!
While I agree that it’s best to keep the moral high ground, since we have science on our side, I find it interesting that the media find it okay when “alarmists” call we realists “deniers” and call for our deaths, but God forbid “we” throw a slight comment their way!
Matt in Houston and Jeremy,
Both of you make very good arguments about the seriousness, depth, historical and political parallels and the threat this scam poses to our civilization. Most Skeptics, you must surely realize, are aware of these arguments and those, like myself, who lack the scientific literacy to evaluate the issue on its scientific merits alone, wound up on the Skeptic side because they saw some things similarly.
Disagreements over specific tactics, presentation styles, strategies and substance, though, should not label some of us as traitors, ideological weaklings or sheep. We are not a political party, a philosophical creed or a religion. We have no catechisms or ideologies, and disagreements are just that; disagreements, not heresy or treason. In this case, respected people, like Anthony Watt, made a good case to Lord Monckton and he agreed with the critique. Not because he is knuckled-under due to PC pressure, as some insultingly suggested, but because he is big enough to recognize and admit a mistake. I am certain that his Lordship being who he is, would have no trouble with mounting a good defense of his presentation if he felt that he was in the right.
His Lordship’s apology, if I may remind, is case-specific; it is not an admission that comparisons which point to parallels with Nazis or fascism, or even charges of conspiratorial behaviour by big business, eco activist organizations and governments are false or off the table. The problem, though, is that by themselves, such arguments are universally resisted as hyperbolic, “airy-fairy” opinion which rightly or wrongly paints us not as skeptics, but as marginal nutters to be dismissed. We face an opposition which can command nations, international political institutions, industries and literally, trillions of dollars, and we can’t afford to be as careless, insulting or in-your-face as the Warmists. Also, it’s thanks to their heavy-handed, alarmist and dictatorial tactics that the Warmists are losing the war of ideas. We want to make real changes, rather than to gloat over a few minor rhetorical victories, I’m guessing. We have little else but a few blogs, some sympathetic ears, real facts and good science, but with our wits, and our integrity, and with intelligence and ethics as our currency, I still believe that we are better-than-evenly matched.