Lord Monckton wins National Press Club debate on climate

Love him or hate him, the man can win a debate. Andrew Bolt shares the results of the National Press Club Debate in Australia writing:

No wonder the warmists hate debate

The National Press Club debate’s results:

Lord Monckton – 10

Former Greens adviser Richard Denniss – 1

Journalists – 0.

Watch the video of the debate in full:

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Kev-in-Uk
July 20, 2011 12:34 pm

Dave H says:
July 20, 2011 at 11:48 am
and further on page 28 (same doc)
”A different type of uncertainty arises in systems that are either chaotic or not fully deterministic in nature and this limits our ability to project all aspects of climate change’……
so – in a nutshell – the IPCC does indeed say that the climate is difficult to predict because it is essentially a complex nonlinear chaotic system! I can’t be bothered to check for other references.

RACookPE1978
Editor
July 20, 2011 12:35 pm

This – from http://www.icecap.us – summarizes – very prejudiciously I need not add – Singer’s comments during the presentation/debate at the CSU in Colorado mentioned above: The italicized paragraphs near the end show the utter foolishness of one apparent PhD who is also apparently one of the oh-so-treasured so-called “climatologists” whom we are required to listen to as an ordained priest of the Giaia CAGW religion.
Burning fuels causes “heat” that has created the “catastrophic” CAGW?
—…—…
Jul 19, 2011
Controversial speaker Fred Singer says that global warming and climate science ‘bunk’
By Bobby Magill, the Coloradoan
Fred Singer talks about global warming Monday at CSU’s Glover Building. About 125 people showed up to listen to the presentation and grill the global warming and climate change skeptic about his theories and views.
And don’t believe newspaper articles like this one – the mainstream media are not to be trusted because reporters have been “brainwashed” to believe the prevailing wisdom of climate science, which suggests climate change is real and caused by people.
Those were the messages Monday evening from Colorado State University emeritus atmospheric science professor William Gray and the “dean” of climate change skeptics, Fred Singer, an emeritus professor at the University of Virginia. Singer and Gray spoke to a sometimes unruly and tense audience in a packed CSU auditorium in attempts to convince them that most climate science is “hokum” and “bunk.”
Fear about climate change, Singer said, is a “psychosis” because global warming is natural and harmless.
Presenting almost no data while being peppered with questions from some of CSU’s other atmospheric scientists and faculty, the pair emphatically denied the climate has warmed significantly in recent decades and said rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have only positive implications for humans.
Any doubt about that, Gray said, has been sewn by error-ridden climate models from government-supported scientists and parroted by the United Nations and the mainstream media.
“A lot of people agree with what Fred has said, but the majority of people don�t because of the brainwashing of the mainstream media and TV and the intellectuals and so on,” Gray said. “They want to run this under the U.N.”
Singer said nature, not humans, rules the climate because rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are harmful neither to humans nor the planet.
“Stop worrying, don’t worry,” Singer said. “Nothing you do will have any effect on the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere. Even if it did have an effect, it won’t affect the planet.”
He said that even if the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were to double, the level of warming would be negligible. The additional carbon will help plants grow and bolster agriculture tremendously, he said.
“If carbon dioxide becomes too low, plants will stop operating, then animals will die and we will die, too,” he said. “We depend on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in order to survive.”
Humans, he said, will have to adapt to a climate that changes naturally.
He said wind and solar energy are neither viable as alternative energy sources nor desirable, adding that he has joined a lawsuit with the conservative Heartland Institute opposing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
In the meantime, “government is spending a great deal of money on what it calls alternative energy under the belief that carbon dioxide is bad for you,” Singer said, urging the continued use and exploration of fossil fuels.
In responding to criticism from a member of the audience that Gray and Singer can’t get their research published in scientific journals, Gray said, “If you want to see where the real research is going on, you�ll look on the blogs.”

“There’s no scientific review on blogs, it’s all a matter of opinion,” the audience member said. “Peer-reviewed scientific journals are the gold standard for science.”
“No, they aren’t,” Gray said. “They are not the gold standard. Why do you think they’re the gold standard?”
“You don’t vote in science,” Singer said, criticizing peer review.


CSU atmospheric science professor Scott Denning interrupted, saying he’s skeptical and needs a high degree of evidence to believe a claim that runs contrary to common sense.
“So, you know, you don’t really think humans cause climate change; we think heat causes climate change,” he said. “We know that burning fossil fuel produces CO2, we know that CO2 emits heat. Now most people know that heat warms things up.”
He said Gray admitted that the Earth has seen a small increase in carbon dioxide levels in recent decades, but if China and India power their growth with coal, carbon levels will increase significantly.
“You hypothesize that something’s going to come and get rid of all that heat,” he told Gray and Singer, “but you haven’t told us what it is that’s going to get rid of that heat or why you believe it’s going to get rid of all that heat, and I would suggest that people be pretty skeptical of that claim. Why should we believe you?
“Scientists should all be skeptical,” Singer said.

SteveE
July 20, 2011 12:36 pm

James Sexton says:
July 20, 2011 at 12:12 pm
Read my post again mate, the first paragraph is a quote from Monckton, not a statement from me.

Dangerousdaze
July 20, 2011 12:37 pm

“The Sydney Morning Herald has their own take on the debate – and don’t disclose the results http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/oh-lord-theres-a-climate-sceptic-in-the-house-20110720-1hnvz.html
Was she the lady who was told to do her homework? She didn’t even bother to learn how to spell Deniss’ surname.

gpp
July 20, 2011 12:38 pm

When the warmers can’t respond to ones position, they fall back on name calling and ad hominem attacks as shown in the debate. The warmer said nothing other than there is consensus and thus you have no choice but to do what they say. I would have to say this philosophy is alive in well in regimes such as those found in North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela or in the past, the Soviet Union.

Severian
July 20, 2011 12:42 pm

The truth is, actually, ala Feynman, is that the person debating hardest against your own position should be yourself. You should welcome someone trying to poke holes in your theory, instead of whining about sharing data with them because they only want to prove you wrong, as the warmists do. This is not something the warmists even remotely are familiar with sadly, hence what they practice can not be called real science, but pseudoscience.

Dangerousdaze
July 20, 2011 12:47 pm

Dave H says:
“He’s been making this claim again and again and again, despite the fact that that is **not** what the IPCC says.”
What does it say here?
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
It seems to say exactly what you claim it doesn’t. Did you check for yourself?

July 20, 2011 12:50 pm

The people who obsess about whether Viscount Monckton is a real Lord or not sound like middle aged, TV-addicted housewives getting all hyper over Lady Di, or the Royal wedding. It’s misdirection, intended to take the spotlight off the fact that they don’t have credible arguments.

Ken Harvey
July 20, 2011 12:51 pm

Hans Moleman says:
July 20, 2011 at 9:59 am
Unfortunately, debates are settled more on the rhetorical skills and charisma of the debaters rather than facts. Good for Monckton, but giving weight to public debates seems bad for anyone who values science above showmanship.
Sadly, in this day and age, the scientists are not going to win this particular debate unaided. The science will not be allowed to win unaided, no matter how compelling. Science desperately needs the debaters to carry the argument to the majority whether scientists like it or not.

Brendan H
July 20, 2011 12:52 pm

Wil: “Unlike Monckton’s opponent I see you CHOOSE to concentrate on a question having NOTHING to do with climate change.”
Monckton chooses to claim that he is entitled to sit in the House of Lords. There are two issues here:
1. Monckton’s credibility
2. Monckton’s style of argumentation.
In the case of his claim to be a sitting member of the House of Lords, he is clearly mistaken, yet refuses to admit his mistake. His style of argumentation in this case is to wave his passport – a classic case of indirection.
I’m not claiming that this exchange is necessarily indicative of Monckton’s general style of debate, but his credibility and style of argument are certainly below par in this instance.

July 20, 2011 12:54 pm

Dangerousdaze is right:
IPCC wg1, TAR, 14.2.2.2:
“In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

Tom T
July 20, 2011 12:57 pm

Steve E. You will do yourself well to read Lord Monckton defense against an hour long video attacking him that I believe WUWT published a year or so back.

Ralph
July 20, 2011 1:01 pm

I love him – to a degree.
I just wish he was not a raving left-footer who thinks he is doing god’s work. That sits very uneasily with rational science, in my humble opinion. But I have to admit, he does appear to know his science better than I.
.

fenbeagle
July 20, 2011 1:06 pm

Hey Diddle Fiddle….The Puppeteer controls Australia!
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/

Tom T
July 20, 2011 1:07 pm

While Monkton rattled off fact after fact after fact, I did not hear one scientific fact at all from Denniss. All I heard was appeal to authority and appeal to popularity. That and the bizarre claim that we should do something now because a lot of people think something bad will happen it the future being compared to not doing anything about something that has already happened (the skin cancer analogy ). So, attack Monkton if you like, but he has more facts than Al Gore even had and infinitely more than Denniss had in this debate.

nofreewind
July 20, 2011 1:09 pm

Doctor analogy is a very poor analogy. Many thousands of patients [die] each year from treatments recommended by Doctors that they would have been better off not receiving. Medicine is far from scientific fact is many, many instances. The patient, if they are intellectually up to it, should take care and evaluate their Doctors advice instead of blindly following it. Many Doctors are simply out to make a buck! Ask a GP what they think about many treatments that big money specialists recommend.

July 20, 2011 1:11 pm

BTW: Fascist Ecology:
The “Green Wing” of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents
Peter Staudenmaier

http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html

Jeremy
July 20, 2011 1:14 pm

SteveE says:
July 20, 2011 at 11:43 am

“In the 40 years since 1970, global temperatures have risen at a linear rate equivalent to around 1.3 °C/century. CO2 concentration is rising in a straight line at just 2 ppmv/year at present and, even if it were to accelerate to an exponential rate of increase, the corresponding temperature increase would be expected to rise merely in a straight line. On any view, 1.3 °C of further “global warming” this century would be harmless. The IPCC is predicting 3.4 °C, but since the turn of the millennium on 1 January 2001 global temperature has risen (taking the average of the two satellite datasets) at a rate equivalent to just 0.6 °C/century, rather less than the warming rate of the entire 20th century. In these numbers, there is nothing whatever to worry about – except the tendency of some journalists to conceal them.” Monckton 2011

This paragraph contains a number of erroneous statements. Firstly, according to both GISTEMP and HADCRUT3 (satellite data only began in 1979), the global temperature trend since 1970 is 1.6–1.7°C per century. Secondly, the atmospheric CO2 concentration has been accelerating (not linear). The rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 in the 2000′s (2.2 parts per million by volume [ppmv] per year) was in fact 47% faster than the rate of increase in the 1990s (1.5 ppmv per year). Monckton uses these incorrect assertions to create the support for his incorrect argument – that if we continue with business-as-usual, global temperatures over the next century will increase at a constant, linear rate (or slower).

1) The global temperature trend Monckton is speaking of is since 2000, not since the beginning of data in GISTEMP or HADCRUT3, so you created a strawman and knocked it down, congrats.
2) Even if Atmospheric CO2 concentration increases exponentially, eventually the IR absorption bands that it has will be saturated, this makes its ability to heat the atmosphere a logarithmic effect. You could have an infinite slope of increasing CO2 concentration and the temperature still wouldn’t go up by any measurable amount because the absorption bands are totally maxed out. In fact, there are experts in the field who already consider the CO2 bands to be maxed out in terms of measureable effects of its absorption.
Care to look harder for false assertions by Monckton?

ZT
July 20, 2011 1:14 pm

E
>I have a 2 hour commute from London…
Presumably in a carbon neutral manner…(so go easy on your bearers – they are human too, you know)

Tom T
July 20, 2011 1:15 pm

A Mole: I have see Dr Singer talk he is very good.

RockyRoad
July 20, 2011 1:16 pm

Brendan H says:
July 20, 2011 at 12:52 pm

I’m not claiming that this exchange is necessarily indicative of Monckton’s general style of debate, but his credibility and style of argument are certainly below par in this instance.

And can you give me the bonafides of this Richard Deniss? (Before this debate, I’d never heard of him. They should have sent a more popular spokesman–say Al Gore. But then, the CAGW meme would have been over, right?)

Paul Westhaver
July 20, 2011 1:17 pm

Oh MY!!!!!
Time stamp 43:45…..Jennifer Bennett’s lame assault on Lord Monckton’s person. She was left agape and stupefied by Lord Monckton.
Like any so-called journalist’s abuse of so-called science. The lie was shameless…..
Then at 52:00 the snotty Alex Hart gets his nose wiped by Monckton. Sweet.
Anthony was correct
Monckton 10
Denniss 1
Journalists ZERO
This debate was an indictment of the press.

SteveW
July 20, 2011 1:20 pm

Smokey says:
July 20, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Dangerousdaze is right:
IPCC wg1, TAR, 14.2.2.2:
“In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.”

Don’t worry though SteveE, I’m sure Jim Hansen will be along shortly to adjust that statement to satisfy the propagandists and panic mongers.

TRM
July 20, 2011 1:21 pm

The doctor analogy is all wrong. If I saw a doctor and he said “have this operation now” I would go and get a second opinion.
Dr1: “get the operation now”
Dr2: “you don’t need the operation and here are all your test results to show what I’ve based that decision on”
Dr1: “I don’t want to talk about test results, get the operation now”
Dr2″ “you don’t need it and it may do more harm than good and here are the test results to back up what I’m saying”
Dr1: “you have to trust me, you need the operation now and for the last time I’m not going to discuss any test results from another doctor and I’m not going to give you the test results I ran”
Okay which doctor are you going to go with? I’ll Dr #2 thank you very much.

July 20, 2011 1:22 pm

Brendan H says:
July 20, 2011 at 12:52 pm
In the case of his claim to be a sitting member of the House of Lords, he is clearly mistaken, yet refuses to admit his mistake.

Brendan, go back and run the debate again. Monckton clearly stated (at the outset) and has made clear that he is NOT a sitting member of the House of Lords, but he IS a member of the house of Lords. Given that the UK is a Monarchy, I suspect he is entitled to his titles until the Queen decides differently. As was shown, the house of Lords can say what it wants, but it is the Queen that makes those kinds of rules (which for us Colonials makes no sense, nor do I pretend it makes one damn bit of difference).