Monckton vanquishes Union College “Greens too yellow to admit they’re really Reds”
Guest post by Justin Pulliam
THE NEWS that Lord Monckton was to give his “Climate of Freedom” lecture at Union College in Schenectady, New York, had thrown the university’s environmentalists into a turmoil. The campus environmentalists set up a Facebook page announcing a counter-meeting of their own immediately following Monckton’s lecture. There is no debate about global warming, they announced. There is a consensus. The science is settled. Their meeting would be addressed by professors and PhDs, the “true” scientists, no less. Sparks, it seemed, were gonna fly.
Traveling with Lord Monckton on the East Coast leg of his current whistle-stop tour of the US and Canada, I was looking forward to documenting the Schenectady showdown. I have had the pleasure of listening to His Lordship at previous campus events. He is at his best when confronted by a hostile audience. The angrier and more indignant they are, the more he seems to like it.
The Union Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) sponsored the lecture, which was video streamed by CampusReform.org (where a video recording is available). The afternoon of the event, Lord Monckton appeared on the CFACT leaders’ hour-long weekly show on the Union College radio station. As a result, that evening 200 people packed a campus lecture theater to hear Lord Monckton speak.
As they filed in, Lord Monckton was chatting contentedly to a quaveringly bossy woman with messy blonde hair who was head of the college environmental faction. Her group had set up a table at the door of the auditorium, covered in slogans scribbled on messy bits of recycled burger boxes held together with duct tape (Re-Use Cardboard Now And Save The Planet). “There’s a CONSENSUS!” she shrieked.
“That, Madame, is intellectual baby-talk,” replied Lord Monckton. Had she not heard of Aristotle’s codification of the commonest logical fallacies in human discourse, including that which the medieval schoolmen would later describe as the argumentum ad populum, the headcount fallacy? From her reddening face and baffled expression, it was possible to deduce that she had not. Nor had she heard of the argumentum ad verecundiam, the fallacy of appealing to the reputation of those in authority.
Lord Monckton was shown a graph demonstrating a superficially close correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature over the past 150,000 years. Mildly, he asked, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Was it CO2 concentration that changed first, or temperature that changed first, driving the changes in CO2 concentration?”
The student clutching the graph mumbled that it was impossible to tell, and nobody really knew.
At Lord Monckton’s elbow, an elderly lady – presumably on faculty at Union College – said, “Perhaps I can help. It was temperature that changed first.”
“Exactly,” said Lord Monckton.
“However,” she continued, “CO2 then acted as a feedback, amplifying the temperature change. That’s one way we know CO2 is a problem today. And what,” she said, turning noticeably acerbic in a twinkling of Lord Monckton’s eye, “caused the changes in temperature?”
“Well,” said Lord Monckton, “we don’t know for certain, but one plausible explanation …”
“… is the Milankovich cycles!” burst in the venerable PhD, anxious not to have her punch-line stolen.
“Yes,” Monckton agreed imperturbably, “the precession of the equinoxes, and variations in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit and in the obliquity of its axis with respect to the plane of the ecliptic. Actually, it is arguable that the cycles were first posited by an autodidact university janitor, a Mr. Croll.” The yakking crowd of environmentalists grew more thoughtful. Their propaganda had made him out to be an ignorant nincompoop, and they had begun to realize they had made the mistake of believing it.
Lord Monckton moved into the auditorium and began with his now-famous, exuberantly verbose parody of how the IPCC might describe a spade. This elegantly hilarious gem, delivered from memory, is rumored to be longer than the Gettysburg Address. Then he said that, unlike the IPCC, he was going to speak in plain English. Yet he proposed to begin, in silence, by displaying some slides demonstrating the unhappy consequences of several instances of consensus in the 20th century.
The Versailles consensus of 1918 imposed reparations on the defeated Germany, so that the conference that ended the First World War (15 million dead) sowed the seeds of the Second. The eugenics consensus of the 1920s that led directly to the dismal rail-yards of Oswiecim and Treblinka (6 million dead). The appeasement consensus of the 1930s that provoked Hitler to start World War II (60 million dead). The Lysenko consensus of the 1940s that wrecked 20 successive harvests in the then Soviet Union (20 million dead). The ban-DDT consensus of the 1960s that led to a fatal resurgence of malaria worldwide (40 million children dead and counting, 1.25 million of them last year alone).
You could have heard a pin drop. For the first time, the largely hostile audience (for most of those who attended were environmentalists) realized that the mere fact of a consensus does not in any way inform us of whether the assertion about which there is said to be a consensus is true.
Lord Monckton then startled his audience by saying it was settled science that there is a greenhouse effect, that CO2 adds to it, that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere, that we are largely to blame, and that some warming can be expected to result. But these facts had been established by easily-replicable and frequently-replicated measurements first performed by John Tyndall in 1859 at the Royal Institution in London, “just down the road from m’ club, don’t y’ know” (laughter). Therefore, these conclusions did not need to be sanctified by consensus.
The audience were startled again when Lord Monckton showed a slide indicating that the rate of warming since 1950 was equivalent to little more than 1 Celsius degree per century, while the rate of warming the IPCC predicts for the 21st century is three times greater. His slide described this difference as the “IPCC credibility gap”.
Next, Lord Monckton baffled his audience, including the professors and PhDs (whose faces were a picture) by displaying a series of equations and graphs demonstrating that, while it was generally accepted that a doubling of CO2 concentration would cause 1 C° of warming in the absence of temperature feedbacks, the real scientific dispute between the skeptics and the believers was that the believers thought that feedbacks triggered by the original warming would triple it to 3.3 C°, while the skeptics thought the warming would stay at around 1 C°.
He moved on to show that the principal conclusions of each of the four IPCC “gospels” were questionable at best and downright fraudulent at worst. The 2007 gospel had concluded that the rate of warming was itself accelerating and that we were to blame, but this conclusion had been reached by a bogus statistical technique. By applying the same technique to a sine-wave (which the audience had agreed exhibits a zero trend), it is possible to show either a rapidly-accelerating uptrend or a rapidly-plummeting downtrend, depending on the choice of endpoints for the trend-lines on the data.
The 2001 IPCC gospel had abolished the medieval warm period by another piece of dubious statistical prestidigitation that was now under investigation by the Attorney-General of Virginia under the Fraud against Taxpayers Act 2000 (gasps of gaping astonishment from some of the environmentalists, who seemed not to have been told this before).
The 1995 gospel had been rewritten by just one man, to replace the scientists’ five-times-expressed conclusion that no human influence on global climate was discernible with a single statement flatly (and incorrectly) to the contrary.
The 1990 gospel had claimed to be able to predict temperature changes for 100 years into the future. Yet an entire generation had passed since then, and the warming over that generation had turned out to be below the lowest estimate in the IPCC’s 1990 gospel and well below its central estimate. For eight years, sea level has been rising at a rate equivalent to just 1.3 inches per century. Worldwide hurricane activity is almost at its least in the 30-year satellite record. Global sea-ice extent has scarcely declined in that time. Here, the message was blunt: “It. Isn’t. Happening.”
Next, Lord Monckton turned to climate economics and demonstrated that the cost of acting to prevent global warming is many times greater than the cost of inaction. The example of Australia’s carbon dioxide tax showed why this was so. Australia accounts for only 1.2% of global CO2 emissions, and the government’s policy was to reduce this percentage by 5% over the ten-year life of the tax. On the generous assumption that the entire reduction would be achieved from year 1 onward, the fraction of global emissions abated would be just 0.06%. Because this fraction was so small, the projected CO2 concentration of 412 ppmv that would otherwise obtain in the atmosphere by 2020 would fall to 411.987 ppmv. Because this reduction in CO2 concentration was so small, the warming abated over the 10-year period of the tax would be just 0.000085 C°, at a discounted cost of $130 billion over the ten-year term.
Therefore, the cost of abating all of the 0.15 C° of warming that the IPCC predicted would occur between 2011 and 2020 by using measures as cost-effective as Australia’s carbon dioxide tax would be $309 trillion, 57.4% of global GDP to 2020, or $44,000 per head of the world’s population. On this basis, the cost of abating 1 C° of global warming would be $1.5 quadrillion. That, said Lord Monckton, is not cheap. In fact, it is 110 times more costly than doing nothing and paying the eventual cost of any damage that might arise from warmer weather this century.
Australia’s carbon dioxide tax is typical of the climate-mitigation measures now being proposed or implemented. All such measures are extravagantly cost-ineffective. No policy to abate global warming by controlling CO2 emissions would prove cost-effective solely on grounds of the welfare benefit from climate mitigation. CO2 mitigation strategies inexpensive enough to be affordable would be ineffective; strategies costly enough to be effective would be unaffordable. Focused adaptation to any adverse consequences of such future global warming as might arise would be many times more cost-effective than doing anything now. “If the cost of the premium exceeds the cost of the risk, don’t insure,” Monckton advised.
In any event, said Lord Monckton, the West is no longer the problem. Its emissions have been rising very slowly, but emissions in the emerging economies are rising many times faster. China, in particular, was opening one or two new coal-fired power stations every week. She was right to do so. The most efficient way to stabilize a growing population was to raise its standard of living above the poverty line, and the cheapest way to do that was to give the population electricity generated by burning fossil fuels.
Lord Monckton ended, devastatingly, by showing that a sufferer from trichiasis, a consequence of trachoma that causes the eyelashes to grow inward, causing piercingly acute pain followed eventually by blindness, can be cured at a cost of just $8. He showed a picture of a lady from Africa, smiling with delight now that she could see again. He said that the diversion of resources away from those who most urgently and immediately needed our help, in the name of addressing a non-problem that could not in any event be cost-effectively dealt with by CO2 mitigation, must be reversed at once for the sake of those who needed our help now.
Both in the Q&A session that followed Monckton’s address and in the counter-meeting held by the environmentalists (in which Lord Monckton sat in the front row taking notes), the questions flew thick and fast. Why, said a professor of environmental sciences in a rambling question apparently designed to prevent anyone else from getting a question in, had Lord Monckton not cited peer-reviewed sources? He had cited several, but he apologized that the IPCC – which he had cited frequently – was not a peer-reviewed source: indeed, fully one-third of the references its 2007 gospel had cited had not been peer-reviewed.
Why had Lord Monckton said that from 1695-1735 the temperature in central England had risen by 2.2 degrees (implying 0.55 degrees of warming per decade) when he had gone on to say that the warming rate per decade was 0.4 degrees? He explained that the warming rate was correctly calculated on the basis of the least-squares linear-regression trend, giving 0.39 degrees, which he had rounded for convenience.
Did Lord Monckton not accept that we could quantify the CO2 feedback? This point came from the professor. “Well,” replied Lord Monckton in one of his most crushing responses, “perhaps the professor can quantify it, but the IPCC can’t: its 2007 gospel gives an exceptionally wide range of answers, from 25 to 225 parts per million by volume per Kelvin – in short, they don’t know.”
Why had Lord Monckton said that we could learn about temperatures in the medieval warm period from the foraminifera on the ocean floor, when the resolution was surely too poor? Read Pudsey (2006), said Lord Monckton: the paper showed that the Larsen B ice-shelf, which had disintegrated a few years ago and provided a poster-child for global warming in Al Gore’s movie, had not been present during the medieval warm period, indicating that those who said the warm period applied only to the North Atlantic might not be right. He added that Dr. Craig Idso maintains a database of peer-reviewed papers by more than 1000 scientists from more than 400 institutions in more than 40 countries establishing that the medieval warm period was real, was global, and was at least as warm as the present and was probably warmer.
What about the methane from cattle? Should we give up eating meat to Save The Planet? The professor thought so. Lord Monckton, as always, had the data to hand. In the past decade, he said, methane concentration had risen by just 20 parts per billion, which might cause 1/350 C° of warming. This was too little to matter. Leave the cows alone.
What about peak fossil fuels? Should we not start cutting back now? No, said Lord Monckton. The recent discovery of vast and now-recoverable reserves of shale gas meant that we had several hundred years’ supply of fossil fuel. The professor agreed that shale gas had a contribution to make: it produced more energy per ton of CO2 emitted than oil or coal.
Why had Lord Monckton cherry-picked the Australian carbon dioxide tax as his economic example? He said that in a short lecture he could only take one example, so he had taken the Australian case because all other mitigation policies were quite similar to it. It was between 10 and 100 times more costly to try to make global warming go away today than to let the warming occur – even if the warming were at the rate predicted by the IPCC, and even if the cost of inaction was as high as the Stern Report had imagined – and to concentrate on focused adaptation when and where and only if and only to the extent that might be necessary.
Was not dendrochronology now so sophisticated that we could distinguish between the broadening of annual tree-rings caused by warmer weather and the broadening caused either by wetter weather or by more CO2 in the air? The Professor said this was now indeed possible. Lord Monckton replied that it was not possible. From 1960 onwards, the tree-ring series, even after all the complex adjustments made by the dendrochronastrologists, had showed global temperatures plummeting, while the thermometers had showed them soaring. That was why the Climategate emailers had spent so much time discussing how to “hide the decline” in the tree-ring predictions of temperature change from 1960 onward. This precipitate “decline” cast precisely the doubt upon the reliability of tree-ring temperature reconstructions that the IPCC had originally had in mind when it recommended against the use of tree-rings for reconstructing pre-instrumental temperatures. The professor had no answer to that.
The professor said he was emotional about the damage caused by global warming because in Peru and Ecuador he had seen the collapse in the water supply caused by the melting glaciers. Lord Monckton said that in nearly all parts of the world it was not the glaciers but the snow-melt that provided the water supply. Data from the Rutgers University Snow and Ice Lab showed no trend in northern-hemisphere snow cover in 40 years. He added that in the tropical Andes, according to Polissar et al. (2006), the normal state of all but the very highest peaks had been ice-free; therefore, it could not be said for certain that our influence on climate was causing any change that might not have occurred naturally anyway.
Why had Lord Monckton bothered to deal with the science at all, if the economic case against taking any action to address global warming was so overwhelming? Lord Monckton replied that it was necessary to understand that there was no scientific case for action either, and that it was necessary for policymakers and governments to realize that key elements in the IPCC’s scientific case – such as the supposedly “accelerating” warming that had been arrived at by the bogus statistical technique he had demonstrated with a sine-wave – were downright false.
The professor then asked the students in to raise their hands if they agreed with him that the IPCC’s use of the statistical technique questioned by Lord Monckton was correct. Dutifully, fearfully, about two-thirds of the hands in the room went up. Lord Monckton turned to the professor and told him he should not have done that. He then turned to the students who had raised their hands and asked them how many of them were statisticians. Just one student began to raise his hand and then – apparently realizing that admitting he was a statistician was to admit he had knowingly raised his hand to endorse a manifest statistical falsehood – slowly lowered it again, blushing furiously.
Another student asked, in that shrill tone beloved of environmental extremists everywhere, whether Lord Monckton was a statistician. No, he said, and that was why he had taken care to anonymize the data and send them to a statistician, who had confirmed the obvious: since the same technique, applied to the same data, could produce precisely opposite results depending upon a careful choice of the endpoints for the multiple trend-lines that the IPCC’s bureaucrats had superimposed on the perfectly correct graph of 150 years of temperature changes that the scientists had submitted, the technique must be defective and any results obtained by its use must be meaningless.
Lord Monckton, sternly but sadly, told those who had raised their hands: “You know, from the plain and clear demonstration that I gave during my lecture, that the IPCC’s statistical abuse was just that – an abuse. Yet, perhaps out of misplaced loyalty to your professor, you raised your hands in denial of the truth. Never do that again, even for the sake of appeasing authority. In science, whatever you may personally believe or wish to be so, it is the truth and only the truth that matters.”
That pin, if you had dropped it, could have been heard again. Many young heads were hung in shame. Even their professor looked just a little less arrogant than he had done throughout the proceedings. Quietly they shuffled out into the darkness.
That night, the Gore Effect worked overtime. Temperatures plummeted to 14° F. The following morning, as we drove through the snowy landscape of upstate New York towards the next venue the following morning, I asked Lord Monckton what he had thought of the strange conduct of the professor, particularly when he had abused his authority by asking his students to assent to the correctness of a statistical technique that he and they had known to be plainly false.
Lord Monckton’s reply was moving. Gently, and sadly, he said, “We shall lose the West unless we can restore the use of reason to pre-eminence in our institutions of what was once learning. It was the age of reason that built the West and made it prosperous and free. The age of reason gave you your great Constitution of liberty. It is the power of reason, the second of the three great powers of the soul in Christian theology, that marks our species out from the rest of the visible creation, and makes us closest to the image and likeness of our Creator. I cannot stand by and let the forces of darkness drive us unprotesting into a new Dark Age.”
Justin Pulliam is the Northeast Regional Field Coordinator for CampusReform.org. He graduated Cum Laude with University Honors from Texas A&M University in December 2011, where he led the local Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow Chapter. He can be reached at justinpulliam@gmail.com.
===
A Ustream video recording of the event is available here
Who in their right mind would publicly debate Monkton ?
chortle chortle….lovin it 🙂
Monckton at his best.
Brilliant, really! I wish I could see one of these presentations. I have some young acquaintances that I would like to bring with me.
It has been my experience that kids in the high school to college age are smarter than we sometimes give them credit for. Many are just spouting the party line, and it’s a shame that they are forced to regurgitate the nonsense in order to get passing grades. But demonstrate even ONE of the several MAJOR flaws in the cAGW myth, and they tend to become more skeptical of the rest.
I have many times predicted (not projected) that the wheels WILL eventually fall off of this cart…and when that happens a LOT of people are going to be extremely distrustful of ALL Science. As well they should be.
Justin, I like your writing style, well done.
Congrats to Lord Monckton (although the report is a tad too self-congratulatory). One thing I’d change is, it is meaningless to talk of quadrillions. It’s a number beyond comprehension.
I prefer to convert it into time. For example a single quadrillion $ is equivalent to spending 10 million $ EVERY DAY for 270,000 YEARS, that is longer than the lifespan so far of our own species.
Compliments to Justin Pulliam for a superbly written article.
Delightlfully written piece, many thanks.
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
Stand by for the haters of Monckton to dance around the maypole and burn his wicker, wicked image, while howling their demented message of rage, that these heretics allowed him to speak instead of silencing him in servitude to the cause.
No wonder they avoid like the plague openly debating him!! But, wait for the snide remarks, the sly distortions as they look for one cherry picked word that can be turned against the man to discredit and divert from the very potent message he delivered.
The Australian folly of the carbon tax will live on in the memory of voters for several generations, to the detriment of the political regime that imposed it.
Thanks for the report, I hope that the West wakes up and pulls the rug from under the whole rotten charade, the sooner the better!!.
Just brilliant Lord Monckton, it is easy to see why people of the ’cause’ are afraid of you.
Please come back to New Zealand.
Such a well written and entertaining article, thank you so much Justin.
Justin Pulliam; you have held the attention of this Australian and ably projected Lord Monckton.
“…you raised your hands in denial of the truth. Never do that again,…” has an awesome power.
Thank you.
Excellent write-up- thanks! A reminder of why the warmists run from debate like Superman avoids Kryponite. Normally I don’t read all the way through such long essays, but this one reads like a thriller.
“110 times more costly than doing nothing and paying the eventual cost of any damage that might arise from warmer weather this century.” This calculation is without taking all the benefits of warming into account. I’d say the benefits alone outweigh the costs.
Wow.
Atmospheric science is in on the side of the so called “sceptics”. The actual planetary measured warming is lower than the lowest IPCC model predicted warming. All of the warming is it at high latitudes where it was caused the biosphere to expand.
The fact that the actual measured planetary warming is less than the lowest IPCC model prediction warming and is found only at high latitudes (which is not predicted by the IPCC models) logically supports the assertion that the planet’s response to a change in forcing is to resist the change (negative feedback, planetary clouds in the tropics increase reflecting more sunlight in to space) rather than to amplify the change (positive feedback) due increased water vapour in the atmosphere.
Analysis of top of the atmosphere radiation changes Vs changes in planetary temperature also support the assertion that planetary clouds increase in the tropics thereby reflecting more sunlight off into space thereby resisting forcing changes rather than amplifying them.
Trillions of dollars are being proposed to be spent on boondoggle schemes which will not significantly reduction carbon dioxide increases but will have significant negative effects to the environment and to humanity. An example is the EU and US mandated conversion of food to biofuel (which is and will result in a massive loss of tropic forest and unsustainable increase in the cost of food).
Western countries do not have trillions of extra tax payer funds to spend on irrational policy schemes that will damage the environment and will result in starvation and malnutrition in the third world countries.
Carbon dioxide is not a poison. Plants eat CO2. A doubling of CO2 increases cereal yields by 30% to 40%. Plants make more effective use of water when CO2 rises which reduces desertification. The increase in atmospheric CO2 is unequivocally a significant net benefit to the biosphere and to humanity. Crop yields are and will continue to increase. There is and will be increased net precipitation. The biosphere expands when the planet warms with most of the warming occurring at high latitudes. That is a fact.
Science is unequivocally on the side of “sceptics”. No rational person, regardless of their political affiliation would support trillion dollar boondoggle schemes.
The extreme AGW issue is a mania, the madness of crowds.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications by Lindzen and Choi 2011
We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000-2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks. An earlier study (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) was subject to significant criticisms. The present paper is an expansion of the earlier paper where the various criticisms are taken into account. The present analysis accounts for the 72 day precession period for the ERBE satellite in a more appropriate manner than in the earlier paper. We develop a method to distinguish noise in the outgoing radiation as well as radiation changes that are forcing SST changes from those radiation changes that constitute feedbacks to changes in SST. We demonstrate that our new method does moderately well in distinguishing positive from negative feedbacks and in quantifying negative feedbacks. In contrast, we show that simple regression methods used by several existing papers generally exaggerate positive feedbacks and even show positive feedbacks when actual feedbacks are negative. We argue that feedbacks are largely concentrated in the tropics, and the tropical feedbacks can be adjusted to account for their impact on the globe as a whole. Indeed, we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise. We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity. ….
….However, warming from a doubling of CO2 would only be about 1oC (based on simple calculations where the radiation altitude and the Planck temperature depend on wavelength in accordance with the attenuation coefficients of wellmixed CO2 molecules; a doubling of any concentration in ppmv produces the same warming because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2’s absorption on the amount of CO2) (IPCC, 2007). This modest warming is much less than current climate models suggest for a doubling of CO2. Models predict warming of from 1.5oC to 5oC and even more for a doubling of CO2. Model predictions depend on the ‘feedback’ within models from the more important greenhouse substances, water vapor and clouds. Within all current climate models, water vapor increases with increasing temperature so as to further inhibit infrared cooling. Clouds also change so that their visible reflectivity decreases, causing increased solar absorption and warming of the earth….
http://www.uiweb.uidaho.edu/bioenergy/NewsReleases/Biodiesel%20Energy%20Balance_v2a.pdf
Vast amounts of agricultural land are being diverted from crops for human consumption to biofuel The immediate consequence of this is a dramatic increase in the cost of basic food such as a 140% increase in the price of corn. Due to limited amounts of agricultural land vast regions of virgin forest are being cut down for biofuel production. The problems associate with this practice will become acute as all major Western governments have mandate a percentage of biofuel.
Analysis of the total energy input to produce ethanol from corn show that 29% more fossil fuel input energy is require to produce one energy unit of ethanol. If the fuel input to harvest the corn, to produce the fertilizer, and to boil the water off to distill ethanol/water from 8% ethanol to 99.5% ethanol (three distillation processes) to produce 99.5% ethanol for use in an automobile, produces more green house gas than is produced than the production consumption of conventional gasoline. The cost of corn based ethanol is more than five times the production cost of gasoline, excluding taxes and subsides. Rather than subsiding the production of corn based ethanol the same money can be used to preserve and increase rainforest. The loss of rainforest is the largest cause of the increase in CO2.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.
But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.’s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn’t exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. He says agriculture should also be subsidised in regions where it ensures the survival of local populations. Meanwhile, in response to a call by the IMF and World Bank over the weekend to a food crisis that is stoking violence and political instability, German Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck gave his tacit backing.
http://news.yahoo.com/prime-indonesian-jungle-cleared-palm-oil-065556710.html
Prime Indonesian jungle to be cleared for palm oil
Their former hero recently gave a palm oil company a permit to develop land in one of the few places on earth where orangutans, tigers and bears still can be found living side-by-side — violating Indonesia’s new moratorium on concessions in primary forests and peatlands.
Brilliant…!
Lord Monckton’s reply was moving. Gently, and sadly, he said, “We shall lose the West unless we can restore the use of reason to pre-eminence in our institutions of what was once learning. It was the age of reason that built the West and made it prosperous and free.
Not sure I would go as far, but there clearly has been a philosophical change in both science and areas like archaeology. The rational was not evil. It was that science was trying to deal with new areas like the climate which could not be tested in the way required of traditional science.
The “solution” found was to say that “truth” could come from consensus, opinion only loosely tied to experiments. Likewise in archaeology, ideas trying to include more than just the history of the elite which is well recorded, needed to make use of more nebulous data to redress the balance for those who were not so well recorded. However,likewise, this was a move toward opinion-based and not evidence based research.
There clearly is a need to attempt to use scientific-like investigation into areas like climate, and the environment where it isn’t possible (or ethical) to carry out experiments. But the danger is that by suggesting they are “proper” science, it undermines the credibility and utility of real science. Perhaps worse, the ideas that science is flexible and can be moulded by opinion is going to feed back into proper science so that we loose the certainty that this once supplied.
What we really need is for subjects to challenge and define the philosophical basis of their subjects. Better still, we need other subjects to challenge each other.
Unfortunately, where once science was taught as “natural philosophy” and every scientist had the tools to discuss the basis of truth in their subject. These days, even at 50 I’m a rare beast having done science with a module in philosophy. Most people who do science are philosophical illiterates.
The result is that subject like climate “science” is run by people who have absolutely no grasp of where the basis of truth lies in their subject. Unfortunately, the same is true of the scientific societies, and in a real sense science as a subject is deteriorating rapidly as the modern “leadership” utilise the status of the philosophically based successes of the past to sticky tape credibility over the incompetent and politically based pseudo-science and pseudo-truth and PR-led non-science of today.
Dear Lord Monckton,
Great lecture; should be part of any environnmental course!! In that case the audio quality should be of TED level.
Anyway, trying education and reasoning as you do Sir is a great asset of Western Culture.
Where is the collection to sponsor Lord Monckton on nationwide television. I would give $1,000.00 right now!
Maurizio Morabito (omnologos) says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:23 am
Quite right!
a quadrillion is 10e15
if we spent that in dollars over a period of 100 years that would be 2.74e11 EVERY DAY
or, for those who like long numbers…..
274,000,000,000 per DAY
if we divide by a population of 7billion (short scale billion = 10e9)
thats 39 dollars for every man woman and child on the planet – EVERY day for 100 years – with a total input from every man woman and child of almost 1 million dollars over the 100 years! LOL
Perhaps if folk realised ‘anti’AGW action could cost them, and everyone they know, 1 million dollars for the next 100 years, they may have a slight rethink!!!
hope the quick math is correct!
Well, you can’t argue with that! That is probably what a lot of his audience thought as he left.
I am reminded of “Socrates, A Man for Our Time”, for some reason. Can’t think why.
Truth is luminous.
The recognition of that was what obviously happened to some young people at Union College in Schenectady, New York. Bravo, Monckton, for dropping scales from people’s eyes, hearts and minds.
ahhh, Monckton, don’t know about him. Do you really want such an inflammatory and politically motivated character on your team?
I would love to see a formal meeting in debate between Al Gore and Christopher Monckton. There might be several “inconvenient” truths established.
Loved the report Justin. The style made me feel I was there with you. However, try as I might, I have searched all over the Campusreform.org site for the video you mentioned and it is nowhere to be found. In fact, a search for Monckton only returns three hits from 2010.
A question I wish somebody would ask of CM is: Why is ‘global warming’ always seen as having disastrous consequences; and are those consequences better or worse compared to ‘global cooling’?
What is the rest of his itinery. He is heading North; might he be in Ottawa?
Excellent piece. Also since I see John Tyndall mentioned I would like to point out that he is my Great Great Great Great (I think that’s the right number of Greats) Uncle. Like myself he was also (amongst other things) a geologist and a proper scientist – unlike many of the charlatans who work at the institute named in his honour at UEA today.
Let me see if I can get the message of this report. It starts ““Greens too yellow to admit they’re really Reds”” – so that’s a good impartial start isn’t it…
Then it goes on like this “Lord Monckton was chatting contentedly to a quaveringly bossy woman with messy blonde hair “, “she shrieked.” – that is one nasty mocking tone with mysogonist overtones. But, there is more….”“That, Madame, is intellectual baby-talk,” replied Lord Monckton. ” wow, that’s so patronising and arrogant it’s breathtaking!
I’ll see if I can stick a bit more of reading this shoddy piece of propagana of a report…”Mildly, he [Monckton]asked” but it’s “The yakking crowd of environmentalists” and then “Next, Lord Monckton baffled his audience,” you bet he did, but do you get why??? But “Another student asked, in that shrill tone beloved of environmental extremists everywhere,” yes yes, YES! I think we get the message – LOL!
That message is clear, Lord Monckton is a man without fault. A debater never outwitted, a truly brilliant man, probably the saviour of the world and the next messia rolled into one. But, environmentalists are, well, it obviously needs to be repeated over an over again as per my quotes.
Sad, really, really sad.
Monckton is doing the world a real service by re-introducing the argument of reason vs religion to the climate debate.
That debate is what got the mediaeval Christian world out of its thrall to religious dogma and into the enlightenment, with much pain for people brave enough to lead the debate. It unfortunately didn’t happen in the Islamic world, and there we see a stagnant culture based on dogma and internecine warfare.
If the present era of green dogma isn’t cast aside by reason, then I agree with Lord Monckton that the West is over, and it’s every person for oneself. That it could have got to this point in the space of a few decades…who’d have thought?
Excellent article. The last comment about being driven back into the dark ages reminded me of the ending of Planet of the Apes, the Charlton Heston version. Scary stuff.
I’m surprised you had to ask why the Professor behaved that way. It’s surely clear that he makes his living from regurgitating the standard AGW line (many do) and hasn’t done any independent research to confirm what he believed to be true. He probably had convinced himself that he was quite an expert in the area. How is he supposed to face his class on Monday with them and him knowing that there is a viable alternative perspective, which he isn’t teaching. The real giveaway in all of this is he actually turned up to debate, like a lamb to the slaughter. The smart ones, the one who really know the truth would have invented a reason not to be present.
The video recording is here:
http://union.campusreform.org/
The video link is here:
http://union.campusreform.org/group/blog/live-webinar-lord-monckton-at-union-college
By not shouting and getting worked up, by calm concise arguments with no you must believe rhetoric, Lord Monckton gives a lesson that many teachers need in how to teach and get people to think.
James Bull
The article does not mention link to the video recording. I hope I found the right one:
http://union.campusreform.org/group/blog/live-webinar-lord-monckton-at-union-college
A very informative event for the glimpse it gives into a group of students, and a professor, clearly out of their depth with the topics and at the same time emotionally comitted to specious views promoted by the IPCC and other promoters of irrational alarm and policies around climate. That is not of course a surprise, but it is still jaw-droppingly awful. But overall, my spirits were greatly lifted by this report. For three main reasons I think: first, Lord Monckton on top form; second, the students seemed to be shamed by their own ignorance and behaviour; and third, the very well-written account by Justin Pulliam which will bring this event vividly to a much larger audience.
Zealotry meets reasoned thought. Outstanding article, world class.
Excellent.
An absolutely brilliant essay. Very enjoyable read.
WHY may we not have a debate ?
between Lord Monkton and one or two other climate realist of the same genre ? (plimmer et all)
as they say, the output of a team can be greater than the output of the sum of the parts of that team.
Each firing off the other for a real roller coaster of a ride through the subject that would be very, very watchable
regards
Lord Monckton
I’m thanking you from the bottom of my heart. I have not been moved so much for quite a while. Again and again I am in agreement and in awe, that you have chosen your words so well, and taken your stand with such classic honour and intelligence. On this matter of defending integrity, I feel I stand with you shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm, heel to heel, as I did with Alfred when he was defending the realm that became England. This is true even though, as mathematician to mathematician, I still disagree with you over some of the details of the future science.
Certainly on the right lines. but Lord Monckton is not correct to claim that the theory of GHG’s is settled science. That is why it is still a theory. Every day new reports arrive that cast doubt on this theory. Claiming that CO2 is IR reactant in the laboratory, as it is, does not mean that it reacts in exactly the same way in the atmosphere, or even more importantly, the troposphere where the atmospheric CO2 and water molecules are supposed to do the reradiation bit.
The theory tells us that there is a temperature anomaly in the upper troposphere, where this reradiation comes from, but this anomaly has never been found.
The theory tells us that as atmospheric CO2 content increases less heat will escape to space. Only last week came a report that heat loss from Earth has remained the same for the last 30 years despite a large CO2 increase. Along with this claim is the modelled rise of global surface temperature with rise of CO2. Global temperatures have plateaued towards a slight fall.
There is the research that reports that Vostok ice cores, going back 800,000years, clearly shows that temperature rises before a parallel rise of CO2 800-1200 years later.
Not only are observations casting doubt on this theory but we must ask ourselves why do the alarmists produce so much altered data, poor or ignored observation or just plain lie to further their cause. If their science was correct there would be no need for any of this.
And before any physicists, who may have read this far, get on their high horse and claim that surface measurements of inbound LWIR prove the theory I am afraid they do not unless it can be proved that this radiation is from the upper troposphere where the theory predicts. There must be many molecule-molecule energy intereactions in the atmosphere going through many energy levels downward. With the maximum molecule-molecule reactions going on near the surface, because that is where the atmosphere is at its densest, much of the measured LWIR could well come from the lowest 30m instead of the much colder upper troposphere.
Excellent as ever. Awesome recall of the facts every time.
Have looked at the campusreform.org site for the video but no luck so far.
However, there was this, squirrelled away in the archive… http://heartland.org/policy-documents/how-i-infiltrated-environmental-protest
Lord Moncton’s lecture illustrates why they DON’T want a debate, contrary to Gleik’s assertions. People have been mislead by the greatest con ever perpetrated on the human race. We have let other scare stories slide by but the CO2 CAGW scare should not be given a free pass. It has caused a vast diversion of resources to address a non-problem while real problems like preventable blindness and malaria receive less attention.
I hope that in future crimes against humanity hearing will be held. This is a scandal that needs addressing right now. / End rant. 😉
What, like North Korea’s nighttime satellite map? 😉
This is why I visit WUWT and other splendid blogs.
Brian Johnson uk says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
It’s his Religious Faith. I dont share it, but then I’m not being asked to pay for it. What is you point? Presumably that we can’t trust the opinion of anyone on any subject if they have a religious faith?
I’m sure Aristotle had a lovely phrase to describe that – I have a phrase for it, but this is a family blog so I shan’t share it. Though as a clue Aristotle has some of the makings of an anagram for it.
Many, many, deeply felt thanks Justin, and Anthony, for posting this – a thrilling, spell-binding read – just like an adventure story with surprises, twists and turns, suspense and laugh-out-loud humour; and above all scintillatingly intelligent. Humble congratulations to Lord Monckton, too.
And thanks to Justin Pulliam too, for putting this momentous event so well into words.
Well, we know this has been a momentous speech and event, even if the audience did not realize the presence of the world’s conscience looking over their shoulders, thanks to you and WUWT.
I hope it will be available on U-tube. I hope you polish it. This is the piece that should be shown alongside every school showing of An Inconvenient Untruth.
The academics have a lot to answer for. I had LM out to Newcastle Australia on 2 occasions. On both occasions I asked pro-AGW academics to come to his lectures or engage in debate with him. All declined but were happy to give weasel words to the local media about ‘defects’ in LM’s presentations.
In Australia we have an expression for such tactics; they are flat-track bullies and LM has done a great job of exposing them; but, so far, the media has been a willing accomplice to their hypocrisy.
I can’t find the video link on the campusreform.org site. Does anyone have the direct link to it?
What a wonderful account of this event! If only we had video of the whole thing! Is that possible for some event on the tour?
PC, the Left and Cultural Marxism has produced a generation (two?) of cretins.
FUBAR. Top stuff from the Lord tho’.
Meanwhile, in Britain the Green Treens continue with their hearts and minds agenda, with disastrous consequences. Dogby continues to investigate…
http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/beagle-too-dogby-heads-north/
Imagine if warmists usually won the science debates — would they be insisting the debate is over?
The meme since the 60s: “Don’t think! Feeeel!”
That’s done lots of damage — people mistake caring for the environment for meaning you can feel your way into what’s right, rather than thinking about it. This has opened up the movement to pre-rational patterns: new-age; marxism; the noble savage; totalitarian control; religious authority.
Even the old moralistic patterns from the Western desert religions, namely, self sacrifice and renunciation, have been revived. An environmentalist told me point blank, “it doesn’t matter if CO2 isn’t a problem, because if you reduce CO2, you force people to reduce consumption, you reduce greed.”
That’s just 2000 year-old desert ethics. Deny money, deny liberty, deny abundance, deny consumption. But because rational thinking is discouraged, that’s what we fall back upon. I just hope it doesn’t spread too much before it is too late.
On another thread, this was posted:
I believe that a large part of the reason the warmists made such inroads in the past, and snowed scientific societies into endorsing their dogma, is that they had so much greater command of the “ammo”–the details of the debate. Studying climatology was their full-time obsession–their vocation. A few contrarians made it their avocation. But the warmists were able to snow them under with a stream of citations and out-of-left-field (unexpected) claims, and thus were able to leave their opponents on their back foot, looking like amateurs who didn’t really know the field. (Partly this imbalance in expertise was due to an imbalance in funding.)
To a large extent this is still the case. Their side’s top sophists are stuffed to the gills with ready-made responses, links, etc. Our side needs a well-funded, well-organized FAQ and set of counterpoints (with drill-down levels of detail) to counter Skeptical Science, etc.–A sort of Monck-bot. (If possible.)
Anyway, I copied t whole article to a Word file and plan to re-read it in the future.
Excellent reporting, Justin.
Excellent writeup and as always Monckton was brilliant.
I keep telling the AGW folks I encounter, if your side has such an ironclad case then set up a debate to be broadcast nationwide. Since the science is settled and AGW is true it would the best chance ever to embarrass the “deniers” and demonstrate how AGW science is undeniable. It would end the debate and everyone would become believers…I get a blank stare and yes, you can hear that pin drop.
No doubt Lord Monckton has put together and memorised masses of information such as is demonstrated here. But I find it sad that he has not yet really listened to those who could explain the science better to him. Thus he still makes comments relating to the false calculations of 1 C° sensitivity and the like when he states that while it was generally accepted that a doubling of CO2 concentration would cause 1 C° …
“Generally accepted” … Who is talking consensus now?
Lord Monckton, if you read me, please return here for a link to my paper which will be available within 72 hours. In many ways you do a wonderful job, but in some ways you only serve to reinforce the hoax when you sit on the fence. Seek the truth! Don’t raise your own hand “in denial of the truth.” Never do that again,
“Lord Monckton said that in nearly all parts of the world it was not the glaciers but the snow-melt that provided the water supply.”
IF glacier melt was supplying the water, then stopping this melt would leave people short of water. Why do the believers think melt water is supplying critical water and also want to stop the melt? Do they want people to be short of water today as opposed to later? Do they even know basic thinking skills?
Thanks
JK
A well-written article, head and shoulders above the MSM average. Keep writing Mr. Pulliam.
Great, thanks!
The article was enjoyable and informative. I wrote down the second paragraph of the comment by KenB. That thought applies to so much that tries to pass for intellectual discourse. Thanks also to p gosselin for reminding us that maybe the disappearance of the arctic ice and general warming could be a good thing. Though it would provide powerful, if dishonest, ammunition for the forces of totalitarianism.
No offense to intelligent professors, but some of the stupidest, most arrogant, childish, tempermental, and ideological people I’ve met in my life have been professors. And I’ve met my fair share. Interestingly in my graduate class the really smart students ended up in industry or as entrepreneurs. The sketchy ones followed the brainwashing of academia and became professors, miming the party line. Independent thought is dead in the hallowed halls of academia. It drives out the truly intelligent and independent thinking people.
An exceptionally well-written article providing fascinating reading. And about a truly exceptional man among men. Thank you hugely to all concerned!
Geoff A
What a great article
‘Please, Sir, I want some more.’
SCHENECTADY, As an Australian I have heard of this place through american comedians of old, usually derided. I read in this article that Lord Monckton actually met one of the local comedians pretending to be a professor.
mareeS says: March 10, 2012 at 2:29 am
Monckton is doing the world a real service by re-introducing the argument of reason vs religion to the climate debate.
That debate is what got the mediaeval Christian world out of its thrall to religious dogma and into the enlightenment, with much pain for people brave enough to lead the debate.
I’m sorry to say it’s not that simple Maree. Firstly, Monckton is very clearly a Christian himself. Secondly, you have to distinguish between Jesus’ actual words (he said his work was to uphold truth) and what religion has done with them since. Thirdly, medieval Christianity itself introduced rational debate, if you look up for instance Alcuin, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas. Fourthly, a lot of the preparation for science as we know it happened quite peacefully in the Islamic world. Fifthly, the early scientists were perfectly happy with the idea of God, just not what the Pope pronounced. It was more a matter of steady evolution, “when the time was ready”. Sixthly, all the great movers of the Renaissance were esotericists to a man (or woman) – a fact that modern Academia would dearly like to ignore; the evidence is generally somewhat hidden as the Church of that time (like academia and science today) tended to fear and punish those who touched esoteric realities, using classical tools of mockery and misrepresentation.
Truth is subtle, complex, and beautiful – but not for those who rely on belief to the exclusion of reason, even if this appears as an unreasoned belief in reason. In reality, Belief and Reason work together; indeed, we need both to progress, just as we need two legs to walk.
I agree with most of the commentators: this is an excellent presentation. However, it troubles me how cavalierly John Tyndall’s name is thrown around. I love these old school pioneers of science and I’ve read a lot of Tyndall’s papers and have yet to see where he says IR radiation adds heat energy to the bottom of a container when convection is unconstrained. What is the nature of these easily replicable experiments? They really prove the concept of heating via “back radiation”? Please provide a link so I can see for myself.
Suggest putting video on TOP of post not at end. Its very good and there is a lot more than put in post. Just an idea
Excellent report. We are so lucky to have someone of Lord Momcktons ability on our side.
Regarding the couple of snipes in these comments – does anyone actually have anything in Lord Moncktons talk that they disagree with or is it just a matter of sniping because they have no point to raise?
Doug Cotton:
I look forward to your article. However, the admission of a few basic “widely accepted” facts, all be they open to question, is an essential debating tactic to move the argument to where the opposition has little if any evidence to support its argument.
Congratulations Justin on a spendidly written and riveting article. I look forward to your comedic novel based on your travels with Christopher.
And then he had to spoil it all by mentioning Christianity.
Into the lions den. We need to clone Monckton and send thousands of him into the universities!
It’s reminiscient of Sir Keith (later Lord) Joseph, a UK Conservative politician and intellectual who in the early 70s was converted to Friedman and Hayek. He then took his message into the universities, then hotbeds of communist activism.
Eggs were thrown; activists disrupted his speeches; somethimes he had to be bundled away by the police for protection. But he kept going, and perhaps contributed to a change in the intellectual climate from 70s statism to 80s free-market reformism under Thatcher.
If one young mind gets changed, who knows where it might lead….
A classic example of why the CAGW cult leaders refuse to debate sceptics.
They are scared of their dubious, distorted beliefs being shredded by polite reason and facts.
“Lord Monckton’s reply was moving. Gently, and sadly, he said, “We shall lose the West unless we can restore the use of reason to pre-eminence in our institutions of what was once learning. It was the age of reason that built the West and made it prosperous and free. The age of reason gave you your great Constitution of liberty. It is the power of reason, the second of the three great powers of the soul in Christian theology, that marks our species out from the rest of the visible creation, and makes us closest to the image and likeness of our Creator. I cannot stand by and let the forces of darkness drive us unprotesting into a new Dark Age.”
Says it all really. This has always been about truth.
Great lecture Lord Monckton !
Thanks for delivering the story. A Job Well Done Justin Pulliam !!
Lord Monckton, we need Your help here in EU too – desperately.
Lectures for the European Council and in the European Parliament would be great. We waste annually billions of euros with the CO 2-hype – based on EU decisions.
Having had the pleasure of a short one-on-one with Lord Monckton, I can assert with confidence that he has elements of genius, or as a very minimum, that rare quality named a photographic memory.
It would be distressing to have him arguing “the other side”; but he seems to contemplate no other side. He prefers to speak of evidence that people assemble with enough care for him to accept it as a viable hypothesis, whatever the implications might be.
This is shown in history as a mark of a top scientist, though he makes no claim to be one. Conversely, many top scientists make the very mistakes that he avoids.
If the guy who wrote that is meant to be a journalist he should be ashamed … Hideous bias, and maligning of those whose point of view he doesn’t agree with. My mind feels dirty just having read it.
William Astley says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:56 am
——snip—-
The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.
But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
—-SNIP—-
“But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended”
This is totally untrue – it is doing exactly what its proponents intended, it is making them and their friends richer. There was never any intent for any impact on ‘global warming’ although there may be some ‘useful idiots’ who may have believed so. Like all ‘green power’ and associated activities it is a money laundering scheme to pass taxpayers’ money to politically favored groups and individuals. Money is also made in administering these schemes by the friends of those in power; that is why the multinational banks are so keen and always involved.
Wonderful writing, Justin.
Minor quibble: In America, Christopher Monckton is not “Lord Monckton”, and he’s especially not “His Lordship.”
Aristocracy and blood-privilege are Leftist concepts in the modern world. At one time they were “conservative”, but since WW2 the idea of granting special privileges based on heredity is purely Left.
Doug Cotton says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:19 am
No doubt Lord Monckton has put together and memorised masses of information such as is demonstrated here. But I find it sad that he has not yet really listened to those who could explain the science better to him. Thus he still makes comments relating to the false calculations of 1 C° sensitivity and the like when he states that while it was generally accepted that a doubling of CO2 concentration would cause 1 C° …
“Generally accepted” … Who is talking consensus now?
Lord Monckton, if you read me, please return here for a link to my paper which will be available within 72 hours. In many ways you do a wonderful job, but in some ways you only serve to reinforce the hoax when you sit on the fence. Seek the truth! Don’t raise your own hand “in denial of the truth.” Never do that again,
Doug you are misunderstanding the debating style. The point was that ‘even if we take what your consensus says to be true’ the arguments for spending money to mitigate that 1C warming are invalid.
I wonder if the Main Stream Media will mention this Lord Monckton event or any of the others. I wonder if the Main Stream Media will tell the public anything that goes against the Watermelon Agenda.
Lord Monckton said we are in danger of losing the West to a new dark age. He is wrong: we are already there. Reason is no longer respected other than a little lip service once in a while by those who don’t really know what reason is.
Lucy Skywalker says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:05 am
This is the piece that should be shown alongside every school showing of An Inconvenient Untruth.
That was my thought as I finished reading it! That every teacher who wants to show the Gorababble should show this too, and watch it.. IIRC, the judge in the ruling against An Inconvenient Truth being shown in schools said it wasn’t science and if it was shown had to be presented with the claims corrected, there were several points.
Excellent piece all round; well tailored to the audience, well spoken, well written and well blogged.
All the makings of a “classic”.
As to the accusations of misogynism – , gender descriptive is not gender biased, read the Suzuki thread for more examples of… “There’s a CONSENSUS!” she shrieked.”
““That, Madame, is intellectual baby-talk,” replied Lord Monckton. Had she not heard of Aristotle’s codification of the commonest logical fallacies in human discourse, including that which the medieval schoolmen would later describe as the argumentum ad populum, the headcount fallacy? From her reddening face and baffled expression, it was possible to deduce that she had not. Nor had she heard of the argumentum ad verecundiam, the fallacy of appealing to the reputation of those in authority.”
These students young, bright and brainwashed, still with the honesty to blush, would Suzuki be so discomfitted?
There is no doubt that Lord Monkton is one of the world’s great orators. However; it is not the fault of the students at Schenectady that they were unprepared for this onslaught. Young people are now brainwashed from an early age to believe the Global Warming narrative as a matter of faith. Thus, the greatest scientific scandal of all time is maintained by simply denying them the opportunity to hear any dissenting voices. A well prepared sceptic should win any debate.
Lord Monkton’s strong point is that he starts by saying that there is a greenhouse effect and that CO2 adds to it. This immediately disarms al those who brought along their physics books expecting to hear arguments from the Claes Johnson’s Book of Nonsense. The debate is then focussed on the science that the CO2 absorption bands are known to be saturated, or nearly so. The accumulated scientific knowledge of the ages is now on the side of the sceptic, as much or more so than it is on the side of the alarmist. Whilst there may be a consensus on the basic science of radiative transfer, there is no consensus on the mysterious, unquantified ‘feedback effect’. .When we speak of 1000’s of scientists agreeing – they certainly don’t agree on that.
If people don’t understand what is meant by saturation of the CO2 absorption band let me recall Warren Meyer’s superb analogy. It is like painting a window to block out the light. The first paint of coat cuts out most of light but some will still get through. A second coat is then applied that cuts out most of the remaining light – but not all of it and so more coats are applied. The first coat of paint had a large effect, but each successive coat has a smaller and smaller effect. That is how the ( logarithmic effect of ) CO2 works. Most of the warming from CO2 we already have – and there is no doubt that it is beneficial. Adding more will have some effect, but like the extra coats of paint, it won’t be much. The accepted figure, all other things being equal, is about one degree warming for a doubling of today’s CO2 concentration. The oil and gas may run out before this is achieved – so what’s the problem? Without the elusive, unproven feedback effect there is no problem.
Brian Johnson uk says:
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
Since he never brought it up with the students, the question is a red herring. He stayed on topic.
His comment after the lecture, which seems to be your issue, reflects his moral base and societies current state, as he sees it.
Getting back to your question, its mirror is “Prove there is no creator.”
In either case you are arguing hypothesis, which is always fun but not too productive, since hypothesis, no matter what the discipline, require a leap from facts to faith.
The questions you should have asked are, “Which group is based on faith and which on science?” “Which group allows no challenge to its orthodoxy.”
That would answer your question, “Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?”
But, then, that is exactly what Lord Monckton addressed.
“Who in their right mind would publicly debate Monkton ?”
Well, actually, I would – with one important proviso.
I get to argue the skeptical position, while he supports the warmist side.
His style is part of his attraction, but he carries the day because he is supported by facts, not by mere sophistry.
Brian Johnson uk says: March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator? Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
Mr. Johnson can you explain how the Big Bang theory squares with the first law of thermodynamics? Or if you prefer where did the universe come from thru ’cause & effect’. We know the effect what was the cause?
The person who recorded this talk is an idiot and moron. The audio quality is hideous. It cuts out every 5 seconds.
With all the other videos up, you would think Campus Reform would have someone competent to record an event that actually knows how to use a camera and mic recorder.
Very nicely written Justin. Reading your post made me feel like I was there. I wonder how many more professors will allow themselves such humiliation in front of their students. But I commend the 200 students who showed up and let Monckton speak. To be so respectful as to be able to hear a pin drop shows some class.
Thank you, Lord Monckton, for your patience, courage and perseverance in the mouth of a liberal hornet’s nest.
Reblogged this on YFN Georgia LLC and commented:
Professional stirrer Lord Monckton on the greenhouse effects of cattle.
“What about the methane from cattle? Should we give up eating meat to Save The Planet? The professor thought so. Lord Monckton, as always, had the data to hand. In the past decade, he said, methane concentration had risen by just 20 parts per billion, which might cause 1/350 C° of warming. This was too little to matter. Leave the cows alone.”
Gee thanks for that, I really enjoyed it. I saw him speak in Perth WA two years ago, wonderful stuff. I would love to see him debate Gore on national television. I am 110% sure that Gore would say: NO! Shame as he would rip Gore to shreds.
Friends:
I see the trolls are out in force. Their contributions are welcome because they demonstrate the strength of Monckton’s argument and the inability of the trolls to face it.
The following selection of comical troll comments demonstrates the point while providing a good belly-laugh at their expense.
Sam Geoghegan says (in total) at March 10, 2012 at 2:24 am:
“ahhh, Monckton, don’t know about him. Do you really want such an inflammatory and politically motivated character on your team?”
So, Geoghegan feels competent to comment on somebody he “don’t know about”.
Well, AGW-advocates pontificate about AGW when they don’t know anything about that, so I suppose Geoghegan thought nobody would laugh at his nonsense.
Of course we want erudite, intelligent and informed people such as Monckton presenting the truth.
And we don’t have a “team”: but AGW-advocates do as the Climategate emails reveal.
Peter H gives the best laugh in his post at March 10, 2012 at 2:28 am. I commend anybody who wants a good laugh to read all of it. It begins:
“Let me see if I can get the message of this report. It starts ““Greens too yellow to admit they’re really Reds”” – so that’s a good impartial start isn’t it…”
But Monckton made no claim to be “impartial”. On the contrary he was speaking to refute the partisan propaganda circulated by IPCC, Greenpeace, WWF, etc..
And Peter H clearly fails in reading comprehension because he does not mention “the message of this report” which was that Monckton provided a cogent and convincing argument summarised in this paragraph:
“Therefore, the cost of abating all of the 0.15 C° of warming that the IPCC predicted would occur between 2011 and 2020 by using measures as cost-effective as Australia’s carbon dioxide tax would be $309 trillion, 57.4% of global GDP to 2020, or $44,000 per head of the world’s population. On this basis, the cost of abating 1 C° of global warming would be $1.5 quadrillion. That, said Lord Monckton, is not cheap. In fact, it is 110 times more costly than doing nothing and paying the eventual cost of any damage that might arise from warmer weather this century.”
Peter H concludes by saying, “Sad really”. In this he is mistaken because the comment by Perter H is very, very funny and not “sad”.
So, I write to commend reading the troll comments because everybody enjoys getting a good-belly laugh.
Richard
At times, I have found Viscount Monckton to go somewhat OTT, but his debating prowess is truly excellent. This report restores some of my faith that today’s students may be able to think for themselves one day. I know that sounds condescending, but it has been one of the saddest aspects of this (non)debate that there is so much acceptance and so little questioning.
This letter from Nigel Lawson is relevant as it describes his research-led opinions on CAGW:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9133670/Nigel-Lawson-I-enter-my-ninth-decade-as-a-happy-man.html
Thinking for yourself is the key.
Today’s secular world seems to continually search for a new religion.
Well written and well-argued. Thank you.
Duncan,
Good reply on Monckton’s faith. I am an atheist and a scientist but so long as Monckton, and others, don’t assert that faith should be the basis of rational inquiry I don’t begrudge him his faith.
And to discount his fact supported, rational account of the science based on that faith would indeed be a logical fallacy.
Timbo says:
March 10, 2012 at 2:30 am
“Excellent article.”
Agreed!
“The last comment about being driven back into the dark ages reminded me of the ending of Planet of the Apes, the Charlton Heston version. Scary stuff.”
I sometimes feel we are living on the Planet of the A.P.E.S. (a planet run by Arrogant Proactive Environmental Scientists).
Again, everyone please keep the money-wasting climate “science” (and “green” energy) boondoggles forefront in your mind when you vote this November.
Brian Johnson uk says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
Your questions are OT and suggest that a ‘Proof’ has an external reality, but it has not; it is an axiom and belief and has an intellectually social consensus. ‘An axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not and cannot be proven within the system based on them’. You can try to show that a proof has reality, which can be proved by science, but that is impossibel, because that what is recognized as true, is not to be shown -> ‘there’.
V.
“The smart ones, the one who really know the truth would have invented a reason not to be present.”
The really smart ones denounce Monckton beforehand and announce that they do not ‘joust with jesters’ who are obviously funded by evil Big Oil to avoid debate.
Great write up Justin but you had me at the second picture! How Monckton can even stand up in front of these ill educated faithful is beyond me!
Can anyone explain to me how the professor of environmental sciences can stand in front of his adoring faithful next week and lecture? I think my sick-note would already be on the Chancellors desk! Or application for a Sabbatical!
This reminds me of my college days. When I was in college, one type of question was sure to cause a student’s brain to freeze faster than an old Windows 95 computer: “What do you think …” I had a professor who asked that question quite often, and the students hated him. They wanted to be told, not made to think. Schools and colleges give people head knowledge and indoctrinate people, but they do not teach the most important skills of all: reasoning and critical thinking. We are becoming educated slaves.
This is a man who will never win a Nobel prize, this is a man who wouldnt accept one if it were offered of that I am sure, this is the man who challenges consensus ignorance and has suffered the slings and arrows of the supporters of that consensus. There truly are heroes who walk among us, who would most likely scorn the title, who will never be given the laurels he deserves in this life and nor would he care of that I have no doubt. This man alone shows us why the CAGW fraud will fail, was always going to fail. There are sadly all too few of men like Monckton in the world but perhaps these happy few are all we need against the legions of consensus ignorance.
“I’ll have your check now, sir!” The video was enjoyable… too bad the audio quality was so poor.
God Bless Lord Monckton. However as I continue to dig into this whole aspect of warming, and again the primary reason with me was because of my forecast protocol which is know the past, understand the present and you have a CHANCE at getting the future right, I am becoming convinced that the next great nail in the AGW coffin will be the realization that it is not possible for co2 to cause any warming, yet alone the minor amounts that are attributed to it. The disconnect now has become obvious, and as Einstein said ( paraphrased) it only takes one contradiction to disprove a theory. In this case the last 17 years, the recent cooldown that has started ( since the pdo flip) and the midlevel temps responding in almost perfect timing ( with a lag) to the enso antics shows this is over.
Again this link, is essential to open our minds about the idea that co2 can not cause any warming. It is my mission to get this out for all to see, to open minds to what I think makes a heck of a lot of sense!
http://co2insanity.com/2011/09/04/top-scientists-in-heated-debate-over-‘-slaying-of-greenhouse-gas-theory/
As a side note, everytime I come to WUWT to look at one of the reference pages, I get sidetracked by yet another great article. If I asked God to bless Lord Monckton, then I must also ask him to do so for Anthony Watts!
Brian Johnson uk says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
Who cares? I don’t have to pay massive taxes to a bunch of government-funded scientists with the sole aim of proving him right. His beliefs affect me not one iota. He can believe whatever the hell he wants as long as I don’t have to change my lifestyle to accommodate him. You have a problem with that?
The video quality and sound is terrible, almost not watchable. Can someone fix it?
I appreciate that Lord Monckton used 1950 which was near the beginning of the acceleration of increase in CO2 levels and was 62 years ago. The cycle in the temperature data is about 60 to 66 years in length, so he will be comparing values from then to now when we are at similar points in the cycle.
John M Reynolds
If Gleick is brought to justice, perhaps one part of his punishment ought to be 1000 hours of community service debating Lord Monckton on AGW at all of the major universities around the country. Charge a nominal entrance fee and we could cut the deficit in half…
Oh, wouldn’t it be great to have a Monckton debate with Elizabeth May, Canada’s sole Green Party member of the house. If one could shut her up long enough to finish a phrase.
“Erin Delman, President of the Environmental Club, debates with Monckton – photo by Charlotte Lehman”
Let’s face it. If you had to invite either one of them to your home for coffee and pretzels, would it be the one wearing the old hat or the one wearing the sexy boots?
Brian Johnson uk says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
________________________________________
As an Agnostic I find that hilarious. If all you can come up with is an attack on Lord Monckton’s faith than you have just admitted defeat!
At least here in the USA we have religious freedom…. Or did, but then you would never know it by the repeated attacks on the faith of Christians in the media.
Has Lord Monckton done a TED Talk – if not why not?
From Animal House the movie
Thank you sir,may I have another?
I’m most grateful to Justin Pulliam for having been so thoughtful and helpful a guide during the East Coast leg of my current speaking tour of the US and Canada. For once the environmentalist faction stumbled into a real debate, and I am most grateful to Anthony Watts for putting this revealing account of it on the record in his influential blog, which now carries more weight than most “mainstream” news media, and a great deal more information.
Some commenters have had difficulty in getting access to the video of my lecture at Union College. Professor Larry Gould of Hartford University, with his characteristic thoroughness, has posted up the fuller version of the lecture that I had the honor to give at his university in the presence of its president, Walter Harrison. Larry has helpfully included all the slides in the right places. The link is:
http://echo-media.hartford.edu:8080/ess/echo/presentation/00a9a818-188a-4ff3-b317-
b7a8695ca3f8
One commenter has asked why, since I oppose the notion of doing science by consensus, I said in my talk that it was “generally accepted” that 1.2 Kelvin of global warming will be likely to occur in response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration, where there are no feedbacks or the feedbacks are net-zero.
The relevant slide shows how the IPCC calculates this 1.2 K. One multiplies the IPCC’s radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2 (5.35 ln 2 = 3.71 W/m2: Myhre et al., 1998) by the Planck climate-sensitivity parameter (0.31 K/W/m2: IPCC, 2007, p. 631 fn.), and increases the result by approximately one-sixth to allow for latitudinal variations in temperature at the characteristic-emission altitude. It is worth noting that neither of the two relevant quantities can be measured directly. Both are guesses, and both may be exaggerations.
Professor Chris Essex of the University of Western Ontario performed some of the earliest spectral-line-by-spectral-line calculations to determine the form of the CO2 radiative forcing. Though he is willing to confirm that the the equation is indeed logarithmic, so that each additional molecule of CO2 has less forcing effect than its predecessors, he is less sure about the coefficient, which the IPCC has already reduced by 15% (it was 6.3 in the 1990 and 1995 reports). The coefficient, and hence the CO2 radiative forcing, may still be too high, and perhaps substantially so.
There is also doubt about the value of the Planck climate-sensitivity parameter, which also cannot be measured but is crucial because not only the original warming caused by CO2 before feedbacks but also, separately, the feedbacks themselves are dependent upon it. The Moon, which has no atmosphere, is a helpful benchmark, because the mean surface temperature is also the emission temperature. Theory (see NASA’s lunar fact-sheet, for instance) gives 271 K as the mean lunar surface temperature. However, the Diviner mission has established that at the lunar equator, the warmest part of the surface, the mean temperature is just 206 K. This implies that the mean temperature of the entire lunar surface is 193-194 K, a long way below the 271 K given by the use of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation (assuming albedo 0.11 and emissivity 1). If the Earth’s true emission temperature (which occurs somewhere at altitude in the troposphere) is less than the 255 K predicted by theory (assuming an albedo 0.306), then the Planck parameter may well be considerably less than the IPCC’s value, in which event on this ground alone climate sensitivity may be well below its central estimate of 3.26 K per CO2 doubling.
For the sake of brevity, I took the “official” values of the CO2 radiative forcing and of the Planck parameter as correct, and pointed out to the audience that the major debate between the skeptics and the believers centers on the overall feedback gain factor, which – in the IPCC’s implicit central estimate – is 2.81, almost tripling the warming that a CO2 doubling causes before feedbacks are taken into account. It is not possible to measure any individual temperature feedback directly, so the feedback multiplier is based on a (probably exaggerated) guess as to the value of the Planck parameter and (near-certainly very much exaggerated) guesses as to the values of the various temperature feedbacks.
My best estimates (guesses, but perhaps better guesses than those of the IPCC because I have no vested interest in the answers) are that the IPCC exaggerates the CO2 radiative forcing (which cannot be measured) by around 20%; that it exaggerates the Planck parameter (which cannot be measured) by 20%; and that it exaggerates the sum of all unamplified feedbacks (which cannot be measured) threefold, because, as Lindzen and Choi (2009,, 2011) and Spencer and Braswell (2010, 2011) have demonstrated, feedbacks are somewhat net-negative.
If my best guesses are indeed better than those of the IPCC, then climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentration is 0.8 K before feedbacks are taken into account and 0.7 K after feedbacks, very much in line with the results of Lindzen & Choi and Spencer & Braswell.
Even if the IPCC is right, it is still cheaper and more cost-effective to spend not a single red cent on global warming for at least 50 years (Nordhaus, 2012) than to take any action today to try to make global warming go away. Given that none of the three parameters whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured, it ought to be self-evident that the value of their product cannot be definitively determined, from which it follows that “the science” cannot possibly be “settled”.
Another commenter has asked why I insist on the use of reason in science and then admit that I believe in a Creator. Many leading scientists, including Professor Antonino Zichichi (president of the World Federation of Scientists) and Lord Kelvin (for whom the scale of absolute temperature is named) have been believers in Christianity. Thanks to Max Planck, it is now demonstrated that the laws of physics did not come into being until a fraction of a nanosecond after the Big Bang, from which it follows that no amount of ingenuity on our part can reveal to us what (or Who) said “Let there be light” and blazed the Universe into glorious existence.
In short, it is scientifically and rigorously proven that the assertion of Christianity that there is a Creator cannot be disproved (and, by the same token, that it cannot be proved either). Therefore, it is permissible for me to say I believe in the truths of the Christian faith, though it would be impermissible for me to say I could prove them to be true. On the other hand, many of the beliefs of the climate extremists can be demonstrated to be false. Their belief system, therefore, is appropriately classified not as a religion (which can neither be proved nor disproved) but as a superstition (which can be and has been disproved).
Finally, one or two commenters have expressed annoyance that I am willing to concede that there is such a thing as the greenhouse effect at all. The reason why I have always conceded this fact is that it is indeed a fact, established by an elegant, readily-replicable and oft-replicated experiment first conducted by an ancestor of one of the commenters here.
The true scientific debate does not center on whether there is a greenhouse effect (there is: get used to it), but on how much warming our enhancement of that effect may cause. My best guess is, “not a lot”. If we expect the climate extremists to be truthful, we ought to do our best to be truthful ourselves, and not to push the scientific argument beyond what measurement and experiment and the application of established theory to the results has plainly and sufficiently demonstrated.
John Marshall says:
March 10, 2012 at 2:55 am
“Certainly on the right lines. but Lord Monckton is not correct to claim that the theory of GHG’s is settled science. That is why it is still a theory. ……”
John, it isn’t a theory at all. It is still just a hypothesis. A hypothesis becomes a theory when the hypothesis is proven.
Here is an exercise in futility. Try to get the “consensus” crowd to agree what the null hypothesis is.
Here is another futile exercise: try to get the “consensus” crowd to show how the hypothesis of a 3 degree rise in global temperatures due primarily to increases in CO2 concentrations with “feedbacks”.
IF this was a theory, then the theory could be used to predict an outcome due to the increase in concentration of CO2. Which brings one to the next futile exercise: try to get the “consensus” crowd to make a prediction. The “consensus” crowd will only provide “projections” from their models, not predictions. (is that a self declaration that they don’t have a theory at all?) The reason for no predictions is that predictions can be proven wrong. According to the “consensus” crowd, projections are never wrong (but I am waiting for the screams of victory should their projections ever become true.)
Bottom line, there is no accepted theory of AGW by CO2 emissions. It is only a hypothesis.
This lecture and its affect underscores how thin is the knowledge on the subject of climate among the academic crowd and how reliant they are on the gregarious “love-in” substitute for scholarship. If Lord Monckton can get to enough colleges and universities, he could singlehandedly wipe out the fluffy edifice supporting the post normal science of climate (change?-this is redundant). Can you imagine the tenuous climate now in a Schenectady lecture room today? I guess the professors have recourse to bringing in the “Rapid Response Team” of gregarious “love-in” substitutes for scholarship.
http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=Rapid%20Response%20Team%20climate%20science&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA
Stay tuned. There will be follow-up lectures by climate science paramedics.
I wish I hadn’t read that article. I found it depressing too. Kids are smart. I fear that a generation are going to lose faith in our society and its institutions as these kids grow up and discover, as they eventually must, that a large component of their education was in fact complete rubbish. And those authority figures entrusted with that education knew they were teaching complete rubbish or didn’t have the intellectual pills* to call their peers out. Once reason is dead nothing is possible, or impossible. As Lord Monckton might say; cineri gloria sera venit.
* pills = Aussie slang for cohones+
+ Spanish slang for..you get the idea.
This is a great essay. Lord Monckton is a brilliant man whose presentation of the facts is clear and dispassionate. If he led only one student to question the AGW Hoax, his time was well spent.
Doug Cotton says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:19 am
No doubt Lord Monckton has put together and memorised masses of information such as is demonstrated here. But I find it sad that he has not yet really listened to those who could explain the science better to him….
_____________________________________________
Do not let this “Monckton-lite” writeup fool you. Monckton is brilliant and he KNOWS the science backwards and forwards. He has not just ” memorised masses of information” what he has is a very deep knowledge of his subject and THAT is why no Warmist dares debate him.
Robert of Ottawa says:
March 10, 2012 at 2:27 am
What is the rest of his itinerary. He is heading North; might he be in Ottawa?
Can’t help you, but I’ve often wondered where he is going to be next and e.g. whether he will ever come to Scotland. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a website .. which given that he’s self funded is understandable, because it is a lot of work.
However, perhaps it is time that a group formed to put together an unofficial “Lord Monckton” fan club website to promote the noble lord in a way that he seems reluctant to do himself?
Brian Johnson uk says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Where’s your proof that there isn’t?
Another good thing about The Noble Lord is that the warm-mongers really, really despise him. And I’m sure he loves that fact…
Sarah J says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:34 am
If the guy who wrote that is meant to be a journalist he should be ashamed … Hideous bias, and maligning of those whose point of view he doesn’t agree with. My mind feels dirty just having read it.
O poor Sarah. Brew yourself a cup of tea and find a good book on scientific principles. Eventually you may get it.
“Christ. Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f…ng Peace Corps.”
John ‘Bluto’ Blutarsky
Excellent article about a wonderful man. Science is fortunate to have such an advocate. Thanks.
Justin,
Thank you for your presentation. I thoroughly enjoyed the read. You did a good job of filtering out most of Lord Monkton’s pompous pedantry. While I generally agree with most of what he says I cannot bear watching him in action. My loss.
I look forward to reading more from you. Thanks again.
And that is why they can’t allow debate.
The warmists that is.
As a part-time communist, I take offence at the portrayal of Greens as actually being “Reds”.
What is to recognize in this ‘life script’ of this ‘Monumental film’ more and more, is that the generated problems of the climate science community (but also the natural science community in total) are generated from ignorance about the basics of philosophy especially logic, as Lord Monckton’s Schenectady showdown is an example. I think this is a ‘hallo’ to the data overloaded climate scientist’s from an alien like philosopher, asking basic questions, but the scientist’s are still busy in sophistication to win, or save the world like Bruce Willis. Unfortunately there comes up again this sophistication by moving idols on a stage, saying ‘You are our all new dictator, there is consensus’. This is clever, but do not fix the initial problem.
There is no philosophical reason that each scientist is able to argue without the fallacies Aristotle, student of Plato, has teached. Moreover, if a person is not educated in fallacies, he or she cannot be a scientist, because the science of philosophy is the basis of science.
There is web site where handicapped climate scientist’s and in consensus captured individuals can learn to recognize fallacies.
Somebody has said, ‘What relevant is, is the teaching; who the teacher is, is not relevant.’
And I think, if we have respect to Lord Monkton, it is because of his sayings and arguments. We cannot make Lord Monckton to our own, but we can make as true recognized sayings and arguments to our own. Maybe this would be ‘The climate freedom’ he was talking about.
Remark. I agree with the sayings of Lucy S. Thank you Lucy.
V.
Nice article Justin
What an excellent article – loved it.
polistra says: March 10, 2012 at 4:45 am “Minor quibble: In America, Christopher Monckton is not “Lord Monckton”, and he’s especially not “His Lordship.””
YAWN. Polistra, If my head of state, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II came to the US, would you insist on her being called Mrs Windsor? And, as we in the UK do not yet have a republic, the title of President is foreign to us: shall we therefore dis Obama when he comes here?
Christopher Monckton is a bone-fide hereditary Peer of the Realm (or as the rambling student who announced him in the poor video called him: ‘Vis Count’ (as opposed to ‘Vy Count’ – which doesn’t say a lot for basic American education). As such, especially in the Land of the Free, where I have had many a courteous welcome, he is entitled to as much courtesy to his rank and tile as you would be to be called Mister – or whatever other title you possessed.
p gosselin says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:52 am
Excellent write-up- thanks! A reminder of why the warmists run from debate like Superman avoids Kryponite. Normally I don’t read all the way through such long essays, but this one reads like a thriller.
More like vampires recoiling from Garlic (or perhaps a mirror makes a more apt analogy…).
Very fun read.
I do wish Monckton had pushed back a little stronger on the notion that carbon dioxide amplified warming that was already occurring.
He is certainly better informed on the subject than I am, but that notion seems to be almost complete speculation based on what CO2 “should” do (with positive feedbacks) rather than what it actually does in the real world.
Reblogged this on The Next Grand Minimum.
This was a wonderful opportunity for students to get a real sense of what advanced learning is really about.
Lord Monckton, sternly but sadly, told those who had raised their hands: “You know, from the plain and clear demonstration that I gave during my lecture, that the IPCC’s statistical abuse was just that – an abuse. Yet, perhaps out of misplaced loyalty to your professor, you raised your hands in denial of the truth. Never do that again, even for the sake of appeasing authority. In science, whatever you may personally believe or wish to be so, it is the truth and only the truth that matters.”
This is the true message of the lecture and counterpoint, and this lecture might just be the most valuable hour or two the kids will ever spend at school. Would more students old enough to understand it, hear that message.
CM: “No significant temperature rise for 10 years”.
Response: “You aren’t a real Lord”.
CM: “Trying to change the climate is prohibitively expensive”.
Response: “You also believe in some whacky alternate medicine”.
CM: “IPCC data fraud”
Response: “You aren’t a real scientist”
CM: Dendrochronology is not a good proxy for temperature reconstruction”.
Response: “Er… did I mention that you aren’t a real Lord?”.
Interesting arguments on both sides. I’m just grateful that this witty, articulate man is arguing what I consider to be the right side in the CAGW debacle.
RE: There is no debate about global warming, they announced. There is a consensus.
I find it amazing that normal rational people use this to shut down their brain and not consider the possibility of new input showing their assumptions to be wrong.
Currently 20 years of data shows that the feedback to be around “0.5” and not “3.0” as suggested by the alarmists. One can make a case that in the long term we may see a greater rise, BUT until the data appears showing that, it’s just wishful thinking.
One more thing, is there a a video of this event?
REPLY: Yes see link at bottom of story – Anthony
Hello Ian W.
Your comment is correct. Converting food to biofuel is enriching those companies and individuals who receive subsidizes for the practice. Converting food to biofuel results in a net increase in carbon emissions if unbiased energy accounting is done.
The current EU mandated 20% of transportation fuel from biofuels would if it was applied to all countries of the world require all of the available agricultural land if grain or corn based feedstock is used. In 2007 26% of the US corn production has diverted to create biofuel with a 7% net increase in carbon dioxide emitted if one includes the energy cost for fertilizer, to harvest the corn, to haul the corn to the biofuel plants, and to triple distil the ethanol.
As there is a limited amount of agricultural land on the planet and 7 billion people to feed, converting food to biofuel will unquestionably result in massive increases in the cost of food. As Western countries have sufficient funds to avoid starvation, starvation and malnutrition will likely be limited to the third world countries.
I see there is no discussion of the food to biofuel crisis at RealClimate.
If one yells fire, fire, fire!!! in a theater with the comment that it is better to be safe than sorry and the science is settle, you would be arrested and taken for psychological evaluation. If you continued to yell fire, fire, fire!!! in theaters you would be imprisoned or institutionalized.
The extreme AGW issue is a mania, the madness of crowds. Science is on the side of the so called “skeptics” or “deniers”. The science indicates warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in less of than 1C of warming with most of the warming occurring at higher latitudes where it will be result in an expansion of the biosphere.
CO2 is not a poison. Plants eat CO2. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 into the greenhouse to reduce growing times and increase yield. Cereal crop yields for example increase from 30% to 40% if atmospheric CO2 is doubled.
Those promoting biofuels plead using cellulose feedstocks rather than grain or corn based feedstocks, however, the pilot projects to convert cellulose feedstocks to biofuel require multiple technical breakthroughs which may not be possible. It is interesting that major companies are abandoning the cellulose to biofuel research.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications by Lindzen and Choi 2011
We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000-2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks. …The present paper is an expansion of the earlier paper where the various criticisms are taken into account……We demonstrate that our new method does moderately well in distinguishing positive from negative feedbacks and in quantifying negative feedbacks. In contrast, we show that simple regression methods used by several existing papers generally exaggerate positive feedbacks and even show positive feedbacks when actual feedbacks are negative. We argue that feedbacks are largely concentrated in the tropics, and the tropical feedbacks can be adjusted to account for their impact on the globe as a whole. Indeed, we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise. We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity. ….
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-false-promise-of-biofuels
The False Promise of Biofuels
Despite extensive research, biofuels are still not commercially competitive. The breakthroughs needed, revealed by recent science, may be tougher to realize than previously thought.
Corn ethanol is widely produced because of subsidies, and it diverts massive tracts of farmland needed for food. Converting the cellulose in cornstalks, grasses and trees into biofuels is proving difficult and expensive. Algae that produce oils have not been grown at scale. And more advanced genetics are needed to successfully engineer synthetic microorganisms that excrete hydrocarbons.
Some start-up companies are abandoning biofuels and are instead using the same processes to make higher-margin chemicals for products such as plastics or cosmetics.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/10/moncktons-schenectady-showdown/#comment-918264
Ian W says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:35 am
“But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended”
This is totally untrue – it is doing exactly what its proponents intended, it is making them and their friends richer. There was never any intent for any impact on ‘global warming’ although there may be some ‘useful idiots’ who may have believed so. Like all ‘green power’ and associated activities it is a money laundering scheme to pass taxpayers’ money to politically favored groups and individuals. Money is also made in administering these schemes by the friends of those in power; that is why the multinational banks are so keen and always involved.
William Astley says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:56 am
——snip—-
The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.
But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. He says agriculture should also be subsidised in regions where it ensures the survival of local populations. Meanwhile, in response to a call by the IMF and World Bank over the weekend to a food crisis that is stoking violence and political instability, German Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck gave his tacit backing.
http://news.yahoo.com/prime-indonesian-jungle-cleared-palm-oil-065556710.html
Prime Indonesian jungle to be cleared for palm oil
Their former hero recently gave a palm oil company a permit to develop land in one of the few places on earth where orangutans, tigers and bears still can be found living side-by-side — violating Indonesia’s new moratorium on concessions in primary forests and peatlands.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/March09/Features/Biofuels.htm
Bravo! I think the part that really chokes me up is that it seems possible that Lord Monckton may have reached some of these kids, at least to the extent of making them realize that there is more to the truth than one hears in a comfortable, stagnant bubble of like opinion. I blush to admit that I didn’t believe that was possible – that anyone, no matter how courageous, intelligent, or well prepared, could possibly break through the barrier and let in the sunshine and air on CAGW home turf – a university group with a hostile professor. Makes me ashamed of my cynicism and gives me hope for us all.
Well done, sir. Thank you.
Justine,
Thanks for the summary of Lord Monckton’s “Climate of Freedom” talk. A marvelously well written and insightful summary of the event.
I have sent a copy of your post to my local newspaper.
I am happy that you have chosen to visit America Monckton of Brenchley to carry your continued fight in promoting rational science discourse.
I hope you can find time in the future for a trip to the Pacific Northwest to deliver your presentation to those badly in need of rational thinking on the subject.Seattle is a good place to consider because it is a nest of feel good weenie environmentalism without any critical thinking behind it.It is also home to the University of Washington where prominent AGW believers are in residence.
People are in desperate need for a cold rational conversation that is forbidden in so many colleges these days.Not allowing for freedom to think for themselves and having to put up with conformity by threats.
Hopefully you have freed many from the prison of conformity and consensus and have begun to learn to examine the evidence critically and skeptically.
Thank you.
Excellent job Justin… we’ll all be looking for great things from you.
As for the video, it was difficult to follow because of the poor quality but I get the sense that everyone who attended came away numb from the experience. Now granted, the majority probably still have the “don’t confuse me with facts” perspective. But somehow I get the feeling that there were many who had their eyes opened.
Lord Monckton… keep up the good fight!
An.Ode.To.Sanity.
What a joy to read. Thanks to all who made it possible.
Found this facebook page for the event. Nothing shocking, but intersting to see who wants to hut down debate.
https://www.facebook.com/events/298954770171904/
Also nice to have young people remind you what it was like to be right all the time!
Eh kids?
No, you know what? I missed it in my previous post. That wasn’t the important point for me, now that I really think about it.
It’s about integrity. It’s so basic, so vital and absolutely crucial to science. Heck, it’s crucial to all productive human endeavors. At the same time, it’s so grotesquely lacking in many leading figures in this debate. In a world where Gleick is hailed by many as a hero for fraud and fabrication, where philosophers who specialize in ethics tell us in his defense that the end justifies the means, where climategate emails that illustrate corrupt practices and subversion are dismissed as normal and acceptable — to hear that Monckton had the integrity, courage, and dedication to say ‘you raised your hands in denial of the truth. Never do that again’ and be heard and understood… it seems like magic out of some fairy tale. I keep thinking to myself, ‘Really? That really happened?’.
Sorry for the multiple posts, I’ll try to think twice and type once next time.
Doug Cotton
Send your paper to Christopher Lord Monckton. His email is posted at: http://heartland.org/lord-christopher-monckton
In reply to Joseph Bastardi’s comment:
Joseph Bastardi says:
March 10, 2012 at 5:39 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/10/moncktons-schenectady-showdown/#comment-918330
….As a side note, everytime I come to WUWT to look at one of the reference pages, I get sidetracked by yet another great article. If I asked God to bless Lord Monckton, then I must also ask him to do so for Anthony Watts!
Hi Joe!
I agree with your comments:
1. The warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will be less than 1C.
2. The planet is about to cool which will be the final nail in the coffin of the extreme AGW paradigm.
3. This is a great site and a very important issue.
4. I also would also like to deeply thank Anthony Watts and Lord Monckton for their efforts to initiate logical, scientific, unbiased discussion of this issue. Hopeful logic and reason will prevail, ending this mania.
Trillions of dollars are being proposed to be spent on boondoggle schemes which will not significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions. Western governments are on the verge of bankruptcy due to high government spending. i.e. Spending trillions of dollars on boondoggle schemes is not better safe than sorry, regardless of one’s political affiliation.
Best wishes,
William
Comment:
The final nail in the coffin of the extreme AGW movement will be unequivocal planetary cooling. The unresolved scientific issue is how fast and how much the planet will cool and the mechanisms.
Didn’t there used to be a consensus that the Earth was at the centre of the Solar System?
Brian Johnson uk says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
_____________________________________
Perhaps you ought to read the context of the only thing you disagree with in Justin Pulliam’s article about Christopher Monckton’s presentation to a group of University students.
He was talking about you, apparently.
“The following morning, as we drove through the snowy landscape of upstate New York towards the next venue the following morning, I asked Lord Monckton what he had thought of the strange conduct of the professor, particularly when he had abused his authority by asking his students to assent to the correctness of a statistical technique that he and they had known to be plainly false.
Lord Monckton’s reply was moving. Gently, and sadly, he said, “We shall lose the West unless we can restore the use of reason to pre-eminence in our institutions of what was once learning. It was the age of reason that built the West and made it prosperous and free. The age of reason gave you your great Constitution of liberty. It is the power of reason, the second of the three great powers of the soul in Christian theology, that marks our species out from the rest of the visible creation, and makes us closest to the image and likeness of our Creator. I cannot stand by and let the forces of darkness drive us unprotesting into a new Dark Age.””
Monckton’s written comments here are epitomy of polite logic and reason, in sharp contrast to the shrill, rude, unfounded comments of those CAGW cult contributors.
So. nothing changes.
Do any of us still wonder why CAGW cult leaders refuse to debate sceptics in public? No one likes to see their lies, deceits and stupidity publicly aired, especially if it is done politely.
Ken Coffman
I love these old school pioneers of science and I’ve read a lot of Tyndall’s papers and have yet to see where he says IR radiation adds heat energy to the bottom of a container when convection is unconstrained.
Tyndall probably considered how energy would propagate in the absence of gravity.
What is the nature of these easily replicable experiments?
I didn’t see any reference to “easily replicable experiments” in the article. A good hypothesis or theory is constructed using logical steps. They are validated or falsified using experiments.
They really prove the concept of heating via “back radiation”?
Have you ever put a thermometer near a bar heater without a reflector and then added a reflector behind it?
Do you think the manufacturer of your bar heater put a reflector there to improve its aesthetics?
William Astley says:
March 10, 2012 at 8:52 am
“Comment:
The final nail in the coffin of the extreme AGW movement will be unequivocal planetary cooling. The unresolved scientific issue is how fast and how much the planet will cool and the mechanisms.”
History has some examples:
http://notrickszone.com/2012/03/10/is-the-strong-temperature-rise-since-1980-due-to-the-sun/
Monckton comment is at the heart of the problem:
“We shall lose the West unless we can restore the use of reason to pre-eminence in our institutions of what was once learning. It was the age of reason that built the West and made it prosperous and free. The age of reason gave you your great Constitution of liberty. It is the power of reason, the second of the three great powers of the soul in Christian theology, that marks our species out from the rest of the visible creation, and makes us closest to the image and likeness of our Creator. I cannot stand by and let the forces of darkness drive us unprotesting into a new Dark Age.”
Western civilization is under attack from within to destroy its core values and only those values can save it. The destruction of individual thought and worth in favor of the approved thought and worth in the universities is in opposition to their purpose for existence.
Translation: professors demanding brown nosing and students expecting better grades for brown nosing cannot expect to make a contribution to science other than by a consensus.
Lord Monckton’s reply was moving. Gently, and sadly, he said, “We shall lose the West unless we can restore the use of reason to pre-eminence in our institutions of what was once learning. It was the age of reason that built the West and made it prosperous and free. The age of reason gave you your great Constitution of liberty. It is the power of reason, the second of the three great powers of the soul in Christian theology, that marks our species out from the rest of the visible creation, and makes us closest to the image and likeness of our Creator. I cannot stand by and let the forces of darkness drive us unprotesting into a new Dark Age.”
Amen brother!
The “consensus” rant is cover for the eco-dolt. If 1,000 people conclude 2+2=5, and one person concludes 2+2=4, who has the right answer? A perfect example of argumentum ad populum.
To Lord Monckton…. In the best spirit of co-operation can we agree that the so called Greenhouse effect is more like a think flimsy piece of clothing effect, one that one is more likely to see, ah lets say , at VIctoria’s Secret ( a misnomer, since with virtually nothing covered up, there are very few “secrets) than at an a greenhouse that is truly trapping heat. My point is that perhaps the Victoria Secret veil so to speak is wonderfully constructed in a way that makes one marvel at the creative powers at whoever designed all this so as life on the planet can exist, but given the properties of co2, and its minute amount, it is impossible for it to be the regulator of temperature. After all since it heats and cools faster, has different specific gravity, is unevenly mixed and not even in the areas where most of mans contribution from it is ( see article I referenced, and the nasa pic of this) so how can it really be involved at all?
One has to marvel though at the creators handiwork in designing this atmospheric negligee to enhance mother nature. One of the problems is that people hear Greenhouse effect and think of a pane of glass that will smother us. If we think of it my way, then we see it for what it really is.. a thing of beauty.
I bet alot of you out there didn’t know I had such a sensitive side. Its the Italian painter in me coming out..ha ha
MartinGAtkins says:
March 10, 2012 at 9:08 am
“Have you ever put a thermometer near a bar heater without a reflector and then added a reflector behind it?
Do you think the manufacturer of your bar heater put a reflector there to improve its aesthetics?”
Have you ever tried putting a reflector behind an ice cube at 273.15K ?
Try it and let us know if you can measure any warming.
This is the more accurate analogy because back-radiation is from a colder sky to a warmer surface.
Back-radiation violates the second law of thermodynamics. There is no way round that fact.
Scottish Sceptic:
At March 10, 2012 at 6:42 am you say of Chris Monckton’s itinerary:
“I’ve often wondered where he is going to be next and e.g. whether he will ever come to Scotland.”
He is often in Scotland because he lives there. And he has spoken there; for example, here is my account of a debate on the motion ‘’“This House Believes Global Warming is a Global Crisis” where he and I (with Niils Axel Morner) were on the same side St Andrews Uni.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2938
Richard
PS For the trolls who have posted about Monckton’s politics, he is a right wing Tory and I am a left-wing socialist but our shared desire for truth enables our friendship.
Wow! A splendid, well written article.
My only quibble is the sub-title “Greens too yellow….” is entirely inappropriate and misleading. I would replace it with something more in tune with the final three paragraphs:
In Science, it is truth that matters, not appeasing local authority. Reason for yourself!
Brilliant was Monckton’s introduction of how past episodes of consensus have lead to great evil and tragedy. At the end, when admonishing those that “raised your hands in denial of the truth,” he should have come full circle to remind them that uncritical belief in authority and consensus has caused the death of over 100 million people.
Other than that, send this piece to the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal.
Doug Cotton says: March 10, 2012 at 3:19 am
Doug,
Please stop telling us that you have a paper coming out while not discussing the technical details. You come across as a know-it-all blow-hard with knowledge from on high that has been denied to those of us who are merely mortal. If you really have something to say, then say it or be quiet! But anyhow, please stop the incessant advertising! /rant
What impresses me most about Monckton is that he chooses to use his considerable gifts in rhetoric and critical thinking to defend science. His evisceration of “consensus thinking” was devastating and credible, even to the closed-minded audience.
I nominate Lord Monckton for the Nobel. He is doing more for scientific awareness than any other current recipient, to date. He is a master, and we are so fortunate to have him. There really should be some sort of award… He makes “consensus scientists” look like kindergarten fools, which they truly are. GK
mareeS says: March 10, 2012 at 2:29 am
Monckton is doing the world a real service by re-introducing the argument of reason vs religion to the climate debate.
That debate is what got the mediaeval Christian world out of its thrall to religious dogma and into the enlightenment, with much pain for people brave enough to lead the debate.
______________________________________
I think a lot more pain was dealt out by those believing in the dogmas of the anti-religious movements of Marxist Communism and National socialism.
Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive and never have been.
One could argue that it was the inheritance and concentration of wealth from relatives killed by successive plagues that elevated sufficient numbers of citizens to jump start the enlightenment.
Perhaps your personal views on religion are affecting your ability to apply reason on the subject.
I have heard it said (though not on this blog) that a religious scientist can more easily differentiate between that which they believe based on faith, and that which they believe based upon scientific endeavors. “That religion & Philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into Philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.” That quote is from Seven Statements on Religion, Sir Isaac Newton, post-1710. I believe that Lord Monckton follows Newton’s philosophy on this matter.
Sarah J says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:34 am
My mind feels dirty just having read it.
Same here, angry chicks with messy hair really turn me on.
Presumably everybody agrees someTHING created the Universe, and the debate is if it’s been someONE? I am always impressed by some atheists’ resolution in not conceding this trivial point.
In his presentation Lord Monckton has shown a graph (and a part of it) related to the Atlantic hurricanes, which appear to be based on the NOAA’s Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ‘ACE’ for short:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/outlooks/figure2.gif
Some time ago I noticed that this graph can be represented by a natural variable measured since 1860’s and known to the scientists as an important climate parameter since 1950’s, when delayed by about 15 years. This delay than can be used to make an estimate of the future hurricane activity http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/AHA.htm
which I mentioned in a post on the Dr. Judith Curry’s blog.
She has done number of papers on hurricanes, confirming that in her view the outlook is about right. Subsequently we discussed (via emails) details and possible mechanism and her verdict is: “the 15 year lag is the main challenge here, but you have a plausible explanation”.
I might write short article, but peer review is out of question for the obvious reasons.
If a scientist from The Global Warming Policy Foundation would like (on behalf of Lord Monckton) to take a closer look at my findings, I shall be more than glad to forward all relevant details.
The Debate of the Century would be Gore vs Monckton. Too bad Gore would never do it.
Good to see you back, Stefan.
Will says:
March 10, 2012 at 9:28 am
MartinGAtkins says:
March 10, 2012 at 9:08 am
“Have you ever put a thermometer near a bar heater without a reflector and then added a reflector behind it?
Have you ever tried putting a reflector behind an ice cube at 273.15K ?
Have ever managed to put a frozen ice cube of water next to a cube of frozen nitrogen in a partial void? Do you think the nitrogen would turn to gas faster if the water ice had a reflector behind it?
Think about it before you answer.
I keep seeing comments throughout this thread and many others, accusing the team of cowardice in their no debate stance. They may be wrong and they may be cowards but they are not fools. A fair debate on a national stage by principals of both sides would imply the science is not settled. It is not going to happen as much as we might wish it. Unfortunatly, time is the only thing that will settle the issue. Hopefully, proposed mitigation can be delayed long enough to minimize damage to the economy.
Jim
Toto says “The Debate of the Century would be Gore vs Monckton. Too bad Gore would never do it.”
I agree Toto. On the other hand Dr. Gleick might be up to the challenge. I have suggested, to my local paper, that they support an effort to have Lord Monckton give his “Climate of Freedom” talk out here in Northern California (Folsom Lake College). At the conclusion of the talk an hour or two debate with Dr. Gleick would be interesting
Will says
Back-radiation violates the second law of thermodynamics. There is no way round that fact.
Henry says:
Back radiation, also called re-radiation, happens all the time.
It has to do with light of different wavelengths (frequencies) that always moves in straight lines and stuff, hitting certain obstacles on their ways,
it has nothing to do with thermodynamics
Do take your first lesson here:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011 temperatures.
and come back to me if you do not understand from there what re-radiation is.
Lord Monckton,
On the outside chance that you are still following this thread or might return later, I thought I would take this opportunity to seek your (or anyone else’s) help. I know that you follow Lindzen’s work closely and often cite him. In his House of Commons presentation, toward the end, he gives a sketch of an alternative derivation of the “Climate Sensitivity” based on observed rates of evaporation increase per change in sea surface temperature, and this based on data from the 2007 paper by Wentz et. al., “How Much More Rain Will Global Warming Bring?” Lindzen seemed to run out of time and the accompanying slides are, well, “sketchy.” There is a slightly expanded set of slides on this same alternative derivation that accompanied his presentation to the American Chemical Society in August, 2011. Unfortunately, even the latter was still a bit too short for me to follow. Do you know whether Lindzen has written a detailed version of this or whether he was relying on some paper(s) on it already published or otherwise available?
When I first read the Wentz paper shortly after it came out, it struck me that it was a very important piece of work. Even its authors say at the end that their data had “profound implications” for global warming. If I recall correctly, they did not apply their results to any such derivation of the climate sensitivity. Thank you in advance for any help you might be able to provide.
Excellent article Justin, and yes, I was almost spellbound through the entire article. In an age where I have to reread repeatedly so many rambling sentences to try and figure out what the author is trying to convey; I didn’t have to reread a single sentence in yours. A very real pleasure.
Lord Monckton: A solid sound debate decidedly in your favor. I wish I could apologize for your audience being so full of sheep with blinders and nose rings, only it is too common in today’s universities. You did strike a chord in that audience though. Instead of shrilling, “Chant with me”, you spoke to the students and shamed them for not thinking on their own. That difference in approach and message marks a very distinct difference from the CAGW warmists. May your spark of reason grow to the light of true science in all of those students.
As all too often; the irrational trolls jump into the thread in force. Paid by the word or blindly spewing faith, their messages are all the same. Defame. Deflect. Diminish. Demonize. Doubt. Despair. Drown out. Detain. Shame they avoid real debates so can’t have debate as a descriptive. Since most of their “science” in not replicable in full they can’t use definite either. Desperate and Despicable fit very well though!
Lord Monckton: “We shall lose the West unless we can restore the use of reason to pre-eminence in our institutions of what was once learning…etc”
Surely, Quote of the
weekyear!This nicely written review of Monckton’s presentation deserves wide circulation and discussion.
Thank you Mods. (You know who you
arewere)Maurizio Morabito (omnologos) says:
March 10, 2012 at 10:16 am
Presumably everybody agrees someTHING created the Universe, and the debate is if it’s been someONE? I am always impressed by some atheists’ resolution in not conceding this trivial point.
This is why I call myself an Agnostic. I claim that Atheism and Theism take equal amounts of faith!
The writers of the US Declaration of Independence were very smart by using the term “Creator.” They did not use God, Christ, Allah, etc. They used “Creator,” for the sole purpose of acknowledging that SOMETHING created us, whilst at the same time not endorsing a single religion. However, they then jumped the shark by “arbitrarily” assigning the inalienable rights to that “thing.” They can be excused for this however, for they were trying to show that SOME rights MUST supersede man-made laws (and thus can’t be taken away); that some laws are beyond reproach. Otherwise, ALL laws are “permissions” granted and taken away by/from one man to/from another. (and we all know this is how it really is, in spite of the decree)
Will says
“Back-radiation violates the second law of thermodynamics. There is no way round that fact.”
Nope, check out:
http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Cooling.pdf
It’s not heating a warmer object, it’s slowing the cooling.
@David L says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:32 am
Yep, we used to say ” Them that can, do. Them that can’t, teach.” Real, productive, innovative work is difficult. Regurgitating the barely grasped work of others is not so difficult.
That poor young woman who confronted Monckton will probably never fully recover her self-respect. For likely the first time in her life she encountered a classically educated man with an excellent mind and facts at his disposal. These specimens are very rare today and most of them are “doing” not “teaching”. We are fortunate indeed that Monckton is afoot, slaying the dragons of ignorance.
Nice job, Mr Pulliam.
Leigh B.Kelly wants to know:
How Much More Rain Will Global Warming Bring?
Henry@Leigh
Well, note that I found that the global warming is not “global”
and that it is due largely to natural factors, i.e. more sunshine and or less clouds and/or less ozone, etc.
including a quite a bit more greenery which also traps some heat.
According to my sample of weather stations all around the world,
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
I estimate that rainfall increased globally by about 1.5 mm/month/decade during the past 40 years.
In other words, on average you got about 6 mm per month more rain in your backyard than you had 40n years ago.
I think that is good for life?
I think that is OK.
First, thank you, Justin Pulliam, for an excellent report, and thank you, Lord Monckton, for your tireless defense of science and reason. I agree with other commenters that the take-away quote is “Never do that again, even for the sake of appeasing authority. In science, whatever you may personally believe or wish to be so, it is the truth and only the truth that matters.”
In other business,
Will says (March 10, 2012 at 9:28 am): “Back-radiation violates the second law of thermodynamics. There is no way round that fact.”
As this view contradicts the overwhelming scientific “consensus”, on both sides of the CAGW issue, experimental proof would revolutionize science and snag a Nobel Prize, at least. Yet AFAIK, nobody–not Claes Johnson, not Pierre LaTour, not Doug Cotton, not Will–has reported such an experiment, despite the fame, adulation, money, and nubile groupies that would reward publication. So where’s the beef, Will (to coin a phrase)? 🙂
PS Might I suggest actually performing Dr. Roy Spencer’s “Yes, Virginia” thought experiment?
Masterful!!!
The poignant and oh so accurate closing statement sent chills up my spine!
Thank You, Justin, for this very eloquent summary!
Thank You, Lord Monckton, for your unsurpassed knowledge, your pragmatic applied wisdom, and your unwavering stand for the truth!!!
If the audio quality of this video is representative of the quality of the students at this university, then any parent who agrees to their child attending this university needs their head testing.
Quite obviously, these numbskulls could not organist a booze-up in a brewery, and they should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
I looked up Lord Monckton’s “The IPCC and the Spade” parable & found an example on YouTube:
Will says: March 10, 2012 at 9:28 am
Back-radiation violates the second law of thermodynamics. There is no way round that fact.
——————————————————————————————–
And a blanket violates the law of a good night’s sleep … … not.
You can keep your violation, while I will stay to stay toasty and comfortable in this particular consensus….. 😉
.
http://echo-media.hartford.edu:8080/ess/echo/presentation/00a9a818-188a-4ff3-b317-b7a8695ca3f8
Beautifully written Justin and brilliantly stated Lord Monckton, if your journey takes you to Boston, stop by MIT and look up Dr. Nocera. His approach to the energy problem, research funded by the US DOE, is an eye opener; Personalized Energy.
http://youtu.be/Rh7nHtFhceg
http://youtu.be/KTtmU2lD97o
Brian Johnson uk says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am
“Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator? “
When he moves to support a global tax to support his religious beliefs, I will oppose it. Otherwise, I do not care.
Messy blonde hair? Check.
Bossy? Check the body language (gleickuage?).
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/img_3846.jpg
“What about the methane from cattle? Should we give up eating meat to Save The Planet? The professor thought so. Lord Monckton, as always, had the data to hand. In the past decade, he said, methane concentration had risen by just 20 parts per billion, which might cause 1/350 C° of warming. This was too little to matter. Leave the cows alone.”
An additional piece of information is also helpful here. Prior to settlement by Europeans, the North American Great Plains was the home of tens of millions of bison. If the amount of bison flesh is roughly calculated and compared to the amount of cattle flesh, we find that today we are with a factor of two or three of being roughly the same. Given the similarities between the two animals in their diets and digestion, the Great Plains has had a certain level of methane emissions for tens of thousands of years.
Clip says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Oops! “Clip” is my ipad onsceen keyboard’s alter-ego.
John from CA says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:55 pm
No doubt these talks are not intended to be lectures, and a lot of details are left out. Can we really get overall 80% energy efficiency from sunlight end-to-end? And, if so, is it really scalable when you consider things like transmission losses and effects of aging on the apparatus?
With all due respect to Dr. Nocera, I’ve seen dozens of similar promises made by respectable researchers over the years, but some practical limiting factor always emerged somewhere along the path. I think I will wait until the concept is implemented and proven on a wide scale before getting too excited.
Lord Monckton, please accept my humble thanks for your continuing effort to return science to its proper place.
With out a return to the basic principles of reasoning, sound logic, and a solid methodical effort to look at the data and form conclusions based on them, an entire generation will be lost to manipulation by con men and fools.
It is sad that many of those students may have for the first time been exposed to a proper presentation of the known facts in the climate debate and more importantly a proper respect for and examination of the limits of how certain we are about those suppositions that CAGW dogma is based on.
Most specifically, I thank you for challenging them to think about their vote to support the professor.
There is no lesson that is quite as indelible as that sort of gentle reprimand and admonition in public to stand up for the facts as you see them and not to just merge into the crowd and mimic the behavior of others in the group. Crowd consensus is only a very short step away from totalitarian thought control, and the passions of the mob. Students need to learn that at least some adults welcome and even insist that they come to their own conclusions based on the facts as they see them.
When I was on my high school debate team, we used to pen short axioms that we would put on our materials to help us avoid common logical errors. My choice was :
“Never blame an idea for its source!” (even idiots have good ideas).
This helped me avoid falling for appeals to authority in argumentation, by remembering that the source of the concept was irrelevant, only the validity of the concepts mattered. The obvious inverse is also true:
“Never trust an assertion due to its source!” (even geniuses make mistakes)
Larry
Thank you Christopher! (you have done many very good things)
Thank you Justin! (well written)
This a great post, thanks Anthony! (I come to read WUWT and learn)
Will says: March 10, 2012 at 9:28 am
Back-radiation violates the second law of thermodynamics. There is no way round that fact.
That reminds me – I must throw out my microwave oven, since it violates the second law of thermodynamics, it being impossible for microwaves from a cold cavity magnetron to make a hot liquid even hotter. Or something.
Bart says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 pm
And, if so, is it really scalable when you consider things like transmission losses and effects of aging on the apparatus?
============
Excellent point about transmission but his approach is point of use. Instead of building a grid in the non-legacy world, he’s proposing a solution that’s self sufficient for energy and potable water etc. It also makes sense for the legacy world in relation to conservation of resources and decreased pollution. The grid will be with us for quite some time but those who live in sunny locations, note the reliance on solar, or partially sunny with grid input, would be able to generate and store a fuel source that’s only used when its needed.
Regarding aging of the apparatus. His point is make it cheaply with the idea that its easy to maintain and replace. The fuel cell is the one sticking point to the idea but with has production should come down in price.
Its very cleaver and I like the holistic approach which is largely lacking from current energy solutions. Designing the approach with the end user in mind is also refreshing.
Bart says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 pm
And, if so, is it really scalable when you consider things like transmission losses and effects of aging on the apparatus?
============
I think I see your point about the 80% claim in a point of use system. Sorry, I was looking at it from the perspective of the waste associated with the current US grid.
From what I’ve read, Fuel cells run on nat gas are about 50% efficient and approach 80% if hot water generation is included using waste heat.
Brian Johnson uk says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
___________________________________________________
One can posit that proof lies in his character.
You are incorrect. And you (collective VOST [Violation Of Second-law-of Thermo] people) have been told so many times. It’s only because you don’t actually understand thermodynamics that you fail to take correction. You first of all have to recognize that you’re trying to compare apples with oranges and not realizing that radiation is not part of the study of colligitive properties (volume, temperature, pressure for example) which are what is the basic subject matter of thermodynamics. Radiation is emitted by molecules based on their individual (internal + kinetic) energy, not by the temperature of the body or volume of gas that molecule is a part of. (Though, of course there is a statistical relationship between the energy of individual molecules and the temperature.) But if we add a smallish number of IR-active molecules (CO2 in this case), then the amount of IR absorbed from the IR emitted at the surface will increase, and raise the gas temperature a smallish amount. Then the IR released by the IR active gasses (CO2, H2O, CH4, etc.) will increase proportionally to the increase in temperature and by the CO2 in particular in proportion to the amount of CO2 increase. And the half of that increase which heads to the surface will warm the surface a small amount. This is all the basic AGW theory is concerned with and is basically correct. The CAGW theory, adds several points which are incorrect, in particular that the amount of H2O vapor will be increased on net after feedbacks are considered. In fact the net feedback will almost certainly be negative. This is the position of the skeptics I consider reliable. Unfortunately VOST people confuse the issue, and since CAGW advocates like to attack weak points, also thus weaken the entire skeptic position. I’d like to invite a nice polite collegial discussion, but from a practical POV I have to say, “knock it off!”
Here was someone named Marie Bernadette (with 7 others) tweeting the SU talk live.
http://storify.com/MbernadetteE/lord-christopher-monckton-visits-syracuse-universi
(Found via Google “Lord Monckton 2012” Rank 30. WUWT rank 3.)
I love it when people say things like “It’s not heating a warmer object, it’s slowing the cooling”. Have you ever seen a distribution of this “slowing”? What is the average rate of change with and without atmospheric CO2?
“Never do that again.” What a wonderful moment! How right he was. How I would love to hear what that professor said to his students next time they met in class.
I was a great lecture, and outstanding reporting.
Isn’t it interesing that a person with such a debated title and knowledge still just speaks for a short 40 minutes to allow for a 20 minute eternity of Q and A…withouth anyone having had their questions pre-screened-by-gore-mannian-standars?
That’s rather amazing these days in the non-climate-debate.
How come the green veggies can’t do the same?
I visit WUWT from time to time, sometimes interesting,sometimes not but this love-in is profoundly depressing. Would like to see Monkton in a public debate with someone like Michael Mann rather than a load of students. I’ve seen Monkton’
s exchanges with John Abraham, don’t think he’d step up to the plate and publicly debate a real scientist, live and in public.
Jim R says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:42 pm
“I visit WUWT from time to time, sometimes interesting,sometimes not but this love-in is profoundly depressing. Would like to see Monkton in a public debate with someone like Michael Mann…”
Oh, please, OH PLEASE, make it happen if you possibly can! Mann is far too cowardly to debate Lord Monckton. But if there is any way you could help arrange it [aside from kidnapping Mann at gunpoint and forcing him to debate], please do what you can to arrange it. If you need help, just say the word. I’ll do whatever I can to get the cowardly Michael Mann into a real debate with Lord Monckton.
Gary Hladik says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Will says (March 10, 2012 at 9:28 am): “Back-radiation violates the second law of thermodynamics. There is no way round that fact.”
As this view contradicts the overwhelming scientific “consensus”, on both sides of the CAGW issue, experimental proof would revolutionize science and snag a Nobel Prize, at least. Yet AFAIK, nobody–not Claes Johnson, not Pierre LaTour, not Doug Cotton, not Will–has reported such an experiment, despite the fame, adulation, money, and nubile groupies that would reward publication. So where’s the beef, Will (to coin a phrase)? 🙂
PS Might I suggest actually performing Dr. Roy Spencer’s “Yes, Virginia” thought experiment?
This is really odd, you ask for experimental proof from basic traditional science on this, which is grounded in empirical industrial knowledge, continuous proof in testing, yet you require only a thought experiment for a claim which contradicts the traditional teaching..
..surely you’re the one who should be providing experimental proof?
Seems Latour has managed to get Spencer to re-think his thought experiment..
http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/43659.html
“Dr. Spencer’s essay “Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still” (July 23, 2011), written to support the greenhouse gas effect (GHE) the science behind man-made global warming has sparked increased criticism since publication. Dr. Spencer, without question a leading researcher of great integrity, has since gone on record to concede that he may be wrong and being misled by an ‘assumption bias.’
It was apparent assumptions in Spencer’s “Yes, Virginia” essay that inspired Dr. Latour, who first made a name for himself working on NASA’s Apollo Space program, to publish a counter-argument to Spencer’s essay entitled, “No Virginia, Cooler Objects Cannot Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still.” [1.]
…
“But Dr. Latour goes further in his criticism. Semi-retired after a stellar career, Latour is one of many eminent experts now becoming increasingly outspoken and declaring the GHE as “junk science.” His position was summarized in US Senate Reports. [2.& 3.]
Spencer’s article lends support to the discredited idea that cold CO2 [carbon dioxide] high in the atmosphere back-radiates to Earth’s warmer surface, heating it more and causing it to radiate to the atmosphere and space with higher intensity than it would without cold CO2 back-radiation. To Latour this contradicted all he saw in his branch of applied science, chemical engineering, and needed to be confronted head on. Engineers must ensure their theories are in harmony with the Second Law of thermodynamics: energy only flows from a hot source to a cold sink, not the other way around. If that law is violated, it can lead to the theory creating energy and driving global warming, a violation of the First Law conservation of energy. That would be a perpetual motion machine, impossible to build. It appears Dr Spencer and the UN IPCC succumbed to this fallacy at the start, as depicted in the famous 1997 Kiehl-Trenberth radiation flow diagram.”
..
“Spencer’s “Yes, Virginia” article now appears to be an incongruous and muddled defense of the ailing hypothesis creaking under a weight of consistently conflicting satellite data and ground measurements.”
..
“Always a stickler for thoroughness as a Chemical Process Control Systems Engineer, Latour had long worked at the sharp end of applied science. His special aptitude earned him his place in the Apollo Space program, where life and death decisions meant that when the theory contradicted reality you changed the theory. In 1997 he analysed the atmosphere as a chemical process system and proved any thermostat adjusting fossil fuel combustion was un-measurable, unobservable and uncontrollable; it would never work. Control systems engineers use these mathematical criteria, developed in 1970s, before embarking on building control systems. He finds engineering is denied involvement in UN IPCC, government and college research on AGW. Europe is paying dearly in 2011 for failing to check the engineering validity of CO2 Cap & Trade schemes.”
My bold. Why are the people who do understand the 2nd Law from practical experience denied involvement by the IPCC? Obvious isn’t it? Because as Latour says, it is junk science.
You can continue to defend it, but unless you prove it empirically then all you’re demanding we accept is a product of someone’s imagination which actually contradicts the 2nd Law in the real world.
Why don’t you take a look around at the industries we have?
Links to both Yes and No Virginia are on that page.
And then, y’all generic warmists not only demand we accept The Greenhouse Effect doesn’t break the 2nd Law, you don’t even have a consistent internally coherent agreement of what The Greenhouse Effect is!
So what is it? Is it Spencers perpetual motion or is it warm insulating blanket?
John West says:
March 10, 2012 at 11:55 am
Will says
“Back-radiation violates the second law of thermodynamics. There is no way round that fact.”
Nope, check out:
http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Cooling.pdf
It’s not heating a warmer object, it’s slowing the cooling.
&
Silver Ralph says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:32 pm
Will says: March 10, 2012 at 9:28 am
Back-radiation violates the second law of thermodynamics. There is no way round that fact.
——————————————————————————————–
And a blanket violates the law of a good night’s sleep … … not.
You can keep your violation, while I will stay to stay toasty and comfortable in this particular consensus….. 😉
———–
What consensus when you don’t even agree on how the effect is achieved?!
That’s just ludicrous. You don’t have any real science!
And as for ‘warm insulating blanket of Carbon Dioxide’ – get real, just what sort of insulating blanket do you think you have keeping you toasty warm when it’s practically 100% hole? There is no insulating blanket, maybe if you’re the size of a microbe near it..
When you’ve worked out just what The Greenhouse Effect is you’re all so busy insisting we should give up rational thought to accept, do let us know.
Jim R says:
I visit WUWT from time to time, sometimes interesting,sometimes not but this love-in is profoundly depressing. Would like to see Monkton in a public debate with someone like Michael Mann rather than a load of students.
*****
Hi, Jim, you must have missed this bit:
“Why, said a professor of environmental sciences in a rambling question apparently designed to prevent anyone else from getting a question in, had Lord Monckton not cited peer-reviewed sources? He had cited several, but he apologized that the IPCC – which he had cited frequently – was not a peer-reviewed source: indeed, fully one-third of the references its 2007 gospel had cited had not been peer-reviewed.
Why had Lord Monckton said that from 1695-1735 the temperature in central England had risen by 2.2 degrees (implying 0.55 degrees of warming per decade) when he had gone on to say that the warming rate per decade was 0.4 degrees? He explained that the warming rate was correctly calculated on the basis of the least-squares linear-regression trend, giving 0.39 degrees, which he had rounded for convenience.
Did Lord Monckton not accept that we could quantify the CO2 feedback? This point came from the professor. “Well,” replied Lord Monckton in one of his most crushing responses, “perhaps the professor can quantify it, but the IPCC can’t: its 2007 gospel gives an exceptionally wide range of answers, from 25 to 225 parts per million by volume per Kelvin – in short, they don’t know.
****
Cheer up, Jim, maybe if you read the entire article you wouldn’t be so depressed.
This is an example I would use in the future to demonstrate true genius. You need all the figures prepared, and to know how they all fit into the big picture and affect each other. Professionals can learn a narrow field in great detail but few can make the step to fitting it into the rest. That cannot be taught and as Monckton demonstrates can be done outside anyone’s field if they are able to do it. This lecture has hopefully been filmed, and shown to audiences of activists and students, chained to their seats if necessary and driven there in carts, and we could uproot the monster in weeks.
By the way Jim, Monckton has been challenging Mann to a debate for years. But Mann doesn’t do debates, as the science is already settled. Didn’t you know that?
It isn’t a good recording. To many problems with the audio.
It occurs to me there is one more miraculous feature of atmospheric CO2 as imagined by purveyors of conventional wisdom: it heats up very quickly, but cools very slowly. I wonder how that works and if there are other examples of this kind of amazing asymmetry in nature.
BTW: I’m still patiently waiting for a link to the easily replicable Tyndall experiment that shows radiation overpowering convection to modulate the atmospheric lapse rate. I haven’t seen anything like this in the collected Tyndall papers.
Myrrh says (March 10, 2012 at 4:52 pm): “Seems Latour has managed to get Spencer to re-think his thought experiment..”
Eh? Myrrh, did you even read the references in your own reference? Dr. Spencer retracted nothing, and even added real-world examples of why LaTour is wrong. I respect(ed) O’Sullivan’s reputation, but he blew that one big time.
“This is really odd, you ask for experimental proof from basic traditional science on this…”
Nope. I’m asking for experimental proof of fringe science, which contradicts “basic traditional science” used by both sides of the CAGW issue.
“..surely you’re the one who should be providing experimental proof?”
Why? I have nothing to gain, nothing to prove. If LaTour, however, gets the results he expects from a real-life version of the “Yes Virginia” experiment, he not only gets a Nobel Prize, but he also gets to say, “Bazinga, Spencer!” I’m absolutely baffled that he hasn’t yet done so.
Myrrh, perhaps you could use your influence to persuade LaTour, Johnson, or Cotton to do the definitive experiment that should consign the IPCC to the dustbin of history? For the children? 🙂
Actually, he would mop the floor with Mann, Jones, Hansen, Suzuki or any other ‘real’ scientist you would care to name. Debaters don’t have to be on the ‘correct’ side of the argument to win the debate.
I have a standard lecture for my engineering students and it is this: “You will not win an argument with a lawyer. If you are so unfortunate as to end up being cross-examined, you should expect to be shredded, no matter how expert you are.” (the point of the lecture being that you should document your work properly) A couple of years ago I pointed out that I would lose any argument on any technical subject with Sarah Palin, no matter how little she knew about the subject.
Personally, I would love to see a smack down between Monckton and Gore or Suzuki. It would be very entertaining. The trouble is that some people would think they had been enlightened. They would be wrong. A debate is not about ‘truth’ or ‘facts’. A debate is about winning the debate.
Brian Johnson at 1.36 am. I wasn’t aware that either Moncktons lecture or this post was about some proof that God exists. Please stick to the topic.
commieBob,
I partially agree. But facts matter very much in scientific debates. Monckton is an expert at using facts to skewer opponents. However, if he didn’t have the facts on his side he would not do nearly as well. He would probably lose as many debates as he won, probably more. If global temperatures were clearly accelerating along with the rise in CO2 that would trump any debating skill.
This recalls the reason that Gavin Schmidt gave for losing his debate with Michael Crichton: Crichton was taller than Schmidt, so the audience voted Crichton the winner. That takes your argument to a ridiculous extreme, I know. But the fact is that alarmist scientists will not debate because they lose all of the debates. Facts enter into that result. After all, these are debates over verifiable scientific facts, not over who is the best American Idol.
I didn’t see Monckton’s security guards. Conservatives like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, and Glenn Beck need bodyguards when they visit American colleges.
Ken Coffman says:
BTW: I’m still patiently waiting for a link to the easily replicable Tyndall experiment that shows radiation overpowering convection to modulate the atmospheric lapse rate. I haven’t seen anything like this in the collected Tyndall papers.
Who said “radiation overpowers convection”? Where do you get such absurd ideas from? Radiation is the precursor to convection, they happen in tandem. Without radiation there would be no heat in the first place. Where the hell do you think our earths surface and the oceans get the vast majority of their energy from?
AnotherPhilC says:
March 10, 2012 at 2:18 pm
“… I must throw out my microwave oven, since it violates the second law of thermodynamics, it being impossible for microwaves from a cold cavity magnetron to make a hot liquid even hotter. Or something.”
Heh. I was hopping mad when I realized I had been conned all these years, too. Microwave ovens must work by post-hypnotic suggestion – the food isn’t really hot, you just think it is.
Or, something.
Dave Dardinger says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:05 pm
‘Unfortunately VOST people confuse the issue, and since CAGW advocates like to attack weak points, also thus weaken the entire skeptic position. I’d like to invite a nice polite collegial discussion, but from a practical POV I have to say, “knock it off!”’
AMEN! If people want to troll that kind of stuff, take it to one of the blogs that freely deal in fringe ideas. This is not my blog, and I cannot speak for Anthony, but seeing WUWT do such an amazing job countering the Warmists on the merits, it wrenches my gut every time I see posters trying to turn this site into another ignorable and inconsequential fringe hangout.
Ken Coffman says:
March 10, 2012 at 3:30 pm
“Have you ever seen a distribution of this “slowing”?”
It is not a permanent slowing. It lasts long enough for the surface temperature to rise, which reestablishes the same rate of cooling.
“What is the average rate of change with and without atmospheric CO2?”
Determining that requires a laboratory setup which holds everything else constant. The Earth’s regulatory system is too complicated to isolate that one relationship planetwide. The feedback effects render the question moot. That is the point that true skeptics are arguing. Insisting that basic physics does not work at all is a non-starter, which will hand victory in the debate to the Warmist side by default.
I should like to thank the many commenters who have been very kind about my lecture at Union College, and to reply to a few specific points that have been raised.
Leigh Kelley asks how Professor Lindzen derives a climate sensitivity one-third of the IPCC’s central estimate from the observation in Wentz et al. (2007) that the observed increase in evaporation from the Earth’s surface per Kelvin of warming is almost 6%, while the models incorrectly predict 1-3%.
Lindzen (2011) reports that Wentz et al. (2007) used space-based observations to measure how evaporation changed with temperature compared with results from models and found that in GCMs, evaporation rose 1-3% for each 1 K warming, while observed evaporation rose approximately three times faster, at 5.7%.
The heat flux associated with the percentage change ΔE/ΔT in evaporation per 1 K surface warming is (0.8 ΔE/ΔT) W m–2 K–1, and λ is in effect the reciprocal of this heat flux, so that (1) gives consequent transient climate sensitivity in Kelvin:
∆T(2x) = ∆F(2x) λ = ∆F(2x) / (0.8 ∆E/∆T). (1)
As a checksum, we can plug the modeled 3%-per-Kelvin (2) and 1%-per-Kelvin (3) increases in evaporation with warming, as well as the observed 5.7% increase (4), into (1) to determine the warming ∆T(2x) at a doubling of CO2 concentration:
∆T(2x) = (5.35 ln 2) λ = 3.71 / (0.8 x 3.0) = 1.6 K. (2)
∆T(2x) = (5.35 ln 2) λ = 3.71 / (0.8 x 1.0) = 4.6 K. (3)
∆T(2x) = (5.35 ln 2) λ = 3.71 / (0.8 x 5.7) = 0.8 K. (4)
Note that the implicit climate-sensitivity interval from the models (2,3) is [1.6, 4.6] K, which broadly coincides with the interval {1.5, 4.5] K in the IPCC’s 2001 report, and differs little from the [2.0, 4.5] K in the 2007 report. Accordingly, (2,3) show that the model offered by Professor Lindzen is well calibrated.
The IPCC’s current multi-model mean central estimate of the warming in response to a doubling of CO2 concentration is 3.3 K (IPCC, 2007, p. 798, box 10.2). However, the climate sensitivity derivable from the observed rate of increase in evaporation (4) is 0.8K, which is little more than one-quarter of the central estimate of climate sensitivity predicted by the models, and is about half of the IPCC’s current least estimate.
Jim R suggests that I might not be willing to debate with “a real scientist”. As Justin Pulliam’s article makes clear, much of the debate at Union College – particularly at the counter-meeting that I attended – was with the professor of environmental sciences, who did not seem to have read the scientific literature or the IPCC’s reports widely or with close attention. There were at least two other professors who took part in the debate, as well as various PhDs. In principle I am indeed willing to debate with “real scientists”. The advantage that the lay policy-maker has over the highly-specialist scientist is that the policy-maker, particularly if he has done his best to read the scientific literature extensively and carefully, may be able to acquire a better overall view of the subject than any specialist who is deeply read in his own specialism but not widely read outside it, though of course the layman will not know anything like as much as the specialist about the narrow field that is the specialist’s specialism.
Another commenter suggests that I should give a TED presentation. I should be happy to do this but I am disinclined to nominate myself. Anyone may nominate a speaker, so if anyone would like to put forward my name please feel free to do so.
CommieBoy says that “debate is not about the truth or the facts: it is about winning the debate.” With respect, I disagree. Debate, properly understood, is an exchange of ideas that will assist in determining the truth, and, when I take part in a debate, as I did at Union College, I do so to try to put across the truth as best I can understand it. As a layman, I am not always right: but, unlike most scientists, politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, academics, environmentalist racketeering groups and global-warming profiteers I have absolutely no financial interest in the global warming question.
At a recent debate at Oxford University, organized by the OU Engineering Society, I gave the undergraduates an argument from process engineering (which you will find in outline in my Union College presentation, and in more detail in my Hartford College lecture) to the effect that the closed-loop temperature-feedback gain in the climate system (i.e., the product of the Planck parameter and the net sum of all unamplified feedbacks) cannot much exceed 0.1, implying at most 1.3 K of warming per CO2 doubling, compared with the IPCC’s central estimate of 3.3 K. The opposing speaker who followed me opened his remarks by saying that was a professor who specialized in lecturing on feedbacks and that he had not understood a word of my argument, implying that it was nonsense. He did not, however, actually address the argument.
In the Union bar afterwards, I asked the Professor how it was that he had not understood my argument. He replied: “I understood it perfectly, but I said I did not understand it because I wanted to win.” In short, he lied. I do not know why it is that so many climate extremists (Gleick, Hansen, Mann, Pachauri etc. come to mind) find it acceptable not to adhere as closely as possible to the truth.
Fortunately, not all are like this. At a debate before the Galway branch of the Law Society of Ireland last month, I deployed the feedback argument and added, for good measure, that the Bode feedback-amplification equation upon which the IPCC relies for two-thirds of its projected warming from CO2 was not the appropriate equation. My opponent, Professor Bates, the author of several papers on feedbacks, not only understood the argument perfectly but agreed with it, and was honest enough to say so publicly.
Finally, I think the moderators are going to have to do something about the tiresome clique that, time and time again, hijack the comment threads at WattsUpWithThat by asserting that there is no such thing as a greenhouse effect, when it has been repeatedly measured both in the laboratory and in the atmosphere, and its physics – even down to the quantum level – are quite well understood. My suggestion is that in future all such comments should be redirected to a separate thread of their own, so as not to interfere tiresomely, tediously and repetitively with the workings of this blog. It is beginning to look as though the soi-disant “dragon-slayers”, who deny the existence of the greenhouse effect, are intent not on rational, scientific debate but on outright sabotage. Roy Spencer’s thoughtful and well-considered explanation of how a colder body adjacent to a warmer body can make that warmer body warmer still is excellent, as is Jack Barrett’s paper explaining the behaviour of greenhouse-gas molecules at the quantum level when they interact with long-wave radiation at their characteristic absorption wavelengths (their “absorption bands”). Professor Christopher Essex offers an excellent analogy: when outgoing radiation at the right wavelength meets a greenhouse-gas molecule, it switches it on as though the molecule were a tiny radiator. There is plenty of doubt about how much additional warming our enhancement of the greenhouse effect may cause, but there is no legitimate doubt about the fact of the greenhouse effect. Perhaps the moderators could establish a Dunces’ Corner where those who deny two centuries of established scientific results in a baseless, unscientific and often loutishly bellicose manner can still have their say without interfering with those of us who would like to engage in courteous, scientific discussions.
John from CA says:
March 10, 2012 at 2:22 pm
“Excellent point about transmission but his approach is point of use.”
Yes, but, there are always transmission losses. I recognize that losses due to power line impedance may be small for a localized setup like this, but I’m also talking about other losses, e.g., in liberating, transporting and storing the hydrogen. I have to recall from memory what he said because I do not want to watch the whole video again right now, but it seems they have discovered some substance which naturally separates hydrogen and oxygen in water using sunlight with frankly astounding efficiency? What are the limits to the reaction? Surely, it is exothermic? What effect does temperature have on the rate of reaction? Is a thermal control system thereby necessary, which would impact the efficiency? Does the substance break down over time? What is the life cycle? Does it degrade the vessel in which it is contained, and what is the maintenance schedule for that?
These are just some of the questions that pop to the top of my head. I’m sure I would think of others given time. On such seemingly nit-picky details, great ideas of the past have floundered.
Such astounding efficiency gains would be a game changer. But, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I will have to see it happen with my own eyes before I believe it.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
March 10, 2012 at 7:48 pm
…”the Bode feedback-amplification equation upon which the IPCC relies for two-thirds of its projected warming from CO2 was not the appropriate equation.”
I would very much like to see that argument. Can you direct me to a link where it is discussed?
BTW, I also would like to express my sincere gratitude for your efforts.
I’d also like to know how I can make Greek letters appear like that. Can I cut and paste from the character map? This is a test: D. No, I can already see that failed. Maybe \Delta (backslash=Delta)? Maybe (lt-greek-gt)D(lt-backslash-greek-gt) D?
Will have to post to see.
I would love to be a fly on the wall in that environmental professor’s next class.
Sounds like a great debate, but where does the “Greens too yellow to admit they’re really Reds” bit come from?
I would be a bit surprised if it comes from Monckton, since it was his former boss, Margaret Thatcher, who peddled the Global Warming theory as a weapon to destroy the miner’s unions and the coal mines.
Bart,
You can find what you need here.
Myrrh says:
March 10, 2012 at 4:52 pm
.surely you’re the one who should be providing experimental proof?
______________________________
Exactly, Myrrh. If the IPCC wanted to attribute a warming property to radiation from a cooler atmosphere, then they should have proved its warming effect. I certainly can’t detect any warming in my backyard experiments, and nor would I expect to.
Prof Claes Johnson has now read my Radiated Energy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics prior to publication and has commented “Doug Cotton is one of the few people who have read and understood my analysis of blackbody radiation and radiative heat transfer and I fully endorse his essay.”
The fact that he said this is a sad reflection on the climate science community – demonstrating their reluctance to approach any contrary view with an open mind.
it’s not all that hard really, Radiation does not cause thermal energy to transfer from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface. All it can do is slow the radiative component of cooling. (Carbon dioxide molecules are not as effective as water vapour molecules in doing this because of their limited range of frequencies). However, evaporation and diffusion play just as great a part as radiation, and these processes can compensate for any slowing of the radiative cooling. All this is explained in detail (in about 6,600 word)s available on line on Tuesday this week.
Brian Johnson uk says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:36 am
Where is Lord Monckton’s ‘Proof’ that there is a Creator?
Is that Scientific Faith or Scientific Proof?
To Brian:
Are you able to comprehend an eternal / infinite universe? If so, why are you not able to comprehend an eternal Creator?
Brian, All science is God breathed.
Bob Diaz says:
“Currently 20 years of data shows that the feedback to be around “0.5″ and not “3.0″ as suggested by the alarmists. One can make a case that in the long term we may see a greater rise, BUT until the data appears showing that, it’s just wishful thinking.”
20 years of data suggests nothing. It could just as well be an effect of natural warming. How does one distinguish natural from anthropogenic warming?
Thanks, Smokey!
[+emphasis]
..and I suspect that Lord Monckton could do it with “half his brain” figuratively tied behind his back.
Many thanks to Lord M., Justin Pulliam, and Anthony for an excellent and very readable post.
Dear Lord Monckton.
I do hope you realize that the Age of Reason was a Lutherial Protestant movement, and not a Catholic one.
.
In that there has been discussion of Christianity on this thread, let me just add that those who understand what Christianity is all about are very much aware of the fact that we have a relationship and communication channel with our Creator, through our living Saviour, Jesus Christ.
We are not in any way following a “religious” dogma. Nor are we earning our way to Heaven by doing good deeds, or failing to do bad ones. Heaven is a free gift, but, according to the words of God’s Son, is not for those who reject what Jesus taught and claimed about Himself. They stand condemned already – John 3:18.
All through the ages God has revealed Himself and communicated with humans. There could be no other process that could have explained how about 300 prophecies in the Old Testament came true in the New Testament hundreds of years later. (See Josh McDowell Evidence that Demands a Verdict.) I say that because we believe God can control whatever He wishes, including climate. He knows the future, because He plans it. He clearly controlled all the events that led up to the sacrificial death of His Son – paying the price for our sin. Even if you explain the darkness that came over the Earth when Christ was on the cross as being due to an eclipse of the Sun, God knew such was coming and planned the whole life of Jesus on Earth with perfect timing.
It does not seem surprising to myself that a number of noteworthy scientists have perhaps received information from their Creator about His Creation.
Maurizio Morabito (omnologos) says:
“One thing I’d change is, it is meaningless to talk of quadrillions. It’s a number beyond comprehension… For example a single quadrillion $ is equivalent to spending 10 million $ EVERY DAY for 270,000 YEARS, that is longer than the lifespan so far of our own species.”
For God’s sake, man, don’t say that where Obama can hear you; he’ll probably take it as a dare.
Lord Monckton
As you have noted for each 1 K warming … observed evaporation rose approximately … 5.7%. This relates to the point I make when I say that evaporation (and diffusion) will compensate for any slowing of the radiative component of cooling. The only effect that radiation from a cooler atmosphere can have on the surface is to slow down the rate of thermal energy transferred by radiation to the atmosphere. But, when it does so it leaves the surface temporarily warmer and so evaporation increases, as does diffusion which is followed by convection. These processes will compensate so there is no net effect from the backradiation. Radiation from a cooler atmosphere cannot transfer thermal energy to a warmer surface.
Prof Claes Johnson (see Computational Blackbody Radiation) and I are in total agreement as to the reason being that blackbodies do not convert the energy in radiation that was emitted spontaneously by a cooler source than their own temperature.
Note in passing, however, that backradiation sent to space when solar IR is absorbed does have a cooling effect, and carbon dioxide contributes to this, even though water vapour is the main player.
You need to stop accepting all the hoax about sensitivity. The figures like 255K are wrong, because that is not calculated by integration over 24 hours, taking into account rates of conduction into and out of the surface and many other factors. As you note ,even if the correct figure could be calculated, it would be a weighted mean for the whole earth-plus-atmosphere system. But it is the adiabatic lapse rate (itself a function of the acceleration due to gravity) that determines the surface temperature, along with the long-established temperature gradient from the core to the surface which has established a stable approximate equilibrium point at the interface of the surface and atmosphere over the life of the Earth..
It has nothing whatsoever to do with backradiation, because as I explained above, such can have no net effect.
Doug Cotton says: March 10, 2012 at 10:52 pm
It does not seem surprising to myself that a number of noteworthy scientists have perhaps received information from their Creator about His Creation.
——————————————————————————-
Indeed. Only last year I had a long chat with god, and he said that since he was an incredibly intelligent being he appreciated humans who were similarly intelligent, inquiring and rational, and was deeply saddened by those who merely followed their emotions without any evidence.
In fact, it became abundantly clear by the end of our conversation that god’s chosen people, who would inherit the Earth, were in fact the atheists.
.
Smokey and Monckton,
The first thing I learned about debate was the following:
By dint of superior lawyering, I have often seen the guilty exonerated and the innocent convicted. Debate, as a method of establishing the truth, has its limitations.
WOW! I have been waiting over 20 years for this. I have called these warmists ; Mentally deficient . That has been confirmed by Dr. Mairwen Jones of Sydney Universirty . The conclusion of their study, is that 30% of warmist followers have AGWOCD. Anthropogenic global warming obsessive compulsive disorder .
Please ! please ! Tell our New Zealand politicians to revoke the evil carbon tax legislation .
Dave Dardinger says:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/10/moncktons-schenectady-showdown/#comment-918859
Henry@Dave/Myrrh/Doug/Will etc
Dave is basically correct. The only thing I noticed is that the re-radiative properties of the GHG’s in the 0-5 um range have been largely ignored. If you mention such things as the fact that CO2 also causes direct cooling (by re-radiation of sunlight) you get answers like:
“we already counted that in earth’s albedo”, or: “we already discounted that in the incoming SW.”
Which is nonsense of course…. You have to come with a balance sheet on each GHG. It has also been said by someone that the warming effect of GHG’s is largely a delay in cooling, which is correct. For example, look at the absorption of ozone at around 10-11 um? It makes a dent in earth’s out-going radiation at 10-11. In other words what happens: Radiation from earth of 10-11 goes up, hits on the ozone, which is high up in the sky and which is already absorbed to capacity (because earth emits in the region 5-20 for 24 hours per day) , and therefore a great percentage (at least 50%, probably more) of that 10-11 is re-radiated back to earth, leading to entrapment of heat, or rather to a delay in cooling, leading to a warming effect. On the other hand, nobody in his right mind is going to bring an argument that we must reduce the ozone content, because on its own the ozone shields us from ca. 15-20 of incoming sunlight by re-radiating (deflection) in the UV region.
I found that it is the same like that with every GHG. There is positive and negative and nobody has compiled an exact balance sheet of each GHG.
I have written a piece on this that I think we can later call
“Back radiation CO2 – 101”
for those interested in the basics.
I am inviting comments on this piece from all of you, especially from you, Dave & Doug
to tell me if you think that the information I give there is correct, and/or if you can propose any changes?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Let me know.
Doug Cotton says (March 10, 2012 at 10:52 pm): “It does not seem surprising to myself that a number of noteworthy scientists have perhaps received information from their Creator about His Creation.”
I’m guessing Peter Gleick thinks he’s one of them. 🙂
Doug Cotton says:
March 10, 2012 at 10:52 pm
“I say that because we believe God can control whatever He wishes, including climate.”
If you believe that, and you further believe that the climate will be OK simply because God will take care of it, then you have violated a commandment:
From Matthew 4:1-11
God will not save you if you do something stupid. God will not be a slave to you so that you may do whatever you wish without consequence.
So, how about getting with the program, and helping decide whether A) Global Warming, putatively from our burning of fossil fuels, is or is not a problem and B) what, if anything, should be done about it. And, weigh the evidence without the presumption that you must have nothing to fear because God will bail us out in the end. He has made no such promise. Indeed, He has warned against such presumption.
[All – please note blog policy
“Certain topics are not welcome here and comments concerning them will be deleted. This includes topics on religion,…”
Please steer this away from any further discussion in this vein or comments will be snipped ~jove, Moderator]