About that graph…

This one:

The title “Battle of the Graphs” certainly lives on, even though it is approaching a decade in age, as there has been a lot of off-topic contention on this WUWT thread as well as a free-for-all bashing over at the “Stoat” a.k.a. William Connolley (who “takes science by the throat”, implying he is some sort of “tough guy”) saying that this graph that appeared in a Telegraph article was erroneous and created by Christopher Monckton.

Based on the simplest available evidence, I was ready to conclude, as were many, that indeed Monckton had created the graph, that it was in error, and that he had refused to admit to any of this. I was ready to censure him myself, just as the over-the-top Stoaters wanted to do, probably so Connolley could direct a new denigrating Wikipedia entry as he is known to do (he’s not allowed to edit Wikipedia pages of living persons anymore, so he directs by proxy). Now, after further investigation I can tell you I was wrong, and so is Connolley.

If Monckton was wrong I certainly would’ve had no trouble pointing this out just as the Stoaters were doing, but I have one advantage that neither Monckton nor the Stoaters have: I have actually worked at a newspaper and I have submitted articles as a guest author to newspapers. So, I am familiar with the artwork process. Further, I have also published a number of articles from Monckton myself here and I am quite familiar with his style of producing graphs.

Thus, I noticed something about the Telegraph article that no one else seemed to.

WUWT commenter Kevin O’Neill, who also frequents Connolley’s website pointed out in this comment the charges against Monckton.

First let’s have a look at the article itself. The URL for it is:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533290/Climate-chaos-Dont-believe-it.html

A screencap of the heading portion is shown below with the highlight done by me in yellow.

Unfortunately the link under the yellow highlight no longer works and so for some it is impossible to check Monckton’s references and calculations that were included with the essay. We’ll get back to that in a moment, please read on.

Here is how the article presented the graph that is in contention, I have screen captured a portion of the original Telegraph article:

Several things immediately struck me as being out of place when I first saw the graph after reading about the contention surrounding it, here is a list.

The style (colors, font, etc) is not anything like I’ve ever seen from Monckton in all the graphs he has submitted to WUWT.
The horizontal lines on the bottom portion of the graph are ~~obviously spaced incorrectly~~ (the 20th century average line looks like it is incorrect on left axis) along with other cues in the plot line indicating to me that they were hand-drawn yet I’ve never gotten the graph from Monckton that was hand-drawn. Everything he has ever sent me has always been from a computer program output, thus the idea of having ~~improperly spaced lines and coordinates~~ a hand drawn plot didn’t make sense to me.
My experience with newspapers told me that this was likely a graph that was prepared by the art department of the UK Telegraph. You see, all major newspapers and even some middle and minor ones have an art department. And, when they get some sort of illustration from a guest author, or data from a government report, they almost always redraw it to fit the style and format of the newspaper. Especially the colors and the fonts.

Just look at any major newspaper in the United States like USA Today when they get in data from say, the Labor Department, they produce their own graphs of that data. They can also make grievous mistakes with such data in the way it is presented such as this article from Charles Apple (who watches newspapers and the graphics and photos they produce) demonstrates:

Obviously, neither the editor nor the artist saw the sexual suggestion in the imagery. I don’t blame the NWS or the Red Cross who provided the data, I blame Doyle Rice and Julie Snider. Note the references at the bottom of the graphic.

Here, USA Today took data from the National Weather Service and the American Red Cross and turned it into what is obviously a ridiculous graphic. It got past the editor, and made it into the final publication.

I noted such references to internal artists, editors, and sources were missing from the UK Telegraph article as seen in the screen cap further above, and it is this omission that I believe led many people to conclude that Monckton produced that graphic.

If you examine other graphics from the UK Telegraph, you will find that they do have such references but they are also similarly designed and of a similar size with similar fonts and colors. For example, look at this graphic from 2005 that has been redrawn, but no mention given of an internal reference to The Telegraph art department:

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4198339/Global-warming-will-bring-cooler-climate-for-UK.html

It is plainly obvious that is a graphic created by the newspaper and not by any scientific entity, otherwise it wouldn’t have the jagged shadow edges. So, the question surrounding the graph allegedly produced by Christopher Monckton is; did he included in the original list of references that he provided the Telegraph in that now missing link at the top of the original article? I’m happy to say I have found that original source file that Monckton provided to the Telegraph. It was lodged in the Wayback machine. I was able to find it simply by putting in the correct URL of the original Telegraph article as shown below:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090301000000*/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533290/Climate-chaos-Dont-believe-it.html

When you pull up the archive from 2009, the link appears for the PDF file of Monckton’s references but unfortunately it gives a 404 as seen below:

Oddly though if you click on the LEFT MOST vertical lines (circa 2007/2008) in the timeline above, the PDF will actually download, and that is what I did. For those of you that would doubt this you can go here and try it yourself:

Click to access warm-refs.pdf

And for posterity, here is a local link to the PDF of the References Monckton provided for the Telegraph article in 2006: warm-refs

If you open that PDF file you will notice a number of graphs and references including the graph from IPCC section 7 graph C. McIntyre speaks of its source here.

But no trace of the exact artwork combination as presented above appears in the Telegraph article is in Monckton’s reference PDF file, clearly indicating that the telegraph art department redrew that 1990 IPCC graph and the hockey stick graph, changing the top-bottom order. Below is page 6 from Monckton’s “warm-refs” PDF file, showing those graphs:

While I was ready to condemn Monckton for producing a sloppy graph like many of these Stoaters, it is now abundantly clear to me that he did not draw it and the claims by these people are erroneous and simply mendacious.

Stoat/Connelley is simply flat wrong, and the website that cited Monckton’s graphic as an example of what not to do needs to clarify that it was the newspaper that made the errors, that the source graphs came from the IPCC, and that Monckton drew none of them.

All this breastbeating over something that can be simply researched as I have done is just a waste of everyone’s time.

Monckton prepared a rebuttal as well which I present below.

=================================================================

There comes a point …

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Those of us who have raised questions about the magnitude of Man’s influence on climate have become used to the expensively funded, often carefully co-ordinated campaigns of personal vilification organized by adherents of the Climatist Party Line. Occasionally we growl a little. More often we refuse to be distracted. We carry on.

The purpose of these relentless attacks on us is not only to do us down but also to frighten off third parties who might otherwise find the courage to speak out and express their own doubts about the Party Line.

But there comes a point when it is necessary to take action. I hope no one will disagree that that point is reached when allegations of lying or fabrication are made; when the allegations are unquestionably false; when they are persisted in despite requests to cease and desist; and when they are widely disseminated in a manner calculated baselessly to cause maximum reputational damage.

Recently a commenter at Jo Nova’s blog posted several comments to the effect that I had “faked” a graph. I quickly asked Jo to replace them with a note to say legal proceedings were in train. Enough, I had decided, was enough.

Here is the diagram I was supposed to have “faked”:

This surely blameless diagram appeared alongside an article I had written for the Sunday Telegraph on 5 November 2006, the first time I ever went public on the climate question. The article went live on the internet at midnight on a Saturday night. Two hours later the Telegraph’s website crashed, for 127,000 people had tried to access the article.

Now, it is not the custom of UK newspapers to ask their contributors to illustrate their articles. As usual, I was not consulted and offered no advice on the matter, and had no hand in their production and no foreknowledge that they were to be used. The graphs are not labeled as having been sourced from the IPCC (indeed, one of the graphs has the shadow of a hockey stick overlaid on it and marked as the “IPCC ‘hockey stick’”, making it blindingly obvious that it is not an official IPCC’s graph).

The Telegraph’s graphs are simple and, it seems to me, harmless schematics illustrating the difference between the representations of 1000 years’ global temperatures as they appeared in the IPCC’s 2001 (top) and 1990 (bottom) reports.

The graph from p. 202 of the IPCC’s 1990 report now looks like this:

With the article I supplied some background material for Telegraph readers on its website. In that material, the IPCC’s 1990 graph also appeared, mistakenly captioned as 1996 rather than 1990. The graph as I reproduced it looked like this:

What I had not realized until very recently was that for several years allegations had been circulated all over the place to the effect that I had fabricated the graphs that had appeared in the Sunday Telegraph article. Yet not one of those who had made these allegations had ever contacted me to verify the facts. And not one of them had said what was wrong with the Telegraph’s graphs anyway.

Perhaps the worst of the many allegations of dishonesty against me appeared on a “science education” website, where an entire section under the bold heading “Misuse of scientific images” was devoted to the Telegraph’s graphs.

The offending section contained the following untruths:

Ø that in that article I had “disputed the concept of climate change” (Not that old chestnut again! I had accepted the concept but queried its likely magnitude);
Ø that the Telegraph’s graphs were instances of “poor use of graphical displays” that “can confuse and obscure data” (No, they neatly showed the main point: in 1990 the medieval warm period and little ice age were shown clearly, but by 2001 both had gone, and a sharp uptick in the 20^th century had been added);
Ø that I had “created the [1990] graph on the bottom using different calculations that did not take into account all of the variables that climate scientists used to create the top graph” (No, I had not created either graph or done any calculations for such a graph);
Ø that I had deployed “common techniques used to distort visual forms of data – manipulating axes, changing one of the variables in a comparison, changing calculations without full explanation – that can obscure a true comparison” (No, none of the above); and
Ø that the article had been published in the Daily Telegraph (No, the Sunday Telegraph, and that suggests the website had never seen the original article but had picked up the libel from somewhere else).

I only discovered that this spectacularly inaccurate and profoundly damaging infestation of allegations when the commenter at Jo Nova’s site who had accused me of “faking” the graph mentioned on his own blog that I had not objected to the libel as it appeared on the science-education website. I had not objected because I had not known about it. No one at that website had thought to check any of the facts with me, or, as far as one can tell, with anyone else.

In short order a letter before action was sent to the website, which promptly did the right thing and took out the entire section, though there are indications that attempts are being made in some quarters – unsuccessfully so far – to get them to put it back up again.

I gave the commenter at Jo Nova’s website who had accused me of “faking” the graphs several chances to retract and apologize. Instead, he and several others sneeringly doubled down by accusing me of “lying” when I had said the graphs at the Telegraph website had not purported to be, and had not been labeled as, IPCC graphs.

They also alleged that the graph in my background materials accompanying the Telegraph article was “not the same graph” as that from the IPCC’s 1990 report: in effect, that I had “faked” that one as well. Judge that for yourselves from the two monochrome versions of the graph above. There seem to me to be no material differences, and I think it would be hard for the defendants to convince a court that there were any.

So I am going to court. My lawyers say the libels are plain and indefensible. They comment additionally that no judge would regard the schematics in the Telegraph (whoever had drawn them) as significantly misrepresenting the difference between the 1990 and 2001 reports’ images of the past millennium’s global temperature anomalies. As far as they can see, there is not a lot wrong with the graphs in any event.

I have told this story not only because some commenters here have been unwise enough to repeat in threads here the allegations they have made elsewhere but also because I thought it might be time to reveal the steps we have to take on an almost weekly basis to try to stem the tide of false allegations directed at us.

Nor am I by any means the only victim. For years, this shadowy Propagandaamt has been tampering with Fred Singer’s Wikipedia page to allege that he believes in Martians.

Niklas Mörner, the sea-level expert, has had his page got at on the ground that he sometimes dowses for water or other underground treasure. My late father once did that for the Maltese Government, and found three lost Punic tombs and a fine marble head of Seneca from the first century AD. My drawing of it (in the day before digital cameras) is probably still to be found somewhere in the Museum of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge. But I never had the knack for dowsing myself.

A pressure-group founded and funded by Prince Charles is prone to intervene to try (unsuccessfully, the last time they tried it on me) to prevent the publication of skeptical scientific papers in British learned journals.

A team of paid hacks telephones the Chancellor and the Dean of the Faculty at every university at which skeptics are invited to speak. About half the time, they succeed in getting us disinvited.

Journal editors are sacked for printing papers by skeptics.

However much one might hope that scientific discourse can be conducted in an open atmosphere of sensible dialog, the truth is that on the climate it can’t, because the extremists won’t play fair. The Politburo are determined to keep the scare going for just a little longer, till they can get the Treaty of Paris safely signed by all nations in December 2015.

So I am going to court to defend myself and, in so doing against the constant barrage of falsehoods told in support of the Party Line. We went to court against Al Gore because his movie was poisonous political propaganda dressed up as science.

We won. Nothing else but a court case would have worked. It was only when the department of education in London were confronted with 80 pages of scientific testimony, and knew that that testimony would stand up in court against all their falsehoods and evasions, that they caved in and settled, paying $400,000 to the plaintiffs and undertaking to circulate 77 pages of corrective guidance to every school in England.

In the present case, the other side has blinked thrice. On the website of my defamer, there is a nervous little note that he will not give me his name and address unless I answer various impertinent questions of his. The court will have no patience with any nonsense of that sort.

And there are now various postings at the same blog, again rather nervous, saying that perhaps they could plead that I don’t have a reputation and they can accuse me of whatever they like.

They will be unwise to take that line. For if they say I have no reputation they have to be able to come up with evidence that any material detrimental to my reputation on which they may try to rely is true. And most of it is no more accurate than their accusations that I “faked” a graph that I had plainly not faked. If they waste the court’s time with point after point that has nothing to do with the case at hand, they will merely aggravate the damages they will have to pay.

Finally, the perp has been unwise enough to admit that at the time when he made his allegation of “fakery” he did not know whether I had “faked” the graph or not. In the courts, to make a damaging and untrue allegation not knowing whether or not it is true is as culpable as making it when one knows it is not true. And there is no defense once that admission has been made. It has been made.

There is a curious and touching notion among some skeptics that, since the truth will of course prevail in the end, we should persevere with the scientific argument but not take the defamers and the scamsters to court. The feeling is that using the courts somehow isn’t cricket.

Sometimes, though, it’s necessary to play hardball. Being Valiant for Truth is not for wimps.

================================================================

UPDATE:

From comments, Steve McIntyre finds another version of the Lamb/IPCC AR1 1990 graph, which looks to me to be much closer to the graph used in the Telegraph article. This graph does NOT appear in Monkton’s PDF.

He writes in a comment:

The lower panel of the Telegraph diagram appears to have derived from (what appears to be) a variation of the Lamb graphic, a variation that I had not noticed until now. The variation appears in the following blog posts (and visually matches almost exactly):

http://drtimball.com/2011/they-are-still-trying-to-rewrite-climate-to-show-current-conditions-are-abnormal/

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.ca/2009/12/from-mann-paper-in-nature.html

Neither blog post provides a citation for the figure, but there are clues that should enable its exact provenance to be tracked down fairly quickly. It appears to be from a book about European climate and have been developed by Lamb. It is unclear why the Telegraph would have used this variation instead of the IPCC 1990 variation, but doubtless we will find out in due course.

UPDATE2:

Nick Stokes adds in comments (bold mine):

There is a version of that graph at the John Daly site here. The article does not seem to be dated, but Daly is indicated as the author, which would make it 2004 or earlier. No source given.

Here is the graph from John Daly’s website, listed as figure 4:

And here is the Metadata, dating the creation of it precisely to Feb 10, 2004, two years before Monckton’s article in the Telegraph.

(right click on image at Daly’s website here to verify yourself)

Nick Stokes adds in a second comment:

Steve McIntyre says: July 3, 2014 at 12:12 pm

“The lower panel of the Telegraph diagram appears to have derived from (what appears to be) a variation of the Lamb graphic, a variation that I had not noticed until now.”

Here, on the Wayback machine, is a version from 2001 on the John Daly site.

And the screencap:

Since Daly’s graph is a near perfect match for the one in the Telegraph, and appears as far back as April 21, 2001, and Monckton did not provide it in his PDF to the Telegraph, I’d say “case closed”.

UPDATE3:

There is some whingeing from Kevin O’Neill in comments that Figure 7.1c from IPCC AR1 WG1 chapter 7 (available here: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_07.pdf ) was not “faithfully” reproduced in my article, even though I made a reference to a technical discussion at Climate Audit on that specific graph and the exact figure appears no less than 3 times in the essay split between my own and Monckton’s

If you open that PDF file you will notice a number of graphs and references including the graph from IPCC section 7 graph C. McIntyre speaks of its source here.

To satisfy such whingeing, here is the exact page from IPCC AR1 WG1 chapter 7, followed by a magnified view of figure 7.1 (including graphs A,B, and C) in case Mr. O’Neill wants to claim “a magnified version is needed for readers with poor eyesight” as part of his game. I challenge him and readers to find any material difference between the graphs below taken directly from the IPCC WG1 Chapter 7 page 202 and those in the essay.

Magnified figure 7.1abc:

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J Murphy

July 6, 2014 3:34 am

dbstealey, you wrote :
—“1) That is one item, which is merely a difference of opinion. Only the monarch can make a definitive ruling on the matter. Differences of opinion cannot be arbitrarily classified as “being economical with the truth” [AKA: lying].”
It isn’t a difference of opinion – the statement given in the letter is issued on behalf of the monarch (or, in the modern sense, actually Parliament or the Government) and legal action could follow if Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley were to make such a claim in future. The particular reasons are given in Mereworth v Ministry of Justice, [2011] EWHC 1589 (Ch); [2011] WLR (D) 217 (http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2011/1589.html&query=mereworth&method=boolean#disp3).
Also, the monarch doesn’t make “definitive rulings” – the monarch ‘assents’ to the wishes of Parliament.
Certainly not a “difference of opinion”!

Scott Wilmot Bennett

July 6, 2014 4:13 am

I don’t buy into the silly arguments concerning the provenance of
the “IPCC” MWP graph provided by Christopher Monckton in the Telegraph reference materials.
It is clear enough to the eye, that they are identical graphs (Only the labels differ).
When overlaid they are a perfect match, so much so, that it is clear they are from the same source.
What I want to point out particularly, is that both carry a transcription error that has been transposed to both images. This points unequivocally to a common source for the graphs and the error.
The error is in the horizontal axis. It contains a non-linear distortion which cause the spacing between years to be uneven. It can’t be corrected with a simple transform and would be time consuming to duplicate not to mention pointless.
This kind of distortion commonly occurs when a physical document is scanned. Any warping of the paper will be replicated in the copy.
I downloaded both graphs, from the IPCC’s website and the Telegraph.
Both images contain the identical non-linear error that is apparent when the time line of each is laid against itself.
I have linked to an animated gif that illustrates the points made above:
http://tinypic.com/r/30sy7x3/8

Phil Clarke

July 6, 2014 4:58 am

Lord Monckton’s mendacity generally takes these forms:
1. Cherry-picking studies and data that support his case, while misrepresenting or ignoring contrary evidence.
2. Getting the science wrong and repeating the erroneous science even after it has been shown to be so, often at a louder volume. Nothing wrong with making errors, but Monckton’s response when his are pointed out generally consists of a bluster-filled but vacuous rebuttal, perhaps with a bullying threat of legal action – almost never followed through – while he carries on with the same false claims at a higher volume.
3. Misrepresenting science and scientists. One frequently follows one of his references given to support a point to find the science and usually the scientists says something else altogether.
4. Mis-stating or overstating the facts.
Examples of (1)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/moncktons-artful-graph/
At this very website, (where siting and equipment issues are highlighted, hah) Monckton uses the Central England Temperature series to try to indicate a (cherry-picked) period starting from before the mercury-in-glass thermometer was even invented had a faster rising temperature than recent decades, even after I’ve pointed out that the data points were rounded to the nearest 0.5C, making such a calculation meaningless.
Examples of 2 would be Monckton’s paper published on the APS website, (which he falsely claimed was a peer-reviewed article, which annoyed the physicists) the 125 errors of fact were documented here:
http://www.altenergyaction.org/Monckton.html
Or the response of a group of climate scientists to Monckton’s testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton-response.pdf
Or the ‘rap sheet’ compiled by Barry Bickermore
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/lord-moncktons-rap-sheet/
Or Skeptical Science’s ‘Monckton Myths’
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton_Myths_arg.htm
Examples of (3) are collated here http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Monckton_vs_Scientists.pdf
For example, Monckton frequently cited the work on atmospheric radiation of Dr Rachel Pinker (amusingly getting the scientist’s gender wrong). [Reply: As you amusingly spell Lord Monckton’s name wrong below. ~ mod.]
Monkton: “What, then, caused the third period of warming? Most of that third and most recent period of rapid warming fell within the satellite era, and the satellites confirmed measurements from ground stations showing a considerable, and naturally-occurring, global brightening from 1983-2001 (Pinker et al., 2005).”
Dr Pinker responded “This statement in effect equates temperature change with surface solar radiation change which, as noted in points 2 and 3 above, is only one input into a complex climate process. Also, it is not necessarily the case that global brightening is naturally-occurring; it can be caused by anthropogenic aerosols or changes in the atmospheric moisture content as well as clouds, possibly affected by increasing CO2 levels.”
In the Telegraph piece that carried the controversial graphs, Monckton wrote:
“Sami Solanki, a solar physicist, says that in the past half-century the sun has been warmer, for longer, than at any time in at least the past 11,400 years, contributing a base forcing equivalent to a quarter of the past century’s warming. That’s before adding climate feedbacks.”
But oddly omitted Solanki’s complete scientific opinion: “I am not a denier of global warming produced by an increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases. Already at present the overwhelming source of global warming is due to manmade greenhouse gases and their influence will continue to grow in the future as their concentration increases”
http://www2.mps.mpg.de/homes/solanki/
Examples of 4 would be a fabrication to sell merchandise:
A SCOTTISH aristocrat who claimed he was forced to sell his ancestral pile after losing a fortune on a $1 million puzzle has admitted that he invented the story to boost sales.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/aristocrat-admits-tale-of-lost-home-was-stunt-to-boost-puzzle-sales-1-679237
Lying about his words at the gate-crashed Copenhagen conference…
“It was not I who called them Hitler Youth. It was three Germans and a Dane in the audience”
Not according to the video, sir 1.26. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZw8yF5alkM
Or recently here, claiming he ‘won’ the UK High Court case against the distribution of Nobel prize winner Al Gore’s OScar-winning documentary to UK schools. The case was an attempt by Stewart Dimmock, a school governor, to get a Court order for the film to be banned, so the only reasonable interpretation of ‘winning’ would be if such an order was made. The Judge decided not to make any such order and in fact described the film as ‘substantially founded upon scientific research and fact’ and ruled that ‘Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate’. The film is thus ruled fit and remains available for educational use, with some changes to the Teachers notes detailing differences between the films interpretation and mainstream scientific opinion.
Dimmock was ordered to pay a third of his costs, about £60K. If that is a ‘win’, what does losing look like?
Then there is his development of a wonder-drug, which will cure anything from AIDS to the common cold …..
That’s just a few examples of His Lordship failing to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. Follow the links to discover many, many many more.
Will you have the courage to post this, or will it disappear like my previous completely polite and completely factual corrections to His Lordship’s wrong assertions?

Margaret Hardman

July 6, 2014 6:42 am

dbstealey, as you well know, having had it pointed out a number of time, the issue of Monckton not being a member of the House Of Lords is not a matter of opinion and is not something that any of our earnest twittering about will change. Parliament has decided, its officer has made an instruction and, under our constitution such as it stands, there is a definitive ruling. Monckton is not a member of the House of Lords, period.
As for a lengthy list of examples – I didn’t take long to Google a lengthy list last night. Since you are too impatient to wait for me to put my list into order, perhaps you would like to Google your own. I shall take my time ensuring that my list is correct.
By the way, since you like to put words into my mouth, I stand by my science and am not in the least bit worried about my credibility, especially not on the world’s most popular climate science website (TM).

richardscourtney

July 6, 2014 7:31 am

Margaret Hardman:
I am astonished that you conclude your post at July 6, 2014 at 1:45 am with the falsehood that I am “plain wrong”. Your egregious post says in total

The 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is not now, now has he ever been, a member of the House of Lords. http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-monckton/. That much is plain and simple and stated in my link.
That his lordship has said words to the contrary is also beyond doubt. That he stood for election to the House in 2007 is also beyond doubt. I haven’t had breakfast yet so I might still have time for some impossible beliefs but this cannt be one of them. So, Richard, you are plain wrong.

As I have repeatedly stated, being a Member of the House of Lords (HoL) is NOT the same as being a Sitting Member of the HoL. Only Sitting Members can speak in the Chamber and can vote on matters there discussed. Viscount Monckton is a Member of the HoL and he says he is.
A Member of the HoL can stand in an election to become a Sitting Member of the HoL. I cannot and you cannot because we are not Members of the HoL. But Viscount Monckton of Brenchley can stand in an election to become a Sitting Member because he is a Member of the HoL and – as you admit – in 2007 he did stand for such election without objection to his standing.
You are smearing and – despite the trolling of J Murphy – the opinion of some flunky changes none of this because only the monarch can change it.
Simply, nothing I wrote on this is “plain wrong” and nothing you have written about this is right.
Richard

richardscourtney

July 6, 2014 7:49 am

J Murphy:
In your post at July 6, 2014 at 3:34 am you assert

Also, the monarch doesn’t make “definitive rulings” – the monarch ‘assents’ to the wishes of Parliament.

Your assertion is absolutely and emphatically not true.
The monarch provides Letters Patent which provide peerages and only the monarch can revoke Letters Patent. HM Government – or any subject of the Crown – can petition the monarch about a peerage but the monarch has no responsibility or precedent which requires the monarch to agree to the petition.
A peerage differs from other awards (e.g. knighthoods) in that a peerage provides Membership of the House of Lords (HoL). A Member of the HoL has a right to stand in elections for appointment to become a Sitting Member of the HoL. Sitting Members have voting rights in the HoL – including entitlement to vote in these HoL elections – but Members don’t have such voting rights.
Richard

Jonathan Abbott

July 6, 2014 8:32 am

richardscourtney:
I am utterly bewildered by your attacks on me. My first post said:
“Only someone entirely ignorant of the British system of peerages would think that holding the title ‘Lord’ is evident of a claim to be a sitting member of the House of Lords. They are two different things.”
The point I was making is that I have seen a number of comments on previous threads assert that Viscount Monckton is not a real ‘Lord’ because he is not a voting member of the House of Lords, and his claim to be a member of the peerage is somehow fake. I was trying to head that off, I was not commenting on Lord Monckton’s claims to be a ‘non-voting’ member of the HoL, which is not a topic that interests me. I note J Murphy has posted up some links but I assume Lord Monckton has reasons of his own for his claim; neither side interests me. I only meant to pre-empt any refutations of his claim to the honorific ‘Lord’.
In my second comment I said:
“J Murphy, regardless of what Viscount Monckton may or may not have said (it doesn’t interest me and I can’t be bothered to check), since the House of Lords was reformed a few years ago there are plenty of Britons who are members of the peerage who do not sit in the house of Lords.
Anyone who is unable to accept this simple fact only reveals their own ignorance. The only possible reason anyone has for raising this point is to mount an ad hominem attack.”
– I was merely trying to reinforce my previous point.
There appears to have been nothing more than a mis-communication between us. I expect and hope that you will now apologise and withdraw your claims that I have been guilty of “blatant and deliberate falsehood or an example of psychological projection.”
As I final point, I am dismayed that the moment you decide I am not on your side of the debate, you accuse me of a “…falsehood (as do most of your statements on WUWT)”, and “As is your common practice, you have introduced a ‘red herring’.” Such demonstrably false claims reflect poorly on your objectivity.

richardscourtney

July 6, 2014 8:35 am

gnomish:
Your post at July 6, 2014 at 2:36 am says in total

i only checked to read stealey, cuz i usually like his comments.
richard- it looks to me like abbot didn’t say what you think he said… if it matters…

I quoted Abbott verbatim and in total and commented on what he wrote. He has not disputed any part of my understanding of his writings.
If you think Abbott intended something other than he wrote then it would have been helpful if you had said what you think he intended. Abbott would probably appreciate an excuse to pretend he wrote other than his falsehoods which I refuted.
Richard

Monckton of Brenchley

July 6, 2014 9:25 am

All this rubbish about the House of Lords is off topic. When some custard-faced clerk put up a posting on the House of Lords website telling me not to say I was a member of the House (tellingly having failed to contact me first), I was astonished. So, on returning to the UK from Australia, where publication of the clerk’s absurd letter had been carefully timed to precede by hours a major, prime-time, one-hour TV debate between me and the director of the Australia Institute (a shoddy tactic that failed: my opponent lost heavily), I asked my lawyers to approach a barrister learned in peerage law. His conclusion, in one of the most plainly-worded opinions I have seen, was that in answering an Australian journalist’s question “Are you a member of the House of Lords” by saying “Yes, but without the right to sit or vote” I was at all points correct.. He concluded, “The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a member of the House of Lords, albeit without the right to sit or vote, and he is fully entitled to say so.” Those here who claim to know better know no more peerage law than they do of climate science.
The House of Lords Act 1999, which abolished the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit or vote but did not take away their peerages, defines membership of the House in the narrowest sense as the right to sit and vote. In that sense I am not a member, but I had made that explicitly clear in my answer to the journalist. This whole affair was a political tactic by the usual suspects with the willing assistance of the over-politicized clerk, whose role in these matters is confined to issuing certificates to say who is entitled to sit and vote and who is not. He had no need to write his posting, for I had already made clear in my answer to the Australian journalist, live on air a a few days before the debate, that I have no right to sit or vote. And that, whether the usual suspects like it or not, is an end of the matter.
As I said at the outset, this constant carping on about the House of Lords, though very good for the website’s hit-count and hence for Anthony’s advertising revenue, is off topic and I am asking him and his excellent and patient moderators to ban it here and hereafter after as a topic of discussion. Of course I am doing damage to the true-believers’ cause, and of course, lacking any scientific basis for undoing that damage, they will follow the tactic of totalitarians everywhere and try to denigrate the man and not his argument. If Aristotle were alive today, as the old saying goes, he would be turning in his grave.

dbstealey

July 6, 2014 9:27 am

Phil Clarke,
Thank you for all your anti-Monckton assertions. Since I do not click on blogs like Mann’s, you would do better to post whatever examples you want to cite here.
Not that I agree with your characterization; I don’t. You have a personal vendetta, an axe to grind, and so you cite differences of opinion or point of view as “lies”. Despicable on your part.
Instead of playing the man, play the ball: explain to us how Monckton’s science is wrong. Everything else just feeds your personal fixation on Lord Monckton. That reflects badly on you, not on him.

Margaret Hardman

July 6, 2014 9:32 am

Richard, I’m not sure which is more sore at the moment, my face or my palm. It doesn’t matter what you or I think. David Beamish, Clerk of the Parliaments said:
“I must repeat my predecessor’s statement that you are not and have never been a Member of the House of Lords. Your assertion that you are a Member, but without the right to sit or vote, is a contradiction in terms. No-one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters Patent, a Peer. That is an entirely separate issue to membership of the House. This is borne out by the recent judgment in Baron Mereworth v Ministry of Justice (Crown Office) where Mr Justice Lewison stated:
“In my judgment, the reference [in the House of Lords Act 1999] to ‘a member of the House of Lords’ is simply a reference to the right to sit and vote in that House … In a nutshell, membership of the House of Lords means the right to sit and vote in that House. It does not mean entitlement to the dignity of a peerage.” ”
If you struggle to understand what that actually means then I, for one, cannot help you. It is palpably clear. There is no such thing as a member of the Lords who cannot actually sit in the Lords. If such a stupid reading were allowed then I am an MP, just not allowed by virtue of never being elected, to take a seat in the chamber of the House Of Commons.
Strangely, the fact that I used the most pertinent, indeed only relevant, piece of evidence to show how Lord Monckton is not one of the things he claims to be (he is a Lord, however) has demonstrated my point about reading comprehension.
You, and others, may wish to peruse this list http://www.theyworkforyou.com/peers/ which is an independent website. I think you’ll find someone absent from their list of members of the House Of Lords.

richardscourtney

July 6, 2014 9:40 am

Jonathan Abbott:
Your final two paragraphs of your post at July 6, 2014 at 8:32 am say

There appears to have been nothing more than a mis-communication between us. I expect and hope that you will now apologise and withdraw your claims that I have been guilty of “blatant and deliberate falsehood or an example of psychological projection.”
As I final point, I am dismayed that the moment you decide I am not on your side of the debate, you accuse me of a “…falsehood (as do most of your statements on WUWT)”, and “As is your common practice, you have introduced a ‘red herring’.” Such demonstrably false claims reflect poorly on your objectivity.

OK. I completely and fully apologise if I misunderstood your intention and you were saying Viscount Monckton is a Member of the House of Lords.
I quoted your previous posts verbatim and in full, so if I did misrepresent them then readers could compare my comments to your actual words.
I did NOT introduce a ‘red herring’: I answered posts which falsely claimed Viscount Monckton is not a Member of the House of Lords. I introduced nothing.
It is simply true that most of your comments on WUWT have been falsehoods that you have failed to correct when challenged on them by people including me. Hence, I saw no reason to doubt my understanding that your posts were falsely attacking Viscount Monckton. If – as you now claim – you were attempting to refute those false attacks then I apologise for that misunderstanding, too.
Richard

dbstealey

July 6, 2014 9:49 am

Margaret Hardman is still fixated on Lord Monckton. As usual, she is wrong when she says there is a “definitive” ruling. I explained to her above that only the sovreign can make such a a final ruling. In any case, that simpleminded criticism has nothing whatever to do with Hardman’s scurrilous charge of lying. As stated above, it is only a difference of opinion. Since you are unteachable, I will not try again on that score.
Margaret keeps flogging away on that dead horse, because she cannot produce ‘a lengthy list’ of lies, as she claimed. That makes Margaret Hardman a liar, no?
Margaret says:
As for a lengthy list of examples – I didn’t take long to Google a lengthy list last night.
So where is it, Margaret? As Anthony noted above:
Your list should be able to be produced within mere seconds of seeing this comment, since you obviously have it in hand.
You have been equivocating since yesterday. When you made your accusation you either had your list, or you were lying about it.
Now you are scrambling to try and find something, anything, to avoid showing that you are a liar and a bearer of false witness. So make it good, Ms Hardman. Any list you manage to come up with must be “lengthy”, and it must be factual. No pointing to differences of opinion such as your letter above. That cannot qualify as a lie. Only a long list of lies will rescue you from your own public prevarication.
Margaret Hardman is on trial here, not Lord Monckton. Ms Hardman claims to be a witness to lies. Produce them, or the readers of WUWT will know exactly who the liar is.

J Murphy

July 6, 2014 10:06 am

richardscourtnery, you wrote:
—“A peerage differs from other awards (e.g. knighthoods) in that a peerage provides Membership of the House of Lords (HoL).”
I don’t know what you mean by “Membership” (perhaps you can explain) because the fact is that ‘The House of Lords Act 1999’ ended the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords, and deprived excluded hereditary peers (i.e. all but 92) of all the privileges of membership of the House of Lords. What is the “Membership” you mention?
(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/34/contents)

Jonathan Abbott

July 6, 2014 10:06 am

richardscourtney,
I have to say I am very disappointed that you continue to attack me. When you say that “…most of your comments on WUWT have been falsehoods that you have failed to correct when challenged on them by people including me,” were you were referring to this article that Anthony was kind enough to publish:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/25/my-personal-path-to-catastrophic-agw-skepticism/
…or was that an example of me being “…an egregious troll”?
Then, in an example of extreme irony, you seem to think that I was accusing you of introducing a “red herring”, when all I did was quote your own words back to you.
Your behaviour in this thread suggests that you are no more than a cheerleader for your particular side, rather than someone who rationally judges individual comments and commenters on their merit. That your chosen ‘side’ is also mine is beside the point. I have seen many examples of such behaviour among Alarmists but I don’t remember seeing this among sceptics before. Oh well.
The comments on this thread have already moved wildly off-topic so I’ll save everyone’s time by allowing you the last word.

Margaret Hardman

July 6, 2014 10:42 am

Db, I’m not on trial.
The Queen rightly and nevessarily delegates plenty of matters to various people. The matter of membership of the House of Lords is one of them. The Queen does not even write her own birthday honours list. Isn’t it funny how, in a thread about the truth or otherwise of a claim of Lord Monckton, that I become the one on trial. I’d quit, DBS, before you find the temple that the Rt Hon’s father dowsed for.

Margaret Hardman

July 6, 2014 10:54 am

Db, I noticed that you want a factual list. Since you seem incapable of accepting the facts I have so far adduced regarding the House of Lords, there would be no point listing anything for you. For more discerning and intelligent readers it might be different.

Non Nomen

July 6, 2014 11:21 am

dbstealey says:
July 6, 2014 at 9:49 am
Margaret Hardman is still fixated on Lord Monckton. As usual, she is wrong when she says there is a “definitive” ruling. I explained to her above that only the sovreign can make such a a final ruling. In any case, that simpleminded criticism has nothing whatever to do with Hardman’s scurrilous charge of lying. As stated above, it is only a difference of opinion. Since you are unteachable, I will not try again on that score.
Margaret keeps flogging away on that dead horse, because she cannot produce ‘a lengthy list’ of lies, as she claimed. That makes Margaret Hardman a liar, no?
…
Margaret Hardman is on trial here, not Lord Monckton. Ms Hardman claims to be a witness to lies. Produce them, or the readers of WUWT will know exactly who the liar is.
________________________________________________
I fully second that.
Once again, the true nature of CAGW propaganda has unveiled its ugly antic in the postings of M.H.
The arguments of M. Mann are flawed. So are those of M. Hardman.

Slartibartfast

July 6, 2014 11:51 am

It’s interesting to note how many times that Lord Monckton’s Wikipedia entry has been edited; several times by William M. Connolley. There were even a few edits by a guy named Tim Lambert, which is also interesting.

richardscourtney

July 6, 2014 12:13 pm

Jonathan Abbott:
You say you offer me the last word. No need. I twice said that if I had misunderstood you then I apologised and I explained why I may have misunderstood you. Your response was your post at July 6, 2014 at 10:06 am. I am content to leave that as being the last word which people can read for themselves.
Richard

richardscourtney

July 6, 2014 12:23 pm

Margaret Hardman:
In your post at July 6, 2014 at 10:42 am you say

Isn’t it funny how, in a thread about the truth or otherwise of a claim of Lord Monckton, that I become the one on trial.

Yes, I agree.
I write to suggest that you may benefit from reflecting on how you have managed to contrive that “funny” situation.
Your reputation and situation are not improved by your posting unjustified smears, outrageous falsehoods, and claims to defamatory knowledge which you fail to substantiate.
Richard

Robert in Calgary

July 6, 2014 12:35 pm

Like most alarmists these days, Margaret clams to have facts but can’t produce them when challenged.
“oh, our host might snip them”
“oh, I’m going through the list to make sure it’s correct”
“oh, you won’t accept them as facts”
“oh, please let me change the subject”
If she isn’t going to post her legendary lengthy list, I wouldn’t mind if she gets the heave ho until Labour Day.

dbstealey

July 6, 2014 12:40 pm

Margaret Hardman says:
I’m not on trial.
Yes, you are, Margaret. Readers are your jury.
You stated that you had “a lengthy list” of Lord Monckton’s lies. Several readers called you on that, asking for your list. You still pretended to have a long list. You wrote:
As for a lengthy list of examples – I didn’t take long to Google a lengthy list last night.
So where is it?
Anthony wrote:
Your list should be able to be produced within mere seconds of seeing this comment, since you obviously have it in hand.
That was yesterday. But still no ‘list’. Instead, you keep beating a dead Parliamentary horse. A differnce of opinion is not proof of lying, Margaret. It is a difference of opinion.
You are on trial here for falsely claiming to have a long list of lies. But when your feet are held to the fire, you cannot produce “a lengthy list” of those putative lies. You are on trial here for bearing false witness against a respected contributor to this site, who has done you no harm. In fact, it is you who lies. Isn’t it? With your lies you are doing serious harm to the reputation of someone who has done you no wrong.
When pressed, you wrote:
I shall take my time ensuring that my list is correct.
As I stated above, make sure your list is a long one, as you alleged. Make sure it proves that Lord Monckton was “lying”.
The nonsense about whether Parliament has voted on the HoL is simply misdirection on your part. No rational person would call those different points of view a “lie”. You are simply tapdancing around the fact that you have accused someone of being a serial liar. That reflects on entirely you, Margaret Hardman, not on him. He is innocent until proven guilty, but so far you have posted zero proof to support your accusation.
Robespierre comes to mind. After causing untold carnage with his rabble-rousing, society turned on him, and his ultimate fate was the same as the fate of the innocent people he accused. You are no different.
So yes, you are on trial here in the court of public opinion. You have only two options:
First, you can produce your alleged long list of lies. As stated, make sure it is long, and that it proves that Lord Monckton is a serial liar.
Second, you may extricate yourself by apologizing to Lord Monckton. No one would think less of you; how could they? Sometimes people get emotional and make mistakes. When that happens, an apology is in order. But with no ‘lengthy list’ or apology, you convict yourself of being a false withness. In Western civilization there are few things more evil, or reprehensible, or despicable than bearing false witness against an innocent person.
The choice is yours Margaret Hardman. Because as you see, you are on trial here. Produce the list that you repeatedly claimed to have, or apologize to Lord Monckton. There is no third choice for an honorable person.

milodonharlani

July 6, 2014 1:01 pm

http://lordsoftheblog.net/about/
Chris is correct:
Membership of the Lords
Currently there are around 780 Members of the House of Lords, mostly ‘life peers’ who are appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister. Members that are nominated by political parties are vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which is an independent public body, before they are accepted into the House of Lords. The Commission also puts forward recommendations for non-political nominees.
As well as life peers there are 92 hereditary peers, although their place in the Lords is no longer an automatic birthright following the House of Lords Act 1999. There are also 26 bishops and archbishops of the Church of England, who are known as the Lords Spiritual.
Members of the House of Lords work on behalf of the UK as a whole, rather than for any particular constituency, unlike MPs who represent a geographical area. Many Members remain active in their field of expertise, whether it be political campaigning, science, medicine, the arts, or a whole range of other areas.