By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Recently my lovely wife and I visited a hotbed of British totalitarianism, Anglia Ruskin “University” at Cambridge, to gather evidence for the courts in connection with a death threat that the “University” and one of its students had made against me in the form of a widely-publicized tombstone with my name on it, under the hate-speech slogan “Lest We Forget Those Who Denied”. I should explain that there are two universities at Cambridge: the real one, my own alma mater, which tops the league-table of Britain’s 133 universities, and Anglia Ruskin, a jumped-up polytechnic which, from what we saw of it, ranks about 250th out of 133.
Anglia Ruskin “University” suffers from an identity crisis. So its public relations people recently spent some taxpayers’ money buying advertising signs at Cambridge railway station, which, like the “University”, is 1½ miles from approaching a real University. These hilarious signs have done much to damage what little reputation the joke “University” may have had.
Sure enough, in a dusty corner of a grubby gallery on a tatty campus (why do grime and the hard Left have such an affinity for one another?) stood the tombstone on which the “artist”, a student to whom the “University” had awarded a prize for it, had engraved my name and those of five other British climate skeptics:
Ø Christopher Booker of the Sunday Telegraph, the world’s best regularly-published climate-skeptic columnist in any mainstream news medium;
Ø James Delingpole, who has transformed Breitbart London into the news website that everyone in Britain wants to read;
Ø Melanie Phillips, the redoubtable and always trenchant Daily Mail columnist, writing for the only daily paper that regularly reports how much nonsense global warming is;
Ø Lord Lawson of Blaby, Margaret Thatcher’s former Finance Minister, and founder of the authoritative Global Warming Policy Foundation; and
Ø Owen Paterson, the affable squire who, like most country folk, does not believe a word of the urban-myth cargo-cult doctrine of global warming, and is a former Secretary of State for the Environment.
Now, to put a victim’s name on a tombstone while the victim is still alive is to make a death threat, the nastiest and most repellent form of hate speech. If the tombstone had been erected anywhere in Scotland rather than on a manifestly dysfunctional campus in England, I could have had Professor Michael Thorne, the “University’s” Vice Chancellor, tried, fined, and bound over not to repeat that or any suchlike offense.
Professor Thorne had caused or permitted a press release to be issued, promoting this unspeakable death threat. The release explained that the tombstone bore the words “Lest we forget those who denied”. The implication was that, if we were not already dead, the “artist” and the “University” that promoted his “work” would very soon see to it that we were.
Indeed, the press release reinforced the threat in several unpleasant ways. Like the tombstone, it used the word “denier” or its derivatives – and did so five times in a single page. The intent of this hate-speech word, banned throughout Scotland by the law against threatening communications, is to compare climate change “deniers” with Holocaust deniers.
It mattered not to the Vice Chancellor, nor to the “artist”, that I do not deny the existence of climate change, which has, after all, been happening for 6000 or 4.5 billion years, depending on your point of view. I do not even deny that Man may have some as yet unquantified but probably insignificant and even net-beneficial influence on the climate.
Indeed, I have recently published with three distinguished colleagues – Dr Willie Soon, Professor David Legates and Dr Matt Briggs – a scientific paper making that fact quite plain. It’s well worth a read. Go to scibull.com, click on “Most Read Articles”, and ours is the all-time no. 1 in the 60-year archive of the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Please download it now from scibull.com, and get all your friends to do the same. The more the Science Bulletin’s own ticker for our paper counts up, the more it will be realized that the scientific viewpoint we represent – the technical term for it is “the objective truth” – is widely supported.
The mere truth, however, did not stand in the way of the “University” or of the “artist”, who is recorded in the “University’s” press release as having said: “With this work [work?] I envisage a time when the deliberate denial of climate change will be seen as a crime because it hinders progress towards a low carbon future.” Kill them, kill them all!
To make the air of menace worse, “Dr” Aled Jones, the director of the “Global” “Sustainability” “Institute” at the “University”, said the “sculpture could be viewed in decades to come as a monument to a period of history that saw scientific knowledge battle to be heard above political ideologies.”
In the context, what this numpty meant was that climate “deniers” like me, even though our detailed and legitimate scientific objections to the climate scam have been reviewed and published in the Science Bulletin (have you and all your friends downloaded our paper from scibull.com yet?) and many learned journals, were mere political ideologues, while totalitarian true-believers like him, with little knowledge of and no interest in the scientific truth, were the sole repository of “scientific knowledge”.
In fact it is the other way about.
Every so often, I decide not to do what a couple of the other names on the tombstone did. I decided not to laugh it off. A death threat is a death threat. It is no laughing matter.
I have recently been reading Richards’ masterly three-volume history of the Third Reich. The first volume deals with the perplexing question how that monstrous regime came to be. And it is plain that the long, relentless campaign of intimidation by the Nazis of their opponents, with name-calling and death threats very similar to that perpetrated by the “University” and by all too many others over the past ten years, was an essential part of the process.
Most people laughed off the Nazi threats, at first. In Britain and in many other countries, full-on appeasement followed, in the hope that looking the other way would make the threats vanish.
It didn’t work. Tens of millions died because too few – the few including such honorable and courageous men as Popes Pius XI and XII and Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich – openly spoke out against the terror. Too many, including Britain and most European governments, went along with it and tried to appease it until it was suddenly too late.
The Nazis then, like their irrational, unlearned, hate-filled ideological successors at the “University” today, meant what they said. They killed those they had said they would kill.
So my clerk wrote to the Vice Chancellor, listing a couple of dozen previous instances, all of them in the past decade, where death threats and demands for trial, imprisonment and execution had been made, very publicly, against climate skeptics. This is by no means an isolated or exceptional incident. There is an increasingly dangerous pattern to it.
I also wrote to the police and the procurator fiscal in Edinburgh, warning them that if the “University” did not remove the press release from the web and the tombstone from the gallery I should expect them to prosecute the internet service providers who were carrying the threat into Scotland.
The “University’s” first instinct was to call in the shysters who are always willing, if paid enough, to come to the defense even of the nastiest totalitarian bullies. In this case, the shysters were Anderson Strathern LLP, of Glasgow. Don’t use them, ever, for any purpose. For they pretended there was no connection between the phrase “climate change denier” and “Holocaust denier” – though all they had to do was to Google the two terms together to see just how deliberate and how widespread that connection is. And they said the “University” had “no proposals to make”.
By then, however, the police and the Fiscal were in the picture, so the “University” found it expedient to ignore its shysters and to come to its senses. The press release has been removed from the web, both by the “University” and by another Cambridge website that had unwisely reproduced it. And the tombstone is now gone too.
The poisonous air of palpable menace remains. Dr Roger Pielke Jr., a scientist who has taken a gently sceptical view on some aspects of the climate question, has recently announced that he can no longer conduct climate research, because he fears for the safety of himself and his family.
No doubt many more scientists would have spoken out by now against the totalitarian profiteers of doom who are doing so much to destroy not only the economy but also the freedom of the West.
As the danger that an unelected world government will be inflicted upon us at the Paris climate summit this December draws ever closer, we are expecting more such malevolent attacks by the environmentalist Sturmabteilung. But we shall not be deterred by totalitarian thuggery. We shall continue to speak the truth as best we can discern it, whether today’s Nazis like it or not.
And if you are tempted to cite Godwin’s “Law” to the effect that he who calls his opponents Nazis has lost the argument, let me cite Monckton’s Law in return: those who cite Godwin’s Law confirm ipso facto that they are active supporters of today’s Fascists.
Whatever you do, don’t send your daughter to Anglia Ruskin “University”. And don’t ever send it so much as a dime. It is an unworthy institution. Send the money to Cambridge University (above) instead. We’re the real thing. We’ll put it to good and proper use: the advancement not of crude, Fascist propaganda but of learning.
I might have been tempted to leave the matter there, given that the “University” had had the sense to take down its press release and, eventually, the tombstone too. However, the shysters’ letter indicates a cast of mind I don’t like the smell of. I’m preparing a detailed report for the police in Cambridge, for under English law the tombstone and the press release together constitute – at minimum – conduct likely to cause a breach of the Queen’s peace, contrary to s.1, Justices of the Peace Act 1361, the most commonly-cited provision of English criminal law in the magistrates’ courts.
I’m going to have these wretches prosecuted: not the student, who is manifestly not adult enough to understand the seriousness of what he has done, nor even the dreadful “Dr” Aled Jones, who is arguably too blinded by Marxist prejudice and too ignorant of the true science behind the climate scam to think rationally at all.
But an outfit that describes itself, however implausibly, as a “University” ought at least to have made some attempt to behave like one, and not to have made death threats by way of press releases. It should have kept the peace. Now it will reap the whirlwind.
Ø This is an extended and illustrated version of my regular and unmissable Monday column at wnd.com. Click “Opinion”, then “Commentator line-up”.
Go get ’em. 🙂
Indeed. Monckton is one of a kind. Hats off for fighting back.
The work is made of plywood so what it will be used for next in order to demonstrate its sustainability is an interesting question. Answers on a postcard….
The artist appears to have imagination and some talent. It would be good if he used it in a less intimidating manner. The artist is presumably young and naïve and has been indoctrinated with a one sided view of climate change. He will be affected by police action. How about he publically apologises and agrees to listen to sceptical arguments as an alternative?
The University ought to know better however and can not promote this sort of nonsense. I note that any legal action is going to be aimed directly at them.
tonyb
Climatereason: The student ‘artist’ is probably the kind of student who will switch to PPE, get a job as a researcher for an MP and then advise some aspiring politician to carve his election promises in stone. Oh, that’s already been done…?
In response to Climatereason, I’m going to keep the student out of this. In general, I support freedom of speech and of artistic endeavour, as well as the right of the young to be foolish without undue penalty. He has wished me harm, but I do not wish him harm. For who can say they did not transcend the bounds of taste and decency when young?
The “University”, however, is a different kettle of noisome fish. It’s press release was unacceptable ind unlawful. It will face trial. It will lose. It will learn. Peace will be restored.
IIRC the ‘student’ is a ‘mature’ student – in his forties?
http://ww2.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/faculties/alss/deps/csoa/csoa_news/sustainability_prize_2014.html
He won 3rd prize for the same competition in 2014 – see pic at link, his beard looks a bit too grey for a callow youth.
Indeed, show then no mercy. They deserve the public ridicule and humiliation of their cowardly, deeds.
It’s ironic that climate liars…. call us deniers
The world is cooling and these morons still think it’s getting warmer! Ha ha. However, I wouldn’t put too much trust in Cambridge University. These institutions are all corrupt, and, sadly, many of the decent scientists seem to be afraid to speak out against it……I wish there were more people like you. The good news is that when the cold really kicks in, all these little ‘warmists’ will be begging for a lump of coal to keep them warm. The jokes on them!
I have to say, I admire people who go after wrong-doers with zeal and gusto. It’s no good just going for a cut, you must go for the jugular. I’m the same, I’m glad to say (though less than I used to be).
I’m of two minds on this issue.
I can see the value of laughing it off, not drawing more attention to these idiots than they deserve.
On the other hand I agree with Lord Monckton that the Nazis were also ignored, until they could no longer be ignored.
While in the midst of the conflict, it is almost impossible to tell which idiots will deservedly disappear into the mists of history, and which will metastasize into a cancer that could kill millions.
I should add that there is a difference between lone wolf nut cases and people who are part of a movement.
Had the same tombstone been created criticizing the Lord for the type of clothes he wears or the restaurants he frequents, everyone would agree that ignoring the so called artist would be the best course.
The fact that the guy is a supporter for a movement that already has lots of political power, makes it an entirely different case.
So Monckton’s Law is a double Godwin? Or is that a reverse Godwin?
A reverse Godwin. Godwin’s law is an idiotic monstrosity that demands in-effect that no one ever learn the lessons of WWII and the ascendance of fascists around the world to almost complete power. It takes the trivial — the sometimes over-use of analogy to fascism, and places it lexically above what is of gravest importance — the recognizing, naming and stopping of the repetition of great evil.
No. Godwin’s law is a call for remembering amplitude as well as sign.
Banning children from playing on the grass is totalitarian in sign. It leans that way.
But in amplitude it is not Kristallnacht.
Debate, particularly online, is often derailed because people forget the amplitude and go straight to the extreme.
You can’t talk with those kind of crazies.
The amplitude, frequency and tone of the death threats made by the pre-Reich Nazis against their opponents were very similar to those made against skeptical climate researchers today. If we forestall the rhetoric of hate by not appeasing its perpetrators and not looking the other way, but by speaking out in good time, we may hope to forestall another Kristallnacht.
My late mother-in-law witnessed Kristallnacht. She returned to a Britain still gripped by appeasement. She found it impossible to get across how dangerous Nazism had become.
Environmentalist totalitarianism is now deploying all the propaganda tricks of Goebbels and all the crazed, hate-filled rhetoric of his goons, and with no more justification. The time to speak out against the Eco-Fascist thugs is now, not after they actually start putting us on show-trial for our lives.
If the Nazi regime taught us anything, it is that the assumption that a death threat is mere braggadocio or rodomontade is unwise and may prove fatal.
When I go before Cambridge magistrates, I shall plead in mitigation that the student was young, hot-headed and foolish, which is why I shall not charge him, for I was once all three, and that “Dr” Jones was Insufficiently aware of the scientific evidence against climate panic. But the “University” ought to have known better. To its credit, though it’s shysters sent me a remarkably injudicious letter, it had the sense to back off and take down the offending press release. I shall plead that in mitigation when asking for a summons. But, in the end, the magistrates will have to issue a summons against it. There will be a trial, a conviction, and probably a binding over to keep the peace in future.
Godwin’s law is not completely wrong because one should avoid to make disproportionate comparisons.
But – so long as the anti-CO2 fanatics are using their most beloved hate speech term “denier” (with its plain implications to “holocaust denier”, that is to say “Nazi”) against CAGW skeptics – they cannot use Godwin’s law as an argument for their own moral integrity…
In the general, I agree completely regarding the issue of keeping in mind the amplitude.
In the specific, the warmistas are seeking, and in some cases have achieved sufficient political power to start implementing their threats.
Godwin’s Law violates itself by bringing up the Nazis.
I would suggest not mitigating on behalf of the student or Jones. If they don’t suffer consequences, you will be doing them a long term disfavor as it will take them longer to learn the lesson.
Unfortunately, my first reaction was to wish I got to be listed on the tombstone too. The reason people laugh these things off is that most of the time it is an over exaggeration that is understood by the recipient to not be quite that literal. The problem here is that with global warming, people have been fired, threatened or harassed for legitimate skepticism. So the amplitude has now risen above just over exaggeration, for threats to be taken seriously whether or not that level of seriousness was intended. So what I would suggest is to show good humour and use a big stick to paraphrase a former U.S. president.
I think a better title would be:
“So you think I dead? Save the flowers for your reputation.”
Fantastic Christopher! What great publicity it will be to expose these ratbags.
Well done on getting to No1 too.
Well I didn’t know your AM had an underworld connection Lord Monckton.
I’m inclined to send you flowers anyway, if only for condolences for that unfortunate outcome of The Boat Race. And twice too, with the Oxford ladies putting on a show as well.
But if I’m not mistaken, I believe you are still ahead on the score card.
Well the engraved stele is a rather low class proxy for expressing an opinion, so steam them.
G
I’m glad we have another British bulldog.
Monckton is not the first to wonder about the affinity grubbiness and leftists have. P.J. O’Rourke asked almost the same question years ago. (We also have to think of the unwashed out protesting whatever.)
I think you should go ahead and sue the lot of them.
“And the tombstone is now gone too”
It’s gone not because of Monckton’s actions, its because it was only to be on display until the middle of May!
And a press release is still up too!
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/content/journalists-names-memorial-those-who-denied-climate-change-university
That is not a press release. That’s an article in an independent magazine that “University” has no control of.
Get ready for the plaintive howling of artisitc freedom. So long as they are trashing your reputation that is art, but when you protest that is suppression of art. Hypocrisy, they name is global warming.
If it was America, you would probably be right. Wishing for someone’s death is not the same as threatening them. Putting names on a tombstone is not speech that is immediately inciting to violence, so there would not be criminal penalties. However, I think Monkton would still prevail on a legal request to have the work removed, even with America’s ludicrously high standards. It is unquestionably calling for his death.
However, this is not America, it is Britain, and hate speech is illegal there and they have much MUCH lower bounds for speech crimes, most notably libel.
It’s not a tombstone, it’s a plywood oil waterfall sculpture.
Are you suggesting that the medium of an implied threat, makes a difference of scale ??
Perhaps spaatch was under the misapprehension that a tombstone must be … stone ??
So, what would you and spaatch call a wooden cross on a grave?
Michael, it does have the word “stone” in it, which in my mind at least implies it’s supposed to be made of stone.
However it is legitimate to refer to a representation of a tombstone as a tombstone.
Rather clueless aren’t you?
It’s a representation of a tombstone.
Excellent Call Lord Monckton. Force that pseudo elite mockery of education to face up to their elitist notions backed with their dire threats.
The only Damocles swords that distractors fear are those from space: National Space Weather Strategy Released for Public Comment | NOAA / NWS Space Weather http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/national-space-weather-strategy-released-public-comment
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/u33/final_shibata_SWW_2015.pdf
*https://shieldearthfromspacedisasters.wordpress.com
I find the art in ill taste. Having said that, as an American, this speech would be 100% protected in the the US. I am able to hold both thoughts at once. The best way to deal with speech you don’t like is with more speech.
You are BS. Try that in the US and you would likely end up in court. Free speech does not mean you can say anything you like without repercussions. I suggest you do something like that for Obama and we will see how easy it will be for you to travel by plane.
An artistic tomb stone wouldn’t be actionable in civil court and would not be investigated criminally in the US. I’m disappointed that a web site that I like and support as fact based is willing to turn to the weapons of the thuggish enemies of real science. How boorish.
Yes, Alex you are correct on that point. But try it for any conservative and nothing would happen but cheers from the radical left.
Manos
As a sheep I guess you would let it lie. Being a wolf, I don’t. As for this site, it has been the subject of vitriol for years. Insult upon insult. It’s time to draw a line in the sand and say ‘no more’. I applaud Lord Monckton for his actions. He has the power and resources that I don’t. He has shown that he has teeth and if anyone is stupid enough to stick their neck out like that deserves to have their head lopped off. He didn’t use a sword but used the law, that these morons try to hide behind, against them.
Spoken like a true Englishman. The UK has a rich history of elites using the law to censor anyone who offends them. Just as Orwell.
Manos
Haha. I am not English. I am of russian heritage. Perhaps it’s the siberian wolf’s blood that speaks to me of honour and respect. You are probably still a young man, so I will forgive you. One day, when you are older and wiser, you may realise that honour and respect are more important than life and friends. It’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees. I will die with a smile on my lips and you will probably live whimpering
The laws are different in the UK than they are in the US. In the US, libel is actionable – slander not so much. If you say something untrue about someone, that’s just opinion (in the US) but if you publish something untrue, then it is actionable. In the UK even verbal slander is against the law, or that’s how I’ve always understood it. This would probably go beyond verbal slander as the sentiments were published. Thus Lord Monckton would have a platform for his litigation, probably even in America though his efforts would be met with much less effect. In America, the right to free speech is abused like a red-headed step-child.
Alex, you do not have a clue. In the US any speech that doesn’t threaten harm, or excites others to riot, or illegal activity is not protected. Yes hate-speech, offensive as it may be, IS protected in the USA.
I sympathize with Christopher Monckton, and in the UK he may have legal standing. In the US he would not.
Roy Denio
You are right. I don’t have a clue about the US justice system or civil cases. That’s why I said ‘likely’. I too can use weasel words like the IPCC.
An artistic tomb stone wouldn’t be actionable in civil court
====================
Create such a tombstone with Obama’s name on it and issue a press release and see what happens to your door at 5 AM in the morning. Add Hillary’s name and see how far 100% protected free speech takes you. No doubt the courts will rush to your defense.
Gary: Even speech can be actionable depending on the situation. While I was in Atlanta one of the local weather guys gave a speech during which he off handedly repeated the myth that the Proctor and Gamble logo had satanic origins. He was sued by P&G. In the settlement he gave an on air apology to P&G.
“Manos
Haha. I am not English. I am of russian heritage. Perhaps it’s the siberian wolf’s blood that speaks to me of honour and respect. You are probably still a young man, so I will forgive you. One day, when you are older and wiser, you may realise that honour and respect are more important than life and friends. It’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees. I will die with a smile on my lips and you will probably live whimpering”
I know this is late, but having just read this, and my wife and I being of Russian heritage, I wanted to say your post made our day! Spasiba!!!
In the U.S. just about anyone can sue just about anyone else over just about anything with, usually, the deepest pockets winning. I personally think that this is lawyers/judges protecting lawyers/suers and their income much like lobbyists/congress etc. And as Steyn found out, the so called anti-slapp rules aren’t very effective. There are even some law professors that require their graduates to sue someone just for practice.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/06/09/mann-v-steyn-steyn-goes-his-own-way/
http://reason.com/archives/2013/07/17/life-strangling-laws-from-the-unelected
Monckton is trying to use the leftist concept “hate speech” against the left, and not doing a very good job of it. Freedom of speech implies no sanctions against hate speech. Death threats are not hate speech, they are violent criminal offenses. Writing someone’s name on a fake tombstone is a lame joke, not a death threat.
Couldn’t agree more. The whole concept is a lame joke and not a real threat. Monckton needs to grow some skin.
Censorship of free speech and implied death threats is not a joke. However, I suggest Christopher Monckton agree to not raise a ruckus, if the offenders will agree to an open debate!
Yep, now they’re reduced to sending dead flowers every morning …
… I won’t forget to put roses on their grave
I like David A’s idea for a debate. But They’d never agree. They know They’d lose.
I think you’re missing the point here, Roy Denio. Lord Monckton, as I understand it, is prepared to allow the ‘artist’ his freedom of expression – however ill informed, puerile, or offensive.
But when a body calling itself a ‘University’ attempts to limit freedom of speech and attempts to shut down the publication and sharing of genuine research, by disseminating crude threats and implications of a lack of morality (which the epithet ‘denier’ is intended to imply), then it’s time to take a stand.
Impressionable young people are at the mercy of such institutions: should they be encouraged to think such bullying and brow-beating is acceptable? Public discourse is rendered dangerous and one-sided by such actions. It’s high time someone took a stand.
I appreciate that Christopher Monckton would clearly dominate in a debate on CAGW, and the University would likely refuse. I suggest he offer to drop all in exchange for a debate anyway.
It is a win anyway. If they refuse,they demonstrate their closed minded fear of rational debate. If by some miracle they demonstrate the courage of their convictions and accept, then the field is won.
How about I make a tombstone with your name on it? Laugh that off and dismiss it. D*ckhead.
Classy.
Manos
Lord Monckton is a gentleman, I’m not. Sit back and sip your latte.
Its weird but people like Rod and Roy here always turn up to tell others how they should think and behave.
Rod, you are missing the entire point of the article. Suggesting death while calling someone a “denier” has a very serious and very specific message. It was a crafted message with a very real world point: death to those who oppose. You need to go back and watch the “exploding children” video where global warming pundits made light of blowing people up who do not agree. Literally blood and guts. Literally. It was one of the most grotesque things I have ever seen in my life, as far as propaganda. Rod, if you do not believe that there is a fascist movement behind the global warming movement, you haven’t been paying attention. And if you didn’t know that fascist ideals were dangerous, well, maybe you should have stayed in high school. Lord Monckton made a very good assessment on what is actually going on.
Correct interpretation here. The more you expose underhanded propaganda *as* underhanded propaganda, the less of this nonsense you will get.
No, I’m not missing the point of the article at all. Yes, I’m very aware of the anti-free-speech nature of the global warming movement, which I’ve followed closely since before Climategate. Monckton wrote: “Now, to put a victim’s name on a tombstone while the victim is still alive is to make a death threat, the nastiest and most repellent form of hate speech.” There are two glaring problems with this. There was no death threat. A “death threat” means threatening to kill someone. “Hate speech” is not a death threat, and should be allowed.
Except in England there really insnt freedom of speech, at least not as we in the States recognize it. A man was arrested there recently for reading publicly, from Churchill’s memoir. If youre ever curious about the English people’s history with freedom of speech, do a bit of research on”hang, draw and quarter” thats how the english used to deal with unpopular speech….
Sadly that is true, in that freedom of speech does not have a blanket legal protection here, although there is the defence that the words printed or spoken must be ‘in the public interest’, much used by journalists accused of libel.
Freedom of speech is not that well protected in America however, especially in Academia. Anyone stepping out of line is now liable to lose his or her job after having his/her reputation trashed. You may have freedom of speech given a platform, but finding or keeping an effective platform is not that easy
Writing someone’s name on a fake tombstone is a lame joke, not a death threat.
==============
how about if someone wrote your child’s name on a tombstone and publicized this? would you still see it as a lame joke?
“Writing someone’s name on a fake tombstone is a lame joke, not a death threat.”
So is threatening to blow up Robin Hood Airport on social media, because a plane was late. That was clearly a joke but the guy was still arrested. No, I think anything which constitutes a death threat as such, is generally not regarded as an accceptable form of joke.
In view of the hostile acts against Nigel Farage by climate alarmists it’s possibly not an entirely empty threat either. A literal murder attempt is perhaps unlikely, but the tombstone could be seen as inciting criminal acts.
Agreed. It is a ‘veiled’ threat and probably would go nowhere in US. Everyone can see where the line is and they will go right up to it. That does not make it less dangerous. The ‘Artist’ is not going to do anything, but he/she is hoping to inspire some nutjob to do their bidding.
Look at the anti-abortion murders in US past. That is their model.
The leftist concept of “hate speech” is that the left is firmly against it unless they are the ones doing it, then it is perfectly fine. They say they are against hate and bullying, but in reality they just want a monopoly on it. Do they not hate and bully everyone who disagrees with them, including climate change skeptics? What baffles me is how many commenters here are willing to concede that monopoly to them.
Louis,
Correct as usual. Your comment has been encapsulated in a Law of human nature:
Fen’s Law:
The Left believes none of the things they lecture the rest of us about.
DB
Actually I think they do believe what they lecture us about, from a guilt stand point. The biggest racists I have ever know were all leftists, the biggest wasteful consumers, the biggest fascists, the most restrictive of free speech and on and on.
They think everyone else thinks like this because they do, they feel they need to correct the world of their own evil and the only way the can justify their continuing existences is as a corrector of the evil they see in them selves and project on everyone else. It never dawns on them that there are actually people who don’t think in their bigoted, selfish, childish way.
I usually ignore such commentary, since the commenters’ minds are hopelessly calcified, but… those who sit on “The Right” and blame “The Left” for everything are just as bad as those on “The Left” who blame everything on “The Right.”
Until our brains evolve enough to be able to grasp the fact that we all do stupid things in roughly equal proportion, and have ideas that are ghastly and counterproductive in equal proportion, and that calling names and generalizing are also counterproductive when WE ourselves do it, we as a species are doomed to continue the tiresome dance, yelling past each other, proud and righteous, forever and ever. Amen.
Fortunately, the world is still a vast and achingly beautiful place for our species to grow up in…
England is a very different country than the US, if you assume that our respective laws are basically the same, you could be in for a very unpleasant surprise. One example is in the US, speaking the truth is an absolute defense against slander, not so in England.
Sorry, but you are totally wrong. Have a read of the Defamation Act 2013, in particular Section 2:-
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/26/section/2/enacted
My short list of the most courageous, intelligent, and historically important people in the last 2 centuries are: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Dwight Eisenhower. However, I am now adding Christopher Monckton of Brenchley to that list.
I didn’t make the list? ☺
I think you have to be dead to make the list.
(I hope that isn’t interpreted as a veiled threat)
Good on ya, Christopher. Make the folks squirm who are seemingly above the fray while useful idiots express their sentiments.
Thanks for the endorphin rush; I needed that.
“Dr Alex Jones, director of Anglia Ruskin’s Global Sustainability Institute, said: “The winner was chosen because of the way they approached their subject by bringing together a powerful message with a beautiful piece of art …”.
============================================
To produce what is (laughingly) described as “a beautiful piece of art” nowadays apparently requires absolutely no technique or skill whatsoever.
“To produce what is (laughingly) described as “a beautiful piece of art” nowadays apparently requires absolutely no technique or skill whatsoever.”
That is the definition of modern art. Which makes almost every piece of it forgotten in few months. Some of it gathers dust in “modern art museums” (subsisting on subsidies) and Abramovich’s garbage collections. Who cares.
The ghastly Charles Saatchi has a great deal to answer for.
I used to be heavily involved with young artists in the London art world during the ‘Brit Art’ heyday. It was accepted by everyone in the business that young artists had no chance of making it, unless Saatchi bought their work. In that way, his patronage of ‘conceptual art’ became the driver of ‘taste’, and he became the arbiter of what constituted ‘modern art’.
That’s how this ludicrous but threatening piece of propaganda comes to be accepted as ‘art’ and described as ‘beautiful’. It’s ridiculous, pathetic and depressing.
“[modern art] requires absolutely no technique or skill whatsoever.” Oh I don’t know, it’s all a question of getting exactly the right amount of rust on your sculpture. If you haven’t tried it, you don’t know just how exacting that is.
Sorry Mr Monckton, but you fail to explain where the actual death threat is in this stunt. What in the press release connected the tombstone with your name on it to an incitement to kill you? Perhaps it can be interpreted that way, but it can also be interpreted as: ‘ years from now how will we remember these people?’ When speech or writings can be interpreted in different ways, then I think freedom of speech should apply. Just because you find their view erroneous, tasteless or even offensive, does not give you the right to prosecute them for saying it. In effect you are reacting to fear of one kind of tyranny by imposing your own.
Unless this was clearly an actual death threat, I think you are severely over reacting.
You fail to understand principle and honour. Are you too thick to understand a public insult? 200 years ago you would have been challenged to a duel for that. Yes, I know , we are now civilised and don’t do that kind of thing. What a pity. I would call somebody out for the audacity of using ‘the familiar’. How dare they use the familiar unless having been properly introduced and given permission to do so.
You fail to understand that an insult is not a death threat, and, and least in the USA, insults and other name calling is covered by the first amendment. Even hate-speech is covered.
Roy
I never claimed it was a death threat. Just an insult. They deserve to be smacked over the head, like naughty puppies. I wasn’t suggesting they be imprisoned or hung drawn and quartered. However, they do deserve to be humiliated. In our society these days, stupid behaviour seems acceptable.
And remember, what with Mockton’s use of titles, he is living 200 years in the past.
trafamadore is the one referring to titles, not Lord Monckton.
Why is trafamadore fixated on something which does not matter here in America? Is he jealous? Is that why he uses the title ‘trafamadore’?
“Why is trafamadore fixated”
When you can’t refute the science, refute the man.
Voodoo….
Humour
Although it is only my opinion as a fellow American, I second the view of Manos. When speech leads to prosecution, persecution, violence, or anything but more communication, there is equal potential for mischief in every case. I am a confirmed Anglophile and Moncktonphile, but on this, I believe the UK, Europe, and Lord Monckton have gotten it wrong. I am not critical of Monckton for using the laws of the UK to address an obvious violation of those laws, but I prefer the U.S. system of vigorous, free discussion, in which only explicit threats are illegal. It’s messy and causes me much angst, when I read the opinions of some of my fellow Americans, but I think it is still best to have an almost totally free flow of ideas in which the best can come to the top and the others can be revealed to be inadequate. I grew up in the Southern U.S. in the 1950s and I saw the separate accommodations for black and white. I think virtually completely free expression (plus some exceedingly stupid racists who killed 4 young girls in a Birmingham church) caused the transformation that occurred in the U.S. on the issue of race. I am not claiming these issues are solved and much work remains, but if we had been prosecuting each other every time someone perceived a threat, progress would not have been as rapid. Right ideas eventually prevail, and I would even suggest that the “university’s” stupid post will do Lord Monckton’s position much more good than his prosecution of them.
So you are implying that an idiot artist and the supporting idiot professor and university should not get a smack in the head for being stupid?
That sure is an idiot comment. No one deserves a smack in the head.
simon.
Not so. Take a look in a mirror.
Richard
Ah Richard!!! Our man of religion advocating violence.
simon
Please do try to be sensible. I was not “advocating violence”. You made a silly comment and I ridiculed it.
Of course, I was making the assumption that you have more intelligence than an average 4-year old. If that assumption was an error then I apologise.
Richard
Richard please explain then. Were you not suggesting that some people (me) deserve a smack in the head?
Not so Steve. Try hanging a rope noose anywhere and find out how soon the FBI is on you for a hate crime.
If I have undrrstood the motivation then this is not a reaction to an isolated incident but to a continuing campaign of abusive behaviour by the “university” and its ilk.
In the case of a noose in a workplace, it is not the 1st Amendment
that is invoked but workplace regulations on harassment. One can
still have a noose in their car or front yard in the U.S. Although you
might get pulled over a lot if it was a life-sized noose in the car.
If you tried it on a public university campus they would probably
shut it down but there would probably be grounds for a 1st Amendment
law suit but you are right the FBI would also be brought in to investigate
potentially terroristic threats.
The art display in the US would most likely be allowed although one
could try to argue it was a threat or incitement to violence especially
IF the written press release that went along with it was sufficiently
“threatening” in a connect the dots kind of way. In which case, the
press release might not be allowed to pass without possible legal
action but the artwork by itself would most likely be held up as
1st Amendment protected.
I am not a lawyer. This is just my opinion.
One can still have a noose in their car or front yard in the U.S.
============
how about a large burning cross with a bunch of people dressed up like Casper the friendly ghost? is this also protected free speech? will your neighbors understand this is “Art”?
@Steve
The problem seems to me that there is a more or less subtle strategy behind that piece of bad taste. Lord Monckton quite rightfully mentioned the SA, the Sturmabteilung. They started their campaigns against those of a certain influence in society with very similar methods. Goebbels had the (jewish) Berlin Chief of Police Bernhard Weiss always called “Isidor” and his way of admistration the “System Isidor”. He got stopped by the courts several times but continued relentlessly.
No one by then had the guts to call Goebbels to order. All were already in some state of high expectation of the new “Reich” to come. I think it is pretty similar here.
Reverend Martin Niemöller, who served seven years in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, once said:
When the Nazis arrested the Communists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
When they arrested the trade unionists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist.
When they arrested the Jews, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew.
When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest.
You must stop these eco-universitarian fascists with their pieces of “fine art” in their tracks before it is too late.
It isn’t a matter of free speech, it is a matter of respecting other opinions and exchanging arguments and not threats. Did Lord Monckton, at any time, produce threats to life of physical condition? He is the mind-over-matter guy. And he, like all the others whose names are on that bad piece of “fine art” has the right not to be treated contumeliously,
Steve, usually I would agree. But sometimes, it’s is good to frighten people by using the law. Monckton’s actions will cause some distress and a little fear (I know, I have been on the end of just such a thing). The Left in Britain get away with far too much …by using the law. It’s often good to see the sword being turned.
Writing someone’s name on a tombstone is not “vigorous, free discussion”.
In the USA about ten years ago(in Texas or New Mexico) a man was jailed for 6 months for uttering the words, in a bar, “If he comes here he’ll be talking through a burning bush.” That’s it. Deemed a death threat and six months jail.
So stop the nonsense about all speech being acceptable in USA.
And if it had gone to the Supreme Court, it might
have been overturned. Many people go to jail for
improper reasons.
And I am sure that if what that “University” did was simply a matter of free speech, they will be eventually found innocent of any wrongdoing by a court after going through fair and simple and speedy legal process, right?
In the UK a man was hanged for uttering the phrase “let him have it.”
This IS a matter of free speech, but not quite I think in the way you are putting it.
The University’s support of this offensive ‘artwork’ – which is not more than a propaganda stunt – is aimed precisely at shutting down free speech. It aims to intimidate Lord Monckton and other high profile sceptics, especially those in the press, into keeping quiet on the real issues.
Lord Monckton’s action is ultimately in defence of free speech.
Dr. Jones should debate Lord Moncton on the subject. Dr. Jones should not fear such a debate as he is a professor on the subject while Lord Moncton is but a layman.
Yeah and Tim Flannery is a professor too but he’s still an idiot*
* I don’t claim that all alarmists are idiots; quite a lot are quite smart but are riding the scam for money, lots of it. But there are still a lot of idiots such as Flannery.
The issue of university campus ideology is not trivial and it is widespread. Recently, I received two emails from friends in prominent North American geoscience departments within the last three weeks. One wrote that on his campus, academic freedom, particularly regarding speech, was confined only to those who were politically correct but denied to conservatives. Another wrote that he avoided certain discussion topics because “this would pretty well end my career as a sober, well-respected geologist if I were to do so.”
I prefer not to name names, but one is a Tier I Research University in the USA, and the other is a similar university in Canada. It also pervades some scientific/scholarly professional societies too such as the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America.
The real issue is how do we steer these places beck to sanity? Or as I like to put it, “how do we take these places back?”
+10
“The real issue is how do we steer these places beck to sanity? Or as I like to put it, “how do we take these places back?” ”
What has happened precisely is that ideological leftists have ‘taken over’ the Universities. They disrespect academic freedom but ironically used the ideal of academic freedom to get a foothold in the 60s, to get momentum after that, and since the 80s and 90s a majority that began to enforce ‘political correctness’. That was recounted in books such as “The Closing of the American Mind” and “Illiberal Education”. Now, conservative dissent is ruthlessly stamped out. The sciences were relatively free of such nonsense until recently, but its become worse in the era of climate change hysteria.
The solution is for men and women of courage to stand up for their rights and what they believe in, just as Lord Monkton is doing.
They might want to (quietly) join the National Association of Scholars, so as to know there are others out there who are concerned.
Precisely – I made the same point without specific examples in a comment a few posts above.
Academia is now a coercive and prescriptive environment, especially in the sciences – all of them. Research is bought, and has an intended result.
How to reclaim the Universities for academic freedom is one of the pressing questions of our age. Intimidation to enforce censorship being encouraged by a University in one of our two stellar university cities had to be countered.
“how do we take these places back?”
==================
I’ve found that arguing both sides of the question when talking to academics is one way they will listen. don’t take a point of view. rather argue both and take them to task if they are one sided in their views, as a one-sided point of view is not in the best academic tradition. don’t argue climate, argue process.
If graduates of Cambridge and of Oxford (my university) and their international equivalents didn’t go along with Warmism in their droves it wouldn’t matter in the slightest what people at Anglia Ruskin thought or said about the issue. As always when something is wrong, the crucial failure is at the top.
As always when something is wrong, the crucial failure is at the top.
Or it is being orchestrated.
I am gobsmacked that they would adverise themselves on a sign as a university in quotation matks, i.e. ‘University’. Are they for real! Do they not understand what that implies in basic English? I suppose the hand out “degrees” to their “graduates”. Good luck with your action against “Professor” Michael Thorne, the “University’s” “Vice Chancellor”. I hope he ends up “losing”.
The Vice-Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University is Michael Ashcroft (Lord Ashcroft).
Lord Ashcroft has made substantial donations to Anglia Ruskin and his bust stands in the Business School which is named after him.
http://www.constructionphotography.com/ImageThumbs/A088-03510/3/A088-03510_Anglia_Ruskin_University_Building_Chelmsford_Essex_UK.jpg
His view on Climate Change™ seems to be at odds with the prevailing mood at his and sadly most universities, he is probably eligible for ‘denier’ status:
https://twitter.com/lordashcroft/status/556528317482807296?lang=en
Notice how a number of replies to his tweet don’t consider what he tweeted but go straight for the ad hominem.
“seems to be at odds with the prevailing mood at his and sadly most universities, he is probably eligible for ‘denier’ status:”
Bet they wont return his donations though
The parallel drawn between pre-War Germany and this callous piffle expressed as art is a stretch. I am inclined to think that the “Richards’ masterly three-volume history of the Third Reich” has had undue influence on Lord Monckton’s reaction to this stunt.
Your error is comparing a single stunt (the tombstone) to an entire movement (the Third Reich). In it’s early days, the Third Reich was nothing to be feared, it was just a small bunch of malcontents who wanted political power. Even in it’s heyday, the Third Reich was supported by thousands of little stunts, which served to remind people who had the power and who needed to stay quiet.
that’s the University I went to, I studied Ecology and Conservation there… they said if you remember nothing else from this course you must at least remember that Theories and ‘accepted facts’ change all the time in science, being sceptical is therefore crucial – even of what we have taught you here on this course. without scepticsim, our scientific understanding might not progress or improve.
Obviously, they changed their minds about ‘accepted facts’ as well. “Party line” has become the motto…
Nothing defeats an Infantile Gesture more soundly than an Infantile Gesture Masterfully Executed.
Get thee to a scrap yard. Obtain various bits and pieces of metal and from these assemble your own Infantile Gesture. I’m sure you know plenty of people who can assist by welding them into some random assembly that should stand not less than 8 feet tall. Ensure it had a broad and heavy base to ensure accidental tipping is not possible. Top it with something artistic, such as a model of a famous building half destroyed but still recognizable. Encourage a few friends with suitably imbibed spirits, and armed with spray paint, to enhance your Infantile Gesture in any manner they deem artistic.
Next comes the one and only step that will cost any amount of money, and it will be very cheap for what you get out of it. Have a professionally made bronze plaque, at least 3 feet wide and two high created and affixed to the Infantile Gesture. The wording on it, though I do not have your command of the English language would go something like this”
Ode to Monckton the Deni*r.
See what your folly has wrought.
In smaller print, it should say words to the effect of:
Donated to the Anglia Ruskin ‘University” by (make up a name), artist in residence at (make a name) at a value of $500,000. You can even make up a couple of lines about the artist’s history if the fancy takes you.
When the Infantile Gesture has been so assembled, bring it to campus on a weekend. Don’t sneak in. Call campus security and ask for their assistance in setting up the…. uhm… call it a monument at this point. Leave it in place for a couple of weeks. Ooooh, the fun part is still to come. You’ve erected your own Infantile Gesture, now comes the Masterful Execution.
Assemble a group of your friends and arm them with sledge hammers. You will also need a bull horn. Oh, and a phone. You’ll want to call a few media outlets and let them know that there is going to be an event worth covering, where, and at what time.
At the appointed hour, stride onto campus, right up to your Infantile Gesture. Using your bull horn, announce that you are disgusted and upset with this poor excuse for art, and that you and your friends are there to give it and the artist what it so richly deserves. Make sure everyone knows exactly who you are. Then proceed to smash the thing into tiny pieces.
You’ll be on the news. The head of the university will denounce you. Experts will be interviewed and asked if you’ve gone mad. Every green organization within ear shot will be tripping over themselves to join the media frenzy and trash your good name for destroying this valuable piece of art with such an important message for the world.
When the whole thing reaches Peak Frenzy, and the media can no longer back out of coverage, you call a press conference. You quietly explain that the whole thing was a stunt, that there is no artist of that name, that in fact you are the artist and…. that people are being sucked into believing CAGW nonsense as easily as they were sucked into believing your Infantile Gesture (Masterfully Executed) was real art. The media will have no choice but to admit that they were so easily duped. Some of them (you know which ones) will be so sold on their own BS that they will dispatch investigative reporters to find evidence that you are lying to cover your butt, and not the actual artist at all. They’ll dig their own hole, and pull the dirt in over their heads.
DISCLAIMER: Any similarity to past events 0f 30+ years ago is purely coincidental, I take no responsibility for the actions of others based on my clearly fictional writing which is for entertainment purposes only. And the statute of limitation on public mischief charges expired 20 years ago anyway.
Or perhaps one could simply commission a modest gold-plated loo with the following lettering:
A KING’S URINAL
(The letters could be rearranged to say other things, as well…)
Congratulations to David Hoffer for his idea. We did something similar when I was at Churchill College. The College, which liked to appear trendy, erected various bits of distorted tin all ove the College. So we got our mates in the Engineering faculty to run up half a dozen similar clusters of scrap left over from a hyperdrive motor they were building, which were erected all over the College one night.
The next morning I asked the Bursar whether he could tell the difference between the real ones and the fakes. He admitted he couldn’t. That’s because they’re all fakes, I said. He got the point. They were gone by later that day. He sold the whole lot for scrap. Got quite a good price for the dilithium, by all accounts.
And congratulations to Jorge Kafkazar for his immortal anagram of ANGLIA RUSKIN.
Yes, a very good idea. If someone runs with it, I’ll donate my dilitium crystals.
Please do not waste precious material. Resin will do.
And it is an excellent idea you got there….
Not sure but I think the publicity surrounding this wasn’t the intention lest they advertise your position. Someone messed up as even the mere mention of your names is outlawed.
Regardless, thank you for continuing your work despite such outrageous conduct by despicable people. I can relate somewhat. At my work, I was threatened many times including bomb threats to blow up the weir I worked on. Nothing out of thousands of creel interviews with armed people ever happened save for my personal vehicle vandalized.
Me watts, say the word and I will hold a sign and peacefully protest these losers anywhere anytime (USA). Even a small fraction of mr watts readership is thousands of people here and abroad.
He has practiced great restraint I think.
Can I have £1 for every inverted comma used on this page?
Or perhaps I should have said quotation marks as well.
£1? Sorry, no. But WUWT will pay in quatloos…
Lord M’s reaction is of course an over-reaction……but it is necessary…de temps en temps…..to give the “other side” a dose of their own medicine in a (usually vain) attempt to keep them honest.
Three hearty cheers for His Lordship!
It is time we stopped allowing the use of deniers even as repeated a name.It is time we started referring to ourselves as climate science accusers. They are now clearly either inept of fraudsters. No other option exists.
I think we should use the same term on them. “Climate Reality Deniers” spoken and written with frequency should render the word confusing and meaningless in climate context. And it would be a meaningly sensible moniker as well, unlike the now often used “Climate Denier.”
May I suggest a small change? >>> “Climate Reality’s Useless Deniers”; CRUD for short.
I’m fully behind Lord M. on this one.
His point was that nobody drew a line in the sand on the Nazi intimidation tactics, then it was too late.
He is drawing the line for the climate Nazis, fair play to him, I say.
If he can get the word denier classified as hate speech & deny the use of it to the Warmunistas, what a sweet victory.
I recently re-read Michael Crichton’s novel State of Fear, which awakened my interest in the climate ‘debate’.
In it he details how false sciences have lead to millions of deaths: Lysenkoism, & the famines in Russia; & Eugenics, which lead straight to Hitlers’ ovens.
The false ‘science’, actually a religion, of climate change, is designed to facilitate the introduction of a One World Totalitarian Govt, & a vast depopulation of the Earth, a project which is well started, with the EU & the UN. The novel also mentions the EPA “banning” of DDT, June 1972, which caused more deaths through malaria in the third world than Hitler caused.
If he can humiliate this ridiculous ‘University’ that’s a smashing victory.
If he can get ‘denier’ classed as hate speech that will be great.
March on Lord M.
I’m offended my initials never make the cut on these displays of hater ignorance. Does one have to be well-moneyed to rise to this level or be well-connected in ways we humble commenters cannot achieve? I’m ready to scream “Listen to me, haters – I’m here and I matter too!” I also hate that hating haters is hate speech in their world. I wonder too why these people can’t simply win the debate with their science, relying instead on hate speech. I can only conclude their best and only rational days are well behind them, and I gift them the notion those days have ever existed.
I had expected my decision to take legal action would stir up a lively debate and am not disappointed. To opponents of action, I say two things.
First, action worked. The press release is gone – a telling admission on the part of the “University” that it had done wrong.
Secondly, at US no less than at UK law, the meaning of words is determined by reference to their context. The words “Lest we forget those who denied” stand in two relevant contexts: they were graven on an object intended and worded to resemble a stele in memory of the dead, and the wider context is of more than a decade of demands that those researchers who conclude by legitimate scientific means that the impact of our enhancement of the greenhouse effect is likely to be small, harmless and beneficial should be tried and executed for alleged offenses that carry the death penalty, such as “high crimes against humanity” or “treason against the planet”. It is in thatcontext that the lessons of the Nazis’ rise to power by similar menaces against their opponents are directly relevant, and that is why it is appropriate to label the “University” as Fascist.
The “University’s” logo does not have quote-marks, of course, but my teenage graphics boys, no doubt after OD’ing on Krispy Kremes and at least two kinds of Coke, thought it would be fun to fettle up the logo and the daft station sign. So artful was their artifice – ars est celare artem – that at least one commenter here was taken in.
So Christopher are you actually going to take action or are you just talking about it again?
As Associate Professor Renwick from Victoria university in New Zealand said
“I understand he has threatened to contact the British authorities and have degrees from Victoria University deregistered. It is an empty threat. He threatens people all over the place.”
Go on Christopher, prove him wrong and do it.
Lord Monckton … Having read maybe a hundred or so of the comments, I’m of two minds. Both sides have good arguments (bring legal action vs. leave it alone). My usual instinct is to leave the lawyers out of it … they seem to be the only winners in these kinds of affairs. However, your arguments concerning the direction of ‘climate fascism’ is very persuasive and I tend to agree that a line must be drawn.
If you do go through with your action, I would encourage you to include the artist. Ion Wolter is not a young and irresponsible teenager, and is not a typical college student. He is 48 years old and fully responsible for his actions. Please read the following write-up …
http://www.saffronwaldenreporter.co.uk/news/saffron_walden_student_wins_art_prize_1_4078710
I enjoy your articles immensely … and the lively debates they inspire. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
David M Hoffer … love your suggestion! Very Breitbartian …
well, they dishonnour themselves with such a tombstone, and, my lord, i think you make them too much grace by paying attention to this babbling, whose purpose is obviously to harass and divert you from real issues, but also has the effect of advertasing half a dozen dissenting voice, yours included . Let the dogs bark, smile and keep up nonetheless.
Plenty of them in UK and yet to pop up:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/05/19/diversity-officer-could-lose-job-after-tweeting-kill-all-white-men/
Once upon a time Polytechs were of some worth as with Tech Colleges. Since then instructors/teachers have become lecturers. Unfortunate that. The title Professor/Doctor in my view has become somewhat untrustworthy. Perhaps largely so?
Get them when they are young….ram the alarmist climate change cr*p in at primary and secondary schools. Teach them politics at age 10 (Bewdley UK)…FFS why?
And Bill Gates is doing a pretty good job of that with the support of the US and British Governments, via his ‘core curriculum’. Is it any wonder students of college or university age now have little critical faculty regarding climate claims when they have bee indoctrinated all their school days?
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/the-ambitions-of-bill-and-melinda-gates-controlling-population-and-public-education
Give them an inch and they take a mile, these people. That’s the way of the narcissist.
His Lordship is absolutely correct to exercise his God-given right to respond to such an offensive and personal attack within the bounds of the law of the land. Of course it’s a shame that it contributes to a more litigious environment, but that’s not his fault. The blame lies entirely with those who think they can make light of wishing someone dead – in such a public and quasi-official forum – for merely taking a sceptical position on the crisis du jour. And in a way that makes a mockery of the millions of young men and women who died some 70 years ago to defeat that vile and abhorrent creature, National Socialism.
Oh that there were many more brave individuals who, like the Good Lord, have the gumption to stand up to this creeping evil with such resolve. It needs to be checked at every juncture, for it’s like a rat trying to enter a house, constantly searching for a way in, for even a tiny crack through which it can squeeze. It is mind-numbingly persistent, hence the following:
“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”
– John Philpot Curran
I must confess that I struggle with the concept that a tombstone is a death threat.
Were the builders of the Pyramids of Ancient Egypt threatening death to their Pharaohs?
Were those who were drawing up plans of the state funeral of Margaret Thatcher issuing death threats against her. We have come a long way, in the UK, since the time when the mere talk of the death of the King was seen to be plotting the death of the Kind and hence viewed as treasion as, for example, the fate that befell Anne Boleyn
Death comes to us all in the fullness of time, and there is nothing in the tombstone itself that seeks to hasten the demise of any of the named individuals.
If the tombstone carried a date (detailing the date of death Eg 6th July 2015) then arguably that might be different. It could be a prediction (or in climate science speak a projection) or possibly an incitement to bring about the demise of the named individuals by the chosen date. However, as far as I know no specific future date of death is mentioned.
It is simply a matter of poor taste, and not at all funny. In my opinion, it is a typical childish leftist stunt, but that does not make into something more sinister. i do not consider that the artist deserves the attention that he/she has received from such an purile and infantile waste of space. It reminds one of the other ill judged tombstone that was in the press recently which may have played a role in the demise (in the political sense) of the labour party or its leader .
And, Richard, in the same way I reprimand my 12 year old son for expressing such murderous thoughts towards his little sister, so too do these infantile minds need reprimanding. And seeing as his Lordship is one of the people mentioned on this gravestone, he is perfectly entitled to take it upon himself to respond by resorting to legal channels.
I understand that it looks to many like overreaction. I mean why not just laugh it off and move on to more important matters. But this is not really a fight against infantile minds. No, it’s a war of attrition against a dark and insidious Orwellilan spirit that is continually trying to normalise the process of criminalising scepticism and contrarian ideas. If you cannot see that the battle here is more profound than meets they eye, then – like the Good Lord has done – you need to study more closely the fertile ground of demonisation into which the seed of National Socialism was planted and then flourished.
History is repeating itself before our very eyes, and only those who wake up to this fact, and the seriousness of its potential consequences, will have the intellectual wherewithal to correctly identify the enemy and take the fight to his front door.
Yes, it ups the stakes, but escalation is precisely what we need right now. Let’s turn up the heat on these people and force their hand, for then the sooner will be revealed the spirit that lurks in the shadows, and the greater the number of sheeple who will awake from their slumber. That way, many lives will be saved…
+10
Because one is entitled to do something doesn’t mean that one SHOULD do something. Sometimes when we are reacting in a counter-productive manner out of anger, we should listen to our friends who are observing from outside the spotlight and have seen identical situations end poorly.
Our cognitively biased brains don’t want to accept such things, but it is true: ignoring the attack, reacting with grace, reacting with pity… any of those would ruin the experience for all the perpetrators. Everything else gives them more of what they crave: attention.
Also, saying that an act deserves the death penalty isn’t a crime. Saying that someone deserves to die isn’t a crime. Soliciting someone’s death IS a crime. Offering a reward for someone’s death IS a crime. Stating that you intend to kill someone IS a crime.
If you don’t think that Lawyers (ugghh) will play on such distinctions until you WISH you were dead, you don’t know lawyers very well…
“I must confess that I struggle with the concept that a tombstone is a death threat”
I see it as encouragement of an actual murderous act by any willing eco-nut-crazy. That, after all, was the purpose of the Nazi propaganda. It encouraged murder.
Go Lord M. You are my hero.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.co.nz
As I commented on another blog, I particularly liked this line:
I wonder which calendar this ‘university’ uses.
[snip -policy violation, far more than three strikes now, yer out! -mod]
…Send the money to Cambridge University (above) instead. We’re the real thing. We’ll put it to good and proper use: the advancement not of crude, Fascist propaganda but of learning….
I’m afraid that Cambridge may not be totally free of a virus which seems to have even infected the Royal Society…
In response to Mr. Monckton (“…Send the money to Cambridge University (above) instead. We’re the real thing. We’ll put it to good and proper use: the advancement not of crude, Fascist propaganda but of learning…”), Dodgy Geezer writes – quite pertinently –
Are there universities at which Mr. Monckton and other notable skeptics of the great gaudy anthropogenic global warming/ climate change/ “climate fragility” fraud have spoken? I recall as remarkable Professor S. Fred Singer’s speech at Hillsdale College (August 2007), in those pre-Climategate years of the charlatans’ effectively unchallenged ascendency.
I have spoken at faculty level or to undergraduates at numerous universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, St. Andrews, Princeton, Rochester, Prague, Tasmania, Fremantle, Melbourne, Syracuse, Wellington, Texas A&M, Louisiana State, etc. At the last, I discovered from a terrified economics professor who had asked me to speak that a tiny group including John Abraham and other self-appointed busybodies had made determined but furtive attempts to have the invitation withdrawn, including importuning the dean of the faculty and the vice-chancellor, who, however, splendidly said that if Mr Abraham and his cronies wanted to show how higgerant I was they could turn up and try to argue the other side of the case. The meeting went ahead, was well attended, and the faculty and undergraduates present raised some sensible questions.
About half the time, Mr Abraham and his clique of anti-science, anti-freedom creeps succeed in preventing me or anyone like me from being heard. Too many universities will scream about free speech, but will no longer uphold it on their own campuses
I hope no one minds a proud papa (me) announcing that his daughter recently graduated from Cambridge with a doctorate in education.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley wrote: “And don’t ever send it so much as a dime. It is an unworthy institution. Send the money to Cambridge University (above) instead. We’re the real thing. We’ll put it to good and proper use: the advancement not of crude, Fascist propaganda but of learning.”
Sadly, Cambridge do climate propaganda. They have hosted an Al Gore climate leader training seminar and started a Climate Leadership Programme for training business and political people in climate nonsense. It currently operates under the name Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
They are doing it in grand style, with champagne and caviar. They ARE the ones that are paramount, occasionally even in erring…
I want more Monckton videos! Doesn’t the man do public forums anymore? Film them! Post them! I want more Monckton. I love to hear that guy talk. He’s as entertaining as he is informative.
Gary is very kind. If he will kindly book for the forthcoming Heartland International Climate Conference in Washington DC on 10-12 June, I shall be making two presentations. Be there or be square!
Hear, hear. The latest annual climate confabs have become such dull affairs without Lord Monckton’s inimitable commentary. I do hope he will be following Paris for us.
Like richard verney, I struggle with the concept of interpreting a tombstone as a death threat.
Also, further dissemination of Monckton et al.’s paper is likely to be counterproductive. It bases a couple of otherwise-respectable propositions on the bizarre notion that one can calculate output for a model of a time-invariant system that has memory as though it were a memoryless time-variant system–and it advertises the fact that prominent skeptics had let themselves be taken in by a notion that an undergraduate engineering student should be able to recognize after his first control-systems course as totally wrong.
Much better would be for the authors to make a correction admitting their error and making clear that the respectable propositions depend in no way on the sole new thing (other than cumbersome notation) in their paper’s “model.”
It is Mr Born who is in error. Nor did he win many plaudits here for his false assertion that I had “refused” to supply information for which he had sent me no request, and which was in any event supplied in our paper, which he had neither sufficiently read nor understood before presuming to comment hastily and ignorantly on it.
Time will tell whether our simple climate model performs better than the general-circulation models that Mr Born fails to criticise. They predict 3.2 K warming this century. We predict <1 K. We shall see.
Lord Monckton has worked to give the impression that there was something underhanded in my observation that Monckton et al. haven’t been forthcoming about precisely how they derived their transience-fraction values from Roe. Since he has publicly called my intellectual honesty into question, permit me some personal observations about that.
, and I responded that he could test that proposition’s plausibility by plotting the implied step responses ostensibly obtained from Roe. Lord Monkcton’s subsequent post stiff-armed my post’s question with the (non-) answer that “The table was derived from a graph in Gerard Roe’s magisterial paper of 2009 on feedbacks and the climate.” I then posted R code that would actually provide a plot that illustrates how those values seem inconsistent with each other. I subsequently stated yet again that “Monckton et al. don’t tell how they got from the plot to their table.”
at values 
and 
= 0.5, 1.3, 2.1, and 2.9 over periods t = 25–300 years, derived from [the Roe paper]”: each period’s value in each row is “derived from” Roe. But “derived from” is very much open to interpretation, particularly in view of the fact that there are at most three curves, not five, from which to eyeball values in the Fig. 4 graph, by which Monckton et al. illustrate Roe’s step-response range. Did something in Roe’s text provide a basis for the other two rows? I wasn’t able to identify anything. So, again, “derived from” doesn’t tell precisely how they got the Table 2 values. That’s the information I sought.
Several commenters had raised questions about the transience fraction on various threads in which Lord Monckton had participated and given (largely, non-) answers. I therefore wrote a post directed to the questions raised by that quantity and stating that the manner in which transience fraction had been derived from the Roe paper wasn’t entirely clear. In the ensuing thread Lord Monckton made a merely conclusory comment that transience fraction is unity for
After all this occurred in threads in which Lord Monckton was actively participating and responding (however inappositely) to comments, I submitted a comment expressing my disappointment, in light of the Table 2 rows’ apparent inconsistency with each other, that Lord Monckton had insisted on withholding the requested information about precisely how Monckton et al. inferred the Table 2 values from the Gerard Roe paper. I then submitted a further post, in which by linking “turned down” and “request” to his and my posts, respectively, I characterized his post as turning down my post’s request for that information. (At least one of Lord Monckton’s apologists later actually professed to understand from that link of “request” to my previous post that by “request” I meant an e-mail message, and Lord Monckton jumped right on the theory that an e-mail message is what I had falsely implied. This from someone who presumes to lecture me about intellectual honesty.)
In response, the authors then objected in a further post that “Mr. Born at no time contacted any of us to ask for the information he now says we are ‘withholding” and “refusing to provide.’” Of course, that was disingenuous. In view of the back-and-forth on the various threads in which he actively participated, Lord Monckton could not possibly have been unaware not only that I had asked, repeatedly, for more information but also that I had identified discrepancies that had motivated me to do so. As the repetition of Lord Monckton’s non-answer in that post suggests, moreover, repeating the request through some alternate channel would almost certainly have proved futile; as they did in that post, they would simply have continued their stonewalling.
Let’s look at what they were withholding.
According to their paper, the authors’ intention was that their “model” be used to “illuminate” more-complex climate models. Since the IPCC did not provide its models’ step responses (“evolutionary curves” in Monckton et al.’s parlance), Monckton et al. purportedly “derived” proxies from the Roe paper. They normalized Roe’s step responses and placed the resultant transience-fraction values in their Table 2. Models defined by the thereby-specified step responses are what they plugged into their Eq’n (1) to get all their example results: if the Roe responses are representative, they obtained outputs something like those that the more-complex models would yield under the same feedback assumptions. So it was important to know how they arrived at the transience-fraction values, especially because the relationships among them were puzzling.
Their paper says explicitly that each value in each of Table 2’s five rows came from the Roe paper, but it doesn’t say how. Specifically, Table 2’s heading says: “Approximate values of
Now, Lord Monckton’s reply post did seem to add a little information. “The table was derived from a graph in Gerard Roe’s magisterial paper of 2009 on feedbacks and the climate,” he said. “Far from obscuring anything, we had made everything explicit.” Well, okay, then; everything’s explicit: nothing came from the text; all five rows somehow came from that graph.
This tells us that “derived” has to mean something more than just eyeballed; as we noted previously, there are more table rows than there are graph curves. We could speculate about how the “derivation” was carried out. In my second post, for example, I laid out how I had generated five curves from one by making certain assumptions, and four of the resultant curves approximated the values in four of Table 2’s five rows. But the remaining curve didn’t match the first row’s values, so Monckton et al. must have made assumptions different from mine. Why couldn’t they just tell us what they were, as I had in the case of my curves? Why do we have to speculate? I felt like Steve McIntyre trying to get information from Michael Mann.
Moreover, the assumptions they would have had to make are hard to imagine. What set of assumptions would imply that more feedback ever results in less response, as the first three entries in Table 2’s first column indicate (after multiplication by static closed-loop gain to denormalize them)? Actually, I can imagine such assumptions, but they are quite contrived. So those entries at least seem implausible, as I had already pointed out three times when the authors replied in their second post.
And what was the reply?
That is, they merely repeated a portion of what their paper had already said. Is that the reply of authors who are honestly trying to explain precisely how they got five curves from at most three? I don’t think so.
Indeed, if it weren’t for their Table 2 heading’s explicit statement that all the f ≤ 0 values were derived from Roe, the “Where the equilibrium feedback sum is less than or equal to about 0.3, the transience fraction may be safely taken as unity” passage would seem intentionally ambiguous. To be consistent with Table 2’s heading, it has to be interpreted as an observation about the values derived from Roe, but one might otherwise have interpreted the reply as saying that the f = 1.3, 2.1 and 2.9 values were eyeballed from the graph but that the f ≤ 0 values were merely the authors’ assumption, that they had just made them up.
Now, I personally think there’s some evidence that at the coarse time resolution Monckton et al. used in their paper it’s a reasonable approximation to treat the climate system as memoryless (as far as the forcings of interest are concerned). But basing Table 2 entries on that assumption would have been a product of muddled thinking. To “illuminate” the “more-complex models,” Monckton et al. were ostensibly approximating them with Roe-like models, so the Table 2 entries needed to come from Roe, as the heading said they did; they couldn’t be just the authors’ postulate.
Yet I now suspect that’s exactly what they are, that Monckton et al.’s Table 2 heading is a falsehood. A subsequent intemperate comment (It was full of puerile language, misrepresentations of my position, and attacks on me, my honesty, and my punctuation) contained the following statement:
Obviously, this is as Delphic a statement as his others about those values’ provenance; like them it could indeed be interpreted in a manner consistent with Table 2’s heading: it could be read merely as observations about value the authors obtained in some way from Roe. But to me it sounds like an attempt to provide a basis for later contending that they had all along said they’d eyeballed the graph to get the last three rows, postulated the first the first row’s unity values, and in an undisclosed manner interpolated between the first and third rows to get the second. (Comparison of the second row’s values with the first’s and third’s reveals that the interpolation approach was, well, whimsical.)
”—both of which came from the IPCC, of course, not from the authors. The authors contributed only a feedback range and the transience fraction from Table 2’s first row. Despite a nod in the direction of their Fig. 5, that feedback range’s lower limit appears to have been completely arbitrary, and its upper limit came from the almost equally arbitrary “process engineers’ design limit.” If my suspicion is correct, moreover, the transience fraction is merely a value they postulated.
If recent history is any guide, Lord Monckton will probably dismiss the Table 2 values’ provenance as a “quibble.” I don’t think it is. Nearly all their paper’s conclusions are presented as the results of a new model that was developed over eight years of effort. Those included their featured Fig. 6’s alleged demonstration of skill. By not unambiguously identifying the first-row entries’ provenance they tended to obscure how little the §8.3 calculation on which Fig. 6 was based follows from the logorrhea that preceded it.
Without the transience fraction’s derivation from Roe, the only contributions the rest of the paper makes to that calculation (which §8.3.5 summarizes) are RCP 6.0 values of forcing and the IPCC’s estimate of open-loop gain, or “Plank climate-sensitivity parameter
So their featured Fig. 6 represents only the unremarkable conclusion, dictated merely by the definition of feedback, that the RCP 6.0 forcing level implies a temperature change that’s quite modest if the “process engineers’ design limit” and the IPCC’s open-loop-gain estimate are assumed. That recognition didn’t require a new, “irreducibly simple climate model”: the elephant had labored and brought forth a mouse.
Now, the assumption of some lower transience fraction instead of the one they postulated would not have detracted from the Fig. 6 conclusion. But that’s not the point. The point is that their transience fraction is a key quantity in their calculations, that I asked from the beginning how, exactly, Monckton et al. “derived” its values from Roe, and that they have persisted in withholding that information. Lord Monckton keeps misrepresenting my position as being that I want a more-complicated “model” or different transience-fraction values. It should be apparent by now that instead I wanted an explanation that’s clear and coherent. Such an explanation should have been easy to give.
When I accordingly remarked on their conduct the authors reacted as follows:
To allege that authors of a scientific paper have deliberately withheld requested information is to make a very serious allegation of professional misconduct. That is the allegation that Mr Born has now made twice, and in the bluntest terms. . . . He must withdraw that allegation, and be very careful in future not to repeat it.
Well, only Monckton et al. know whether their conduct was deliberate, but their withholding that information is not just an allegation; as we saw above, it’s a matter of record. To withhold means to refrain from giving. Did any of their content-free responses give the requested information? No; merely repeating where the values came from but not telling how is not giving the information. Giving the information would have been saying something like, No, our table heading is false; we really eyeballed only the last three rows from Roe; the rest we made up. They didn’t do that: they withheld the requested information. I leave to others the question of whether that constitutes, as Monckton et al. put it, “professional misconduct.”
I “fail to criticize” the general-circulation models only because many who are more qualified than I have done a good job of that already. Also, I, too, think that 3.2 K warming this century is highly unlikely.
But much of the public is of the opposite opinion, and for prominent proponents of more-skeptical views to base their positions on theories as mathematically inept as Monckton et al.’s “model” does not help to persuade them otherwise.
Methinks Mr Born doth protest too much, and off topic, and to no avail. Off topic, because the reference to the paper at scibull.com in the head posting was there solely to establish that in that paper we implicitly acknowledge throughout that there is a greenhouse effect and that Man has some influence on climate; and to no avail, because he said we had “refused” to supply information he had not contacted us to ask for. That was intellectually dishonest, as several commenters here pointed out: and Mr Born’s criticisms of our paper came across as “mean-spirited”, as another commetner pointed out.
The transience function is a simple enough concept. Nothing central to the paper turned on it. Our values are self-evidently a fair representation both at instantaneity and at equilibrium, and tend somewhat to overstate climate sensitivity conservatively at all points in between, and the reader is specifically told he is free to choose his own values, and that is all that needs to be said. I could argue in more detail, but the subject is off topic here and Mr Born, having acted in an intellectually dishonest fashion before, is not worthy of further discussion.
Monckton of Brenchley: “The transience function is a simple enough concept.”
Perhaps. But it’s too complicated for Lord Monckton to deal with. He demonstrated here and here that he doesn’t understand his own creation.
Contrary to what Lord Monckton said, the transience fraction can, as a mathematical matter, exceed unity for both positive and negative feedback values; whether it does depends on the model. In the case of models one is likely to encounter in the climate arena—and in particular of those whose transience-fraction values Monckton et al.’s Table 2 sets forth—it will never exceed unity, contrary to Lord Monckton’s contention, even for negative feedback values.
Look, Lord Monckton and his co-authors clearly just waded in over their mathematical depth. As another example of that, consider Lord Monckton’s answer to Kip Hansen’s observation that the climate system is governed by nonlinear equations rather than his model’s linear equation. He responded that “our time-series for the transience fraction is non-linear.” He repeated the error here.
Lord Monckton needs to recognize his limitations. He’s good at regurgitating on demand large volumes of what others have done and sprinkling in Latin to frighten the natives; it’s all great showmanship. But he should leave drawing logical inferences to others; his reasoning is much too muddled.
And that paper is an embarrassment.
Mr Born continues to be off topic, and characteristically sour. He made the false allegation, twice, that I had “refused” to provide data that he had not sent any request for, and that was already in our paper anyway. He has acted in bad faith. I do not propose to discuss this matter further with one who has proven himself to be intellectually dishonest. He is of course entitled to his opinion about our paper, for the opinion of a dishonest man is little regarded.
It is good to see someone here that understands the current climate models.,
Perhaps Mr Born could enlighten me and some others on this blog as to why the some of the current climate models can be so separate from reality, but still make the claims that they are working perfectly ?
It is pleasing that the word Nazi is used quite a bit above rather than always using Mussolini’s party or Fascists. The left (used to be the Soviets) like to use the latter as they are reminded that NAZI is an acronym of National Socialism.
It’s for this reason that since the enactment of Obozocare in 2010, I have refused to refer to the “Liberal” fascist faction in these United States as anything other than the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP).
They infest the whole of our republic, they’ve proven themselves unremittingly socialist, they call themselves “Democrat” (when they’re anything but), they’re – to our sorrow! – American, and they’re a political party.
What else can truth in advertising admit of them?
Good point. The Bush Family and their neoconservative allies are the Fascists. So let’s try to keep the categories straight.
Hitler, himself, preferred the term Naso, since Nazi was slang for a bumpkin in some areas of Germany. And, yes, the Communists tried to confuse the issue by calling the German Socialists (NSDAP*) something other than the fellow-Socialists that they were. Their common trait was massive accumulation of power, resulting in State control of all facets of society. The result was 120,000,000 deaths attributable to Socialist governments. That’s 20 Holocausts. And they’re not done, yet.
* It was not merely the NSDAP terminology that identified Hitler’s thugs as Socialists; Socialism was built into their party manifesto. http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/25Points.html
You say “… not the student, who is manifestly not adult enough to understand the seriousness of what he has done…”. However this website: http://www.saffronwaldenreporter.co.uk/news/saffron_walden_student_wins_art_prize_1_4078710
mentions “… third year fine art student and father-of-three Ian Wolter, aged 48,…”.
Hum…
Forty-eight? A mere child.
At least he behaves like one. Or rather a brat….
Perhaps then it is a list of some of the people that helped right the wrongs of climate alarmism.
Let’s take a look at some of the things that Universities & Alarmists are doing
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/05/12/students-seek-to-revoke-wa-state-senators-degree-for-not-believing-in-climate-change-even-though-he-does/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/al-gore-likens-global-warming-deniers-slavery-apartheid-perpetrators-article-1.1433774
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/climate-sceptics-like-aids-deniers-scientist-nilay-shah-says/story-fnb64oi6-1226721777519
http://www.wonkosworld.co.uk/wordpress/2008/06/02/bishop-likens-climate-change-deniers-to-child-abuser/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/7686079/Climate-change-deniers-accused-of-McCarthyism.html
Last but not least, with a really good round up.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/02/skeptics-smeared-as-holocaust-deniers.html
I have this week been the unfortunate witness to University Educated hospital staff/nurses knowingly ignoring a patient in severe distress, a diagnosed Anxiety issue, which I was able to recognize. The visitors and other patients in his room had more compassion and empathy than the so called educated elite idiots who choose to close their eyes and ears. I picked up his chart and looked at what his tablets were, to find that he had his own prescribed medicine that was being withheld. I was gently able to ask what the tablets were for, and he was able to tell me, a complete stranger showing some empathy was able to offer care and answer some questions that were worrying him. Over Educated Dunces, I fear for us all, go get em Christopher.
People are taught precisely NOT to think for themselves these days, in both schools and colleges. I presume you are, like me, of an older generation, taught to use our minds.
When will the MSM wake up to the fact that the ‘Climate Change’ scam poses the greatest threat to democracy ever seen with its intent to replace elected democracies with an unelected and unaccountable global government? A threat far greater than Hitler or Stalin ever posed – as Lord Monckton mentions above.
This is not just a battle for honesty and integrity in science and academia – something sadly missing in publicly funded ‘clmate change’ scientists – but a battle for the democracy that millions gave their lives for in the second world war. It is a battle for free-market economics against the statist marxist doctrine that is the backbone of the whole ‘climate change’ scam.
We must win it to preserve democracy and freedom for the sake of generations to come – in the same way that our fathers, uncles, grandfathers and great uncles did between 1914-18 and 1939-45 and others did during the cold war .
Until the “MSM” are defunded, their position and abuse of common sense will continue.
The TPP* is doing just the same: if passed it will enable multinational corporations to sue sovereign countries which resist their products (eg GMOs for which there has been no adequate testing on humans, and the effects of which on soil and species are irreversible). It will signal the death of any kind of democratic accountability.
‘Science’ is now completely in the pay of these tyrannical forces which seek to repress or bypass democracy at every turn.
* Trans Pacific Partnership, which both Obama and Cameron /the EU Bilderbergers are pushing through.
Of course the definition of “adequate testing” is always, way more than has already done. Or more accurately, “until they come to a conclusion that I agree with”.
I can understand Lord Monckton being mightily displeased with this tasteless stunt but consider there have been many equally if not worse utterances all revealing a totalitarian mindset amongst many CAGW believers
eg In my nation Australia a failed Greens candidate for Parliament in 2010 Clive Hamilton once argued that if the public could not get it ( ie CAGW) right in whom they voted for in terms of climate policies then maybe it was time to suspend democracy!
Then there is the disgraceful use of the term “denier “which I had directed at me by a former Premier of the state of Victoria because I had the temerity to question the then carbon tax policy whose economic effectiveness I queried because the compensation to be paid partially negated the switching impact of the tax.
I also recall reading statements by some whose names I now can’t bring to mind demanding prosecution of climate deniers and one beauty which argued for compulsory psychiatric treatment for “deniers”-shades of the KGB and Siberian clinics
Maybe its time readers of WUWT collectively contributed such examples to make up a “shame file”
to be regularly updated to demonstrate the closed minds of many of our so called public intellectuals.
In conclusion it seems that the totalitarian left having abandoned religion still need a cause to believe in
In the 1940s and 50s it was belief in a dilute form of Marxism;now even the most boneheaded of those believers having seen the collapse of command economies,have turned their beliefs to CAGW which also has the double benefit of possibly bringing down their hated capitalism
That’s a keeper.
In actuality, of course, what Mike Godwin had proposed in 1990 regarding exchanges on Usenet newsgroups (there was no World Wide Web at the time) was simply that: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” This said nothing whatsoever about foreclosing further debate.
You are correct. The statement says essentially nothing at all about the merit of such comparisons. Yet Leftists parrot “Godwin’s Law! Godwin’s Law!” endlessly, as if it constituted an actual argument. It is no more meaningful relative to the content than saying “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving a vowel approaches1.0.”
Did someone mention WWII? Perhaps you should watch this with an open mind.
http://thegreateststorynevertold.tv/portfolio/part-1-adolf-hitlers-childhood/
He’s absolutely right … just not the way he intended. It reminds me of:
“Ozymandias” was Ramesses 2 – who knew?
Also, there were two “Ozymandias” poems, by Shelley and Smith – who knew two?
In antiquity, Ozymandias was an alternative name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. Shelley began writing his poem in 1817, soon after the announcement of the British Museum’s acquisition of a large fragment of a statue of Ramesses II from the thirteenth-century BC, and some scholars believe that Shelley was inspired by this. The 7.25-ton fragment of the statue’s head and torso had been removed in 1816 from the mortuary temple of Ramesses at Thebes by the Italian adventurer Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778–1823). It was expected to arrive in London in 1818, but did not arrive until 1821. Shelley wrote the poem in friendly competition with his friend and fellow poet Horace Smith (1779–1849) who also wrote a sonnet on the same topic with the very same title. Smith’s poem would be first published in The Examiner a few weeks after Shelley’s sonnet. Both poems explore the fate of history and the ravages of time—that all prominent figures and the empires they build are impermanent and their legacies fated to decay and oblivion.
Shelley’s “Ozymandias”
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Smith’s Ozymandias
In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
“I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,
“The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
“The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias
Poetically, Shelley’s is the better. But it’s Smith’s that is most relevant, most striking in its content a hundred years and more after it was written.
Thank you Lord Monckton – it is essential that death threats be prosecuted.
Some history – more to come…
Regards to all, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/27/a-big-goose-step-backwards/#comment-1800555
Note to Prof Richard Betts and Dr Tamsin Edwards:
Perhaps some history will help to put Tim Ball’s article into perspective – please see my post below from 2009.
Climate “skeptics” (aka “deniers”) have been the victims of vicious falsehoods, death threats (Tim Ball has received several) and actual violence. That is the reality.
Where were you good people when this was happening, and what did you do then to stop it?
By the way, Tim did not call you Nazis – that contention is a tactical diversion – those who believe he did so should actually read his article.
Regards, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/03/pielke-jrs-take-on-an-amazing-conversation-with-a-climate-scientist/#comments
[excerpt]
I am concerned that people are losing balance on this very serious issue of alleged humanmade global warming..
Having studied this subject for several decades, I have strong opinions.
For the record, I think the climate changes we have experienced in the past decades are predominantly natural, not humanmade, and probably cyclical, related to either oceanic cycles such as the PDO, etc. or solar cycles, or both.
I believe that Earth’s climate is insensitive to atmospheric CO2, and that recent increases in atmospheric CO2, of whatever cause, are not harmful to the environment, and could even be beneficial.
I believe that many carbon abatement programs are at best uneconomic, and a waste of scarce global resources that should be dedicated to solving real problems – not squandered on imaginary ones.
There is also the compelling moral issue of biofuels raising food prices, thus causing hunger among the world’s poor.
I have grown frustrated by warmists’ repeated attempts to shut down this debate and to bully so-called climate skeptics (aka “deniers”) into silence. This bullying is highly unethical, and has extended to threats of violence, and worse.
I have concluded, reluctantly, that some of the warmists’ research papers were not only in error, but were deliberately misleading.
Nevertheless, it is incumbent on all of us on this side of the debate to not emulate the worst aspects of the warmists and their arguments.
Specifically, hatred is self-defeating. So is excessive polarization.
I think we will win this debate based on science and economics, but only after many hundreds of billions have been squandered on foolish alternative energy programs such as wind power and fuel-from-food.
While this terrible waste is frustrating, it is not appropriate to drag ourselves into the mire in an attempt to compete with the other side.
Frankly, I see signs of mental instability in the wild, irresponsible statements attributed to several prominent warmists. Let us not join them down that self-destructive path.
Best regards to all, Allan
As promised above…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/12/charlie-hebdo-climate-skepticism-free-speech/#comment-1835330
Recently sent to a friend who wrote an article critical of global warming alarmism:
You will know you have truly “arrived” when you receive your first death threat from the enviro-nuts. Dr. Tim Ball has received several. I feel somewhat slighted because I only received rather lame one – more than a decade ago.
Warmist violence has been minor – one scientist friend had the family dog killed, an oil industry colleague had his house fire-bombed – as was the Calgary Petroleum Club.
I was concerned that violence would ramp up as the warmists became more desperate – fortunately this has not happened (yet).
I did recommend many years ago that my friends take certain precautions – lock your office entrances, vary your routes home, etc. I still think this is prudent.
Environmental extremism appeals to the uneducated and the feeble-minded – fortunately most of these people are too lazy to take serious action.
Best regards, Allan
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/27/a-big-goose-step-backwards/#comment-1800850
Here is a list of those forced from their institutions by global warming thugs:
George Taylor – Oregon State Climatologist
Sallie Baliunas – Harvard University
Pat Michaels – University of Virginia
Murry Salby – Macquarie University, Australia
Caleb Rossiter – Institute for Policy Studies
Nickolas Drapela, PhD – Oregon State University
Henrik Møller – Aalborg University, Denmark
Q – others?
How about adding Bob Carter, James Cook ‘University’, Townsville, Qld. Australia
How about a “Lest we Forget Those Who Lied” monument with the likes of Mann, Hansen, Schmidt, Gore, IPCC, etc.
And meanwhile, here in the States, in a few hours President Full’O’Crap is going to give a commencement speech in which he says that all “deniers” of Climate Change are Traitors to America, because National Security.
And yet there are still people who think this isn’t a purely political fight.
Saying this ‘ex cathedra’ that fellow becomes a schyzomycete of the nation beyond comparison.
I wondered what kind of rinky-dink rat hole the university was, so I googled it. The wiki article paints a picture of a pretty reasonable school.
Christopher Monckton is carefully being nasty without exposing himself to legal action. It’s a bit shameful IMHO. He would be the first to point out the logical fallacy of an ad hominem attack on himself but he seems more than willing to employ it on others.
Ok, ok, on the official list it ranks 110th out of 133. It went after me with a death threat. My response has been entirely unthreatening. I’m under no obligation to be nice to the “university” in the circumstances. Their conduct had not been either “pretty” or “reasonable”.
Monckton of Brenchley
May 20, 2015 at 6:59 am
Matthew W should not be childish. In the head posting I had said the university ranked 250th out of 133. That was what we who are not Marxists or environmentalist extremist (the two political subsets seem coterminous these days) refer to as “a joke”.
====================================
My reply was to Commie bob and I didn’t think I actually needed the sarc tag
Oh dear !!
Your incredible intelligence and superior wit has just destroyed good Lord M’s credibility.
Matthew W should not be childish. In the head posting I had said the university ranked 250th out of 133. That was what we who are not Marxists or environmentalist extremist (the two political subsets seem coterminous these days) refer to as “a joke”.
au contraire – Anglia Ruskin destroyed it’s own credibility when it allowed itself to be used as a venue for death threats for purely political purposes. In that, Anglia Ruskin has shown itself to hold the same standards as Heidelberg University in Germany, when that institution allowed itself to become the center of Eugenics Studies during the Third Reich.
The Holocaust began in a University classroom.
I must apologize to Matthew W for having completely misunderstood him.
How about you google the difference between satire and ad hominem?
Monckton’s accolade of Cambridge university, saying “… Cambridge University. We’re the real thing.” might perhaps remember a) “The Cambridge Five”, and b) the very necessary role of polytechnics such as the one he is disparaging.
I am disparaging A King’s Urinal not so much because it was formerly a polytechnic as because today it plainly has no understanding of the environment of academic freedom of scientific research and discussion that it is its duty to foster. That is why I treat it with the contempt it deserves. It is not behaving as a real university should. The fact that many other universities are similarly acting in dereliction of their duty to be places of light, of liberty and of learning is no excuse.
So the question here is…
I would say not. Rather I interpreted it as political comment, the tombstone representing the purported deaths caused by looming global warming.
In the U.S., Moncton would almost certainly not have a case, as the courts bend over backwards to allow free speech. In Britain free speech is not so well protected, so we’ll see.
But as sympathetic as I am towards Moncton, I value free speech even more.
“Free Speech” in Her Majesty’s kingdom is not the same as in the Colonies
Sadly this is so. The very wellspring of individual liberty has forgotten what it means.
“Rabbit” should not be pompous. Our democratically-elected representatives, in one of the very few areas of law in which they are permitted by the Kommissars of the European tyranny-by-clerk to make decisions and laws for us, have decided repeatedly on recent occasions that the citizen now needs protection from hate-speech and from being threatened or terrorized by malicious communications.
Do not pretend that there are no constraints on free speech in the United States. There is, for instance, a law of libel, under which Professor Fred Singer was able to extract an abject apology and retraction from a person who had made malicious and entirely baseless allegations against him. That person tried to plead the Constitutional amendment guaranteeing free speech, but the court snapped back that he was not free to lie to the detriment of another’s reputation. Same in the UK. If you don’t like that, then amend the Constitution to abolish the tort of libel.
There are other examples of the necessary marginal circumscription of free speech in the United States, but that will do to illustrate the point.
I don’t care who you are, knock off the insults.
First, I’m Canadian. Second, there are constraints of free speech everywhere, but the U.S. is particularly reluctant to limit speech, especially if it is political in nature. The tombstone was offensive, but it’s questionable whether it would be considered defamatory under British law, given that In 2013 parliament expanded the defenses against a claim of defamation.
rabbit
In reply to Lord M observing
You responded
Cue Flanagan and Alan
Richard
richardscourteny:
Since my computer is mute, that clip fell a little flat.
rabbit
In hope of helping, I suggest you would do well to follow the example of your computer.
Richard
richardcourtney:
Too bad for you, I am difficult to shut up.
Pretty easy to support restricting the speech of those you disagree with.
But what happens when some political party in power want to silence “climate skeptics” for the good of society? Will there be anything left of freedom of speech to shield us?
It takes courage and foresight to defend those we find offensive, but it’s worth it.
rabbit
I did not tell you shut up. I offered some helpful advice.
If you want to continue being a pompous ass then I will enjoy the laugh.
Richard
Lord M; Slightly O/T…..Have you seen Theresa May’s withering put-down towards the Police Federation today? It was quite the most impressive STFU from a politician who’d just had enough. The best part was she did it right to their faces, no messing about in a press-release. She listed ‘prediction’ after ‘prediction’ of doom from the police – all of which have totally failed to materialise.
Clearly there’s a huge case for the climate debate to match her efforts. The Greens / eco whack jobs have spent decades predicting doom – and all that’s happened is crop yields are up every decade, US storms are down, floods, draughts etc are showing no trend. In fact it’s hard to find anything of substance that the eco-nutters predicted that has actually occurred. Maybe you could compile the definitive list of ‘Climate STFU’, a list of their own predictions matched to failed, non-existent outcomes? Just a thought.
Start with the global cooling Hype from the 1970’s
Thanks, Christopher, Lord Monckton.
Please keep on fighting for us carbon creatures.
Searching Anglia Ruskin’s site today- 20/5/15- (don’t you just love that nod-among-equals to Ruskin?) it’s quite easy to find references to the magnificent artwork, and an image of it:
http://ww2.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/news/slick_artwork_commemorates_journalists.html
and supporting text:
“‘Oil waterfall’ featuring names of climate change deniers wins Anglia Ruskin prize
The names of well-known climate change deniers feature in an ‘oil painting’ with a difference, which has gone on display at Anglia Ruskin University.
The new artwork includes the names of journalists Melanie Phillips, James Delingpole and Christopher Booker chiselled under the words ‘Lest We Forget Those Who Denied’, while a constant stream of engine oil runs over the 2.2m tall memorial.
Other names to feature on the memorial stone include politicians Nigel Lawson, Christopher Monckton and Owen Paterson, the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The work, by third year BA (Hons) Fine Art student Ian Wolter, is the winner of Anglia Ruskin University’s Sustainability Art Prize, which is an annual competition run by the Cambridge School of Art and the Global Sustainability Institute.
”
Just thought you should know it hasn’t been removed. It’s still on Anglai Ruskin ‘University’ website. It’s a sub-page of the lovely Dr Aled Jones (FSRA). Wonder how long this will stay there?
One small addition to Lord Monckton’spost, Nigel Lawson was not only Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) but had also been Secretary of State for Energy, which is the position from which the disastrous Eds, Milliband and Davey, were able to do so much damage to Britain’s energy supplies (and countryside) in the name of climate change. Sadly, from press reports the new incumbent, Amber Rudd, seems to have studied at the feet of the Eds rather than learnt under Nigel.
Looks as though the offending press release is back up again. In that event, the “university” has sealed its doom, legally speaking.
I say go after them Monckton. Three cheers. It was not meant in good taste and it is potentially dangerous. US laws do not apply, and are meaningless in this situation. The public holds climate change somewhere below a steaming pile of whale pooh on the importance scale. If this event sheds some light on the venom that the left shoots at us daily that would be a plus.
It is a shame that you have to endure this, but facing it head-on is the right move in my opinion.
Why fight the foot soldiers, when their orders are coming from some of the highest offices on the planet?
The intent is to sow fear and fear is a precursor to anger. The foot-soldiers are angry because they have been subjected to fear- propaganda from on high.
It was in these very pages that ridicule and scorn was heaped upon Australian climate scientists who made a somewhat overwrought claimed that they had received death threats. Yet when an even more overwrought death threat claim based upon the phrase “Lest we forget…” is launched by the ever-bilious Chris Monckton, everyone here lines up in support. You just can’t make this stuff up!
The remarks by Mr Skaggs are strikingly similar to those made by appeasers in the run-up to the Nazi dictatorship. They, too, did their best to divorces every death threat from its context and characterize it as harmless. The law on both sides of the Atlantic bears in mind the context within which a menacing statement is made. The context is of hate speech directed at us in the most vicious terms, and often by people who are paid to do nothing but try to discredit us. The context is of that hate speech embodied in a shameful but menacing press release issued under the name and with the authority of the “university”. The context is of increasingly frequent and public demands that we should be tried and executed for “high crimes against humanity” or “treason against the planet. These threats are made not only by intellectually-immature students but also by tenured professors and leaders of major scientific institutions, as well as by politicians.
If no one stands up against them, the danger that the “governing body” to be established by the Paris Treaty this December will gradually morph into a dictatorship that uses the proposed “international Climate Court” to put climate skeptics on show trial cannot be simply shrugged off. The rhetoric of hate and threat has become altogether too frequent, too persistent and – the greatest lesson from the Nazi era – too unchallenged.
Mr Skaggs should perhaps read the “University’s” press release before deciding that no offense has been committed. In UK law, threatening or malicious communications that are publicly circulated are a crime. He may wish that that were not so, but I am entitled to take protection from the monsters at the “university”, and I have decided to do so.
It is easy enough for Mr Skaggs to scoff. He has not been on the end of this hate speech for a decade, as I have. And imagine how poor Dick Lindzen must feel, after putting up with a third of a century of continuous malice from the intellectual pymies of the eco-Socialist Left.
Thanks for the quick response, Chris, you’ve given me much to work with. Do you really think that eco-activists are the moral equivalent of Nazis? How do you distinguish between your phrase “nastiest totalitarian bullies” and “hate speech?” Are you aware that the statements “as the danger that an unelected world government will be inflicted upon us at the Paris climate summit…” and “increasingly frequent and public demands that we should be tried and executed for ‘high crimes against humanity’…” pretty much constitute the apex of hysterical conspiracy ideation? You are quite the piece of work, with your inherited money and your self-worship.
Matt Skaggs: Just to clarify, I am an activist. I have in the past campaigned on environmental and human rights issues, so I guess that makes me a greenie of sorts. However, the global warming scare is NOT eco-activism. It is a scam, pure and simple. A scam with a political agenda behind it. We activists should not be wasting our campaigning efforts on this nonsense,
If a few more of my fellow activists (some of whom viciously disagree with me over this, even to the point of threatening to start a fistfight over it!) could see the wood for the trees, that they are being cleverly duped into lending their time and effort to spreading AGW propaganda instead of pursuing more worthy causes, then the driving force behind the scam would be taken away, and it would then collapse of its own accord.
Hi Ian,
You are preaching to the choir. Based upon what you wrote, it looks like we fit into the same lonely quadrant of the scatter plot showing belief in AGW vs. political alignment. I share your AGW skepticism, you can read the proof of that in my essay published at Climate Etc.
But as for “scam”…what is it with WUWT commenters and conspiracy ideation?
I believe there was a (laughable) published paper that addressed that very question…
Matt Skaggs
You ask
People who frequent WUWT know that a coincidence of interests is usually more powerful than any conspiracy.
“Conspiracy ideation” pertaining to climate realists is a nonsensical idea promulgated by the most lunatic fringe of believers in man-made global warming.
Richard
Matt Skaggs,
The Australian climate scientists’ ” death threat ” ploy was ridiculed here as it was manifestly false, a lie. It was a completely made up and deliberately dishonest scare story intended t draw sympathy and it drew ridicule that it deserved. I suggest that you read up on that topic and what actually transpired before passing comments which show your ignorance on the specific subject.
Venter,
Dunno if you are an American, but we have a saying that is considered “Cowboy Wisdom:”
The first thing to do when you find yourself in the bottom of a hole is to stop digging.
‘Inherited money’, Skaggs, that says it all………..Jealous???
There was no evidence to support the Australian climate scientists claims. These “threats” were never reported to the police. The scientists were asked to provide the emails and they refused.
In this case, the proof was displayed both on the “University’s” website and reported in the press.
Two entirely different situations.
Matt Skaggs,
The ” cowboy widsom ” is characterised by your bullshit. I have specifically stated facts of the so called Australian climate scientists’ ” death threats ” . That was a lie created by them. You dd not bother to read the thread you referred to which appeared here some time ago in WUWT and yet you quoted it without knowing what the thread was about. When I pointed out that you had your facts wrong, you are spreading BS.
@ RSC:
Here’s how it was put here about 4 years ago:
“A conspiracy is unnecessary if a carrot will suffice.”
Do we have a ‘hate-speech’ law in the UK yet? I would have thought this would count…
Dodgy Geezer, as often, is on point.
The Justices of the Peace Act 1361, at s.1, prohibits conduct likely to besmirch the peace.
The Public Order Act 1986, at s. 4, makes menacing communications an offense.
The Malicious Communications Act 1988, at s. 1, also makes menacing or malicious communications an offense.
There was a time when a man’s reputation was his life. In those days, you could only conduct business based upon reputation. Nobody would buy/sell to/from you without knowing your reputation. People would proudly display letters of reference as proof positive of their character, honor, and station in society. Any transgression could mean public embarrassment, and even the most trusted of friends could shun you for fear of being associated with you. Losing one’s reputation could cost one his living, his family, his friends, nearly everything.
So important was this notion that any challenge to one’s character could draw a demand for a duel. People would quite literally risk their lives in order to maintain their reputation by challenging the offending party to a fight to the death. Formal procedures and laws about how this was to be resolved were in place. Refusing to fight meant the assertion lacked conviction, and this in turn could cast doubts on the reputation of the accuser.
While this whole notion seems antiquated, there was an important societal benefit. Any accusation of dishonesty or attack upon character carried with it the weight and gravity of knowing how quickly and seriously such a charge could escalate. People therefore rarely attacked each other’s character, making society much more civil. And when such rare character challenges did occur, it was a serious matter which drew the attention of all concerned.
It is important to note the laws governing speech and the other freedoms were crafted in such an environment. People then valued their reputations and civility that these were underlying assumptions about societal behavior when the constitution was drafted. Unfortunately those assumptions no longer hold true. People no longer cherish their reputation on the same level as their life, and the absolute decay in character and civility is a result. One need only look at the political process to see the tragedy in this.
I applaud Lord Monckton’s attempt to demand civility. If you wish to take issue with his position, hold a civil debate and win your points in the arena of ideas. Assassination of character is a cowardly way to try to win a scientific debate, and particularly troubling for an institution of higher learning. Any amount of shame and ridicule he can heap upon them is only right and just. Good luck to you, sir.
Milord Monckton, although I’m a big fan, I hope you can dial back the worst of your more hyperbolic tendencies. This is NOT a credible death threat.
Furthermore, we should all welcome the use by alarmists of the term “denier.” As I once explained to Phil Plait and his silly sycophants, such smears will taint the smear mongers far more than it will impugn their targets. They didn’t listen, of course.
For evil to triumph, it is necessary only that good men do nothing. – Burke
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. – Burke
This is true liberty, when free-born men
Having to advise the public, may speak free.
Which he who can and will deserves high praise.
Who neither can nor will may hold his peace.
What can be juster in a state than this? – Milton, Areopagitica
Bear in mind that Germany could have been stopped before World War II and wasn’t, because the appeasers said there was nothing to see here, move along, move along. And bear in mind that those who now say we should appease the political inheritors of mid-20th-century totalitarianism are as dangerous to the future of humanity as the appeasers then. It is so easy, so alluring, so fashionable to do nothing until it is too late. Well, not this time. The context within which the “university’s” menaces were made is a grave one. The environmentalists extremists mean to change the law to execute blameless scientists, just as the eugenicists of Germany and the Lysenkoists of the Soviet Union did. They are saying so, with increasing frequency.
In the United Kingdom, like it or not, such talk, if accompanied by threats, insults or inaccuracies, is against the law. If the law says the “university” is within its rights, so be it: but at least the “university will have had to face the fact of the offense its press release caused, and of how very close it came to a humiliating punishment. And if that humiliating punishment is administered – even if it is no more than a binding-over to keep the peace – the law will have put down a marker: don’t try to stifle the academic liberty and freedom of speech of genuine researchers with whose results you disagree.
I understand the gut reaction most readers have at fighting back at the warmists. Skeptics cheer that the laws are being used against their enemies. It reminds me of the reaction many had when OJ was found innocent. As someone who believes that the freedom of speech is just as important as knowing the truth about global warming (much to do about nothing), I can’t support this form of lawfare. We should be working to dismantle a system that allows our critics to be shut down because that system is much, much, more likely to be used against those with a hated minority opinion. Us.
And the first step in dismantling that system is to ensure that when the merchants of hate speech cross the line into law-breaking the law comes along and stops them. Manos’ argument is very similar to those that were put forward time and time and time again by the appeasers in Britain and throughout Europe before World War II. Have we learned nothing from their failure to stop Germany while there was still time, and for their endless statements that those making death threats didn’t really mean it or didn’t matter? Enough is enough.
In 1995, Prince Charles famously prevented a book from being published that was about his personal life. That book was published in the US. Other famous works of art have suffered censorship in the UK, from Gilbert and Sullivan, Ulysses by James Joyce, Animal Farm by George Orwell, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine and many others. Most of these books were banned because they offended elite sensibilities.
Clearly student art made in bad taste does not hold the asestic value of Ulysses. But the issue here is the same: a member of the peerage is using the power of the government to shut down speech that is critical of him. Censoring speech usually just draws more attention to the speech. This is known as the Streisand Effect. It’s already working. None of us at this site would have heard about the tombstone if there hadn’t been a criminal complaint made.
So while I support the work that Lord Monckton has done on climate change, I find his attitudes on speech to be foreign and unenlightened. I suspect the disconnect is due to the differing values of the English upper class and strong anti-authority attitudes in the States. I’m reminded of the French diplomat who asked a farm hand in Texas where his master was. The farm hand replied, “He ain’t been born yet.”
Monckton: Please listen to Manos and hear what he is telling you.
– – – – – – –
Christopher Monckton,
Johnny (moi) really likes that!
John
I am fond of this Queen’s peace thing from 1361.
The Justices of the Peace Act 1361 is a model of what legislation should be. It describes a general principle – the king’s or queen’s peace – and leaves it to the common sense of the courts in each age and circumstance to decide whether an action, such as that of the “university”, is a breach of the peace. So different from today’s Talmudic approach, with every last sub-clause piously intended to provide for each particular individual circumstance, and instead each sub-clause creating a loophole through which the ingenious may wriggle.
It is worth remembering that Cambridge University was already old by the time of the 1361 Act having been established in 1209-six years before Manga Charta.
Their libraries are a treasure trove of ancient records and such material-together with Scientific papers-enable people such as myself to reconstruct historic English Temperatures drawing on work done before us by such greats as Hubert Lamb
The scholars of 1209 would not be phased by todays climate having experienced many warm years themselves. 1208 is recorded as a drought and a warm dry summer whilst a flood in 1209 gave way to another warm dry summer which required the deepening of the wells in parts of southern England according to manorial records.
tonyb
– – – – – – –
Christopher Monckton,
Nor do I deny it. And I concur with your assessment of the anthropogenic effect on climate due to burning fossil fuels.
John
Just fyi:
The only thing Godwin’s Law says is that the longer a thread goes on, the more likely it is that someone will mention ‘Nazis’.
dbstealey on May 20, 2015 at 10:00 am
– – – – – – – –
dbstealey,
Godwin’s law is intellectual comic book stuff.
Is there a Stealey’s Law?
There are two Whitman’s Laws,
and
What do you think of Whitman’s Two Laws?
John
John,
Good. But the first one’s too easy. ☺
The lead post by Christopher Monckton is an important segment of some larger strategy by critical intellectuals. I thank him for that.
I think there is a need for a discussion of what is the larger strategy by critical intellectuals to nullify the exaggerations on climate change such as the exaggerations in the IPCC assessment reports and the exaggerations in the position statements of scientific societies. It is OK to let the public know a strategy and to see our discussion of it.
John
I’d be proud to be listed there, m’lord. You will be remembered by history as having denied the leftists an easy opportunity to quickly enslave the world into an Orwellian Hell.
I will share my limerick once again, dedicated to lord Chris and the others who question “settled science”;
Authority figures, foretelling
Hot doom (and our “myths” dispelling),
Cast great dispersions
On skeptical versions
(Which keep carbon credits from selling)!
Now, shriller and louder they’re yelling,
To drown out the doubters’ rebelling!
New taxes are “just”
When you’ve gained public trust,
So “the questioners” (quickly) they’re quelling.
I’ve arrived at this realization;
Our industrial civilization
Can only be a “sin”
If the green parties win-
On their platform of demonization!
to put a victim’s name on a tombstone while the victim is still alive is to make a death threat
***************
not sure I agree with that however I also don’t have to put up with the vitriol you do.
also culturally the differences (american free speech stuff) probably affect my thinking differently than you.
but, like said above, I don’t have to deal with the crap you do.
would be interested in the outcome here, please stay safe and keep on making your voice heard.
I always enjoy reading your thoughts.
Go after them Your Lordship… to the MAXIMUM extent allowable by law.
We cannot allow denigration of character, veiled threats, suppression of free speech to go unchallenged.
For evil to win, it is only necessary that good men do nothing.
They have now devolved into a nation of stalkers.
I see the selection of particular private citizens to ridicule their contributions to honest science, as being outside of the realm of “poetic license” and well into the bounds of public slander. The commissioner of the art might be just as culpable as the artist or even more so, depending on if the names were supplied to the artist as being required for the commission to be fulfilled. Just my take on it.
It’s not a death threat, it’s just humor:
See? It’s funny to see those not enthusiastically engaged in inconsequential actions to save the planet get what they deserve.
/sarc
While I’m completely in agreement with Monckton on the subject of CAGW, I think this is an ill-considered decision, for several historically demonstrated reasons.
1) How do you bring attention to dumb attention seekers? Sue them and issue press releases about it. I hadn’t heard of the silly tombstone or second-rate school until this post… Now I have. Those brain cells were intended for a higher purpose…
2) Boy Who Cried Wolf. Calling this non-artwork and its promotion by the “school” a death threat is over-reaching. I understand the temptation to over-reach when you are the subject. But clearly this was an ignorant student and a half-wit “school” just trying to draw attention. Which you are giving them. Ecologically misinformed sociopaths HAVE committed acts of violence, and probably will again. We numb the public to their evil when we over-accuse people who clearly aren’t dangerous, just obnoxious.
3) The principle of free speech exists to cover exactly this sort of thing: ill-informed, unappealing “art” that won’t be remembered past next Tuesday. I can think of dozens of excuses even a simpleton lawyer could give for the symbolism of this “artwork.” Example: “It is meant to be a provocative representation of the death of a dangerous philosophy at the hands of righteous college students who are trying to save humanity.” Total horse-sh*t, but hard to disprove. And not worth whatever press this lawsuit generates.
4) It just seems thin-skinned. I’ve admired Monckton’s writing and am saddened at the thought that he’s allowing an idiot to become his peer. That’s what acknowledging the “art” with anything other than a dismissive laugh does. That “artist” can now say “I made a work so important that it brought a lawsuit from a Lord.” The “school” can now say “We have trained provocative, headline-grabbing artists.” All press is good press.
Find a gracious way to bow out of this suit and prosecution and ignore such nonsense. When someone rings up your phone and says “I’m gonna kill you, Monckton,” THEN call the authorities. That’s a death threat.
Keep up the good work and well-reasoned essays and don’t take the bait from children.
Regards!
“4) It just seems thin-skinned. ”
So how do you think would the Western Media Bloc and their bed fellows, the Green NGO’s, react if we created a tombstone with the names of say Al Gore, Naomi Oreskes and Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber on it.
They would probably respond in a more odious manner than I can imagine. But are they the standard by which to judge ourselves? Sure hope not.
My point: Monckton is much better than that. Unfortunately, but for understandable reasons, he took the bait.
I guarantee you they don’t feel threatened by this reaction. They feel invigorated, validated and stupidly happy.
“Takebackthegreen” may well be right about the reaction of the perpetrators of the hate speech in the “university’s” press release to my decision to expose them and indicate that their hate speech is not merely tasteless but dangerous. But the wider reaction of those watching – and there will be quite a few now, because the national press in the UK has taken up the story – will be to realize that a marker has been put down, and that those climate extremists who still retain an ounce of civilization will be a little more circumspect in their language.
I’m not really worried about the “artist”. The erection was ugly to look at, lacking any artistic merit, and people should – within reason – be allowed to perpetrate bad art, though I’d rather they didn’t do it on the “university’s” dime.
But the press release, with its five deployments of the word “denier” and its derivatives on a single page, its expressing the hope that climate change “denial” would be made a crime – a crime that the tombstone and its motto implies should be a death sentence – was unacceptable. The “university” itself realized this, removing the offending press release from the web quite quickly after I had written to it.
I also received a disingenuous letter, dripping with malice, from the “university’s” Scottish shysters. In that letter, they pretended there was no connection between holocaust denial and climate change “denial”. You have only to look at Willis Eschenbach’s telling graph downthread to realize how solid and deliberate that connection is, and was intended to be.
And all this in the context of dozens of public threats that climate “deniers” should be put on trial for their lives and executed – a trend that is rapidly growing. It’s very easy for those not in the front line to say we should damn the torpedoes and go full speed ahead, but United Kingdom law gives me an increasing armory of defenses against the kind of malicious communication that the Left specializes in, and – this time – I’m going to take advantage of it.
The magistrates, who may well be unaware of the extent of the hate mail and hate speech and the frequency of death threats we receive, may share your view. But I shall be putting evidence before them to show how very serious these threats are now becoming, and how baseless they are when one looks at the science and economics. In the end, I think they will be likely to accept that a summons should be issued against the university – which will of course be able to plead in mitigation that it removed the offending press release as soon as it could.
I am under increasing pressure from my family not to put them at risk by continuing to publish scientific and economic research in this field. As you may know, Roger Pielke Jr., the mildest and most mild-mannered of skeptical scientists, has also recently come under pressure from his family, and has decided to accede to it.
Like it or not, this unforgivable bullying is a major reversal for the freedom of academic researchers to study subjects and reach conclusions that are not “politically correct” but may nevertheless be right. The “university” should never have issued its poisonous press release, and – if the magistrates accept, as they must, that there is a prima facie case against the “university”, they will hear the case.
I agree with you, though, that the hapless student should not be the focus. He is plainly too intellectually immature for mens rea to apply, in any event. The focus is, therefore, the “university” itself, which plainly hasn’t the slightest notion of what a true University should be – a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.
It seems the other five names on the list might have been recruited into a more unified initial response, given time. Perhaps there was an “ombudsman” that was over-looked. At any rate the Vice-chancellor must be paid by someone. His achilles heel will reveal itseft with prodding.
Agree that there must be a fight, but I’d rather not oppose your “environmentalist Sturmabteilung” directly. The green-shirts also need to be paid. The United Nations is the Novus ordo seclorum.
Fortunately one of the six was enough to bring the “university” to its senses. If only someone had had the sense to write me a short note saying sorry for the venom in the press release, I’d have taken a kindlier view. As it is, the “university” has stained the name “university” with its hate speech, its death threat, and its implicit refusal to allow academic freedom to draw legitimate scientific conclusions at variance with those in vogue among a narrow faction.
Because the University withdrew the press release doesn’t mean they agree that it was a death threat.
If researchers (or anyone for that matter) are actually threatened with death or violence, the reaction should be swift and substantial.
Making a provocative, insulting, degrading and/or false “artwork”–even a juvenile one–is protected by thousands of years of historical precedence.
Reminder: I’m on your side. I’m just rooting for a more effective response that deprives the simpleminded of their validating moment in the limelight.
Reminder #2: If they win, they are heroes. If YOU win, they are heroes AND martyrs. There is no other outcome to this game you’ve regrettably agreed to play.
Good Lord, as they say, your most ept skewering of the madness of the aptly named ‘University’ is great to see. You say correctly that the word “denier” is intended to convey the sense of denial of obvious truth expressed in the term “Holocaust denier”, along with conveying a bonus stack of moral opprobrium and disgust.
In support of the claim that “denier” can only be seen as an allusion to “Holocaust denier”, let me offer this google Ngram of the word “denier” …
You can see that there is only one clear historical meaning for “denier”, and it peaks just after the end of WWII … guesses, anyone?
Anyhow, Christopher, well done, and quite up to your usual standards of fun.
w.
I see that it coincides with the introduction of Nylon stockings…
Gotta love etymological word-play … for those who didn’t get the reference, the “denier” is the measurement of the weight of the yarn from which e.g. Nylon stockings are made. If comparing the same material, the density cancels out, so the “denier” is actually measuring the diameter. In practice this means the lower the denier, the finer the stockings …
w.
DirkH,
Good catch. I find it unlikely that the ‘denial’ peak in the graph was in relation to ‘the Holocaust.’
Incidentally, I will bring up double standards again. Where is the matching din of opprobrium for the illegal, immoral and inhumane firebombings of Dresden, Hamburg, Kassel, Paderborn, Aachen, Swinemünde and so on — (after all, ‘holocaust’ means ‘complete burning’) — in which hundreds of thousands of civilians where deliberately incinerated?
Hitler a monster, yet Churchill a hero?
Is this not ‘holocaust denial’?
” I find it unlikely that the ‘denial’ peak in the graph was in relation to ‘the Holocaust.’”
No it’s probably just an El Niño event that has been cherry picked //Sarc.
Give me strength.
In response to Max Photon, I for one am not happy either at the fire-bombings of Dresden and Hamburg or at the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I understand that the objective in these cases was to try to save lives in the long run by taking lives in the short, but no one can consider that such actions – however necessary they may be thought to have been – are desirable.
The central, simple point of the head posting is that the events that led to these monstrous, indiscriminate slaughters of civilians began with unopposed hate speech remarkably similar in all material respects to that of the “university” in its press release. At first, as here, the hate speech was perpetrated by hot-headed individuals in the Nazi Party. The next phase – which the “university’s” dismal press release heralds – was the perpetration of hate speech by the bureaucratic and governing elite. If I can stop it now, with a well targeted prosecution, so much the better. If not, at least I tried.
Willis, my friend, your graph of the use of he word “Denier” is characteristic of all your graphs – it makes a fascinating point that is not otherwise available, and does it clearly. Many congratulations. I’ll pinch it and use it often.
With respect, isn’t this all rather elitist – Anglia Ruskin University (no quotes required) is expressly shown in Schedule 1 of the Education (Recognised Bodies) (England) Order 2010 made by the then Minister of State David Willetts, so is entitled under UK law to be referred to as a University, to provide courses in preparation for degrees and to award degrees.
I am also an MA (Cantab) – from Christ’s College of the (main) town University. For myself I welcome any other educational establishment setting up in the town, which I always found rather stuffy myself. The more the merrier – and King Street still has quite a few pubs, for the run!
And a plaque saying “Lest we forget those who Denied” is surely just an obvious play on words – it really shouldn’t be taken as denoting any form of tombstone. So shouldn’t the heading to this article more accurately read “I’m denied. Send flowers”?
Read the head posting. It’s the “university’s” press release, amplifying and making more explicit the death threat implicit in the erection itself, that was the problem. The “university” itself realized that the press release was unlawful and retracted it. That stands to its credit. Nevertheless, the death threat and the air of palpable menace in the press release, particularly when seen – as it should be – in the context of a growing number of such public threats to scientific researchers who come to a view that the eco-extremists find uncongenial, do contravene UK law. If you don’t like the law, campaign to get it changed. But I’m grateful that there is now some protection against hate speech of the sort that the “university” has perpetrated.
And I’ve made it clear upthread that the “university” gets quote-marks not because it’s inferior to our alma mater but because its press release, taken together with the tombstone, in the environment of increasing menace within which skeptics operate, was a fundamental repudiation of the academic freedom that a true university has the duty to uphold.
Lord Monckton: you said upthread that the press release “has been removed from the web” – I didn’t see it myself so afraid am unable to comment on anything you describe above as “promoting this unspeakable death threat” or any implication you derived from it. But did you really take this as a substantive threat – which surely would have been a crime in any jurisdiction? And where did “Kill them, kill them all!” (your words I think) come from?
And an artist saying “With this work I envisage a time when the deliberate denial of climate change will be seen as a crime” I don’t regard myself as objectionable – he is entitled to his view and to lobby for changes to legislation, but I very much doubt our parliament would ever enact such a law (he might do better going to the European Parliament). However, I just don’t see this happening – it would seem to reverse all the benefits we have gained from the age of enlightenment …
The words. “Kill them! Kill them all!” are said to have been spoken by the Papal Legate in Bezieres to trigger the massacre of the Albigensian heretics. There is a characteristically excitable and emotional account in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. The hysterical tone is not at all dissimilar to that of the environmental extremists today, though there was more justification for it in that terrible age when both Catholics and Protestants betrayed the teachings of the Church and her Founder by slaughtering each other.
The phrase “Kill them! Kill them all!” also appears frequently in the more lurid movies.
Lord Monckton – thank you, but surely quoting a phrase (“kill them, kill them”) illustrating the moralities of the 13th century is rather lurid when you will know that the UK abolished capital punishment for all practical purposes over 50 years ago. And while you rightly say that there can be ways to circumvent the 1st Amendment in the US, the case you cite appears to be a civil case – it did not involve criminal penalties such as imprisonment which I think (though I’m not a US qualified lawyer) would take a formal amendment to their 1st Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech.
And doesn’t a rather lurid article such as this risk unreasonably adding to the concerns of those pursuing the true scientific method – diligently questioning and testing theories propounded by others – which has had immense benefits to us all for centuries now, at least since the time Galileo questioned the supposition that the Earth stood at the centre of the universe?
And what would be the actus reus and mens rea necessary to establish such an offence in the UK – if I am chatting to a mate in the pub and mention that Hell’s Ditch (on the Wey) hasn’t flooded for X years now, could he just call the Old Bill to have me carted away? I think there would be enormous practical difficulties in framing the necessary legislation to create such an offence.
In answer to TimC, I cited libel – which may be either civil or criminal (though the latter was very recently abolished in the UK) merely as an instance of the circumscription of absolutely free speech. To describe libel cases as “circumventing” the Constitution is incorrect.
I agree with him, though, that the lurid press release is indeed a real menace to the notion of diligent research into the scientific method, which is precisely why I wrote the head posting: to draw attention to the fact that these extreme menaces to those whose researches point to results that are unfashionable continue to be made, with ever greater support from the establishment (in the present instance, a “university”, no less).
Because virtually no one has objected, this campaign of viciousness against skeptics is gathering a momentum that I, for one, should like to slow. Merely registering the objection draws a line and serves as a warning. If it proves possible to prosecute the “university”, so much better still. If not, at least I tried.
Lord Monckton – in further response to your latest posting, the only information I have on the University’s press release is from your own commentary as above, namely that:
(a) the “artist” … is recorded in the “University’s” press release as having said: “With this work [work?] I envisage a time when the deliberate denial of climate change will be seen as a crime because it hinders progress towards a low carbon future”, and
(b) Dr Aled Jones … said the “sculpture could be viewed in decades to come as a monument to a period of history that saw scientific knowledge battle to be heard above political ideologies.”
I believe I have already dealt with (a) as above – in what is our UK democracy the artist (and the university) is quite entitled to such a view (that the “deliberate denial of climate change” should be criminalised) – precisely as much as you are entitled to the contrary view. And as to (b) isn’t this anyway the wrong way round – are not the “political ideologies” (at least in the UK) all now essentially making the case that climate change (global warming as was) is real and not to be questioned: what can be the objection to “scientific knowledge [battling] to be heard” above this?
Having said that, I can of course have no possible objection to your wishing to slow down what you describe as “this campaign of viciousness against skeptics” – but isn’t there some risk that robustly engaging in the debate, even on the opposition side, will just give added momentum to the proponents in making their case, when I suggest they will already face quite some technical difficulty in achieving legislation for what they suggest?
All one need remember is that Fascism, Communism and Nazism – the biggest killers in history – are all diseases of the political Left. So in Climate Alarmism. Whither it leads is anyone’s guess, but early indications are that it is as pernicious as any of the -isms above….
KO
All anyone needs to recognise is that someone who claims the ultra-right philosophies of Fascism and Naz1sm are “of the political Left” is either a dangerous and political liar or a dangerous and deluded fool.
Richard
I don’t often disagree with Richard Courtney, but the Nazis described themselves as the “National Socialist Works’ Party of Germany” and followed the corporatist form of collectivist totalitarianism. They were the hardest of hard Left.
Monckton of Brenchley
Christopher, I don’t often disagree with you, but it is a daft idea that the Naz1s were socialists because they put “socialists” in their title. Similarly, it is a daft idea that any country which puts “Democratic” in its title is a democracy.
The Naz1s rounded up socialists and murdered them.
Totalitarians come from all parts of the political spectrum. Naz1s and fascists constitute the far right: they each see a self-defined elite as naturally having more social and political rights than others.
The extreme right often pretend to be other than they are.
Richard
A lot of aspirational naming going on with movements adopting ‘democratic’ & ‘socialist’ in their titles right enough & designed to be more suggestive than descriptive, if not downright deceptive. Is it perhaps the Left that tries to maintain the masquerade for longer, while Christopher tends to associate tyranny and legalist approaches with the Left while taking a more libertarian view of the Right ?
Does anyone have a good source for this claim he makes: “Dr Roger Pielke Jr., a scientist who has taken a gently sceptical view on some aspects of the climate question, has recently announced that he can no longer conduct climate research, because he fears for the safety of himself and his family.”
Is that accurate? A quick check of his blog doesn’t seem to show mention of that, it may be accurate and I just missed the news while busy with other things.
What did it was a remark that schoolkids made to Roger’s 11-year-old son: “Is your Dad going to jail?”. He Tweeted March 2: “Yesterday, my 11-year old asked me if I was going to jail. Really nasty stuff.”
Thanks, here is a link to that tweet:
https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/572428385290358784
I was just wondering if he made an explicit public statement quoted someplace about safety concerns regarding his family, or if this was in some non-public communication. I’m in the same city he is so its of particular interest to pass on to others regarding the way skeptics are treated, even mild skeptics.
Meanwhile, back in what passes for the ‘real world’ in the teleprompter of the President of the United States:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150520/us–obama-2d9f3a3f93.html (My emphasis)
I submit that these implied threats to “Those who deny global warming” are even more alarming and detestable than the “tombstone” directed at climate realists in the UK.
/Mr Lynn
The question is whether then in the future they will decide that doing something counter to national security is treason, and therefore skepticism regarding climate alarm is treason, Or perhaps they’ll claim they are magnanimous and won’t declare it to be treason, but will at least outlaw it. I used to think nothing like that could ever happen here, but this country has been changing. Elsewhere a poll today suggests a plurality are comfortable outlawing hate speech despite 1st amendment protections, suggesting they might eventually be persuaded to eliminate some protections by amending the constitution:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/418674/majority-democrats-37-percent-republicans-want-repeal-first-amendment-charles-c-w
” Majority of Democrats, 37 Percent of Republicans Want to Repeal First Amendment …
YouGov’s latest research shows that many Americans support making it a criminal offense to make public statements which would stir up hatred against particular groups of people. Americans narrowly support (41%) rather than oppose (37%) criminalizing hate speech, but this conceals a partisan divide. Most Democrats (51%) support criminalizing hate speech, with only 26% opposed”
I suspect Christopher Monckton and others from outside the US are aware of this, but in the past most in the US had a different philosophy regarding free speech than some other countries and many of us still value that 1st amendment. We might personally find things like the tombstone art inappropriate and critique those who produce such a thing, but we defend people’s right to do so (though we’d object to public funds being used for “art” like that).
The problem is not so much the tombstone itself, crass though it was, and great though the damage it has done to the “University” (no doubt the quote-marks will start appearing on the silly signs at Cambridge rail station before too long).
It is the palpable air of self-righteous menace conveyed by the “university’s” press release, which has now appeared once more on its website, having been taken down for several days.
The fact that the press release has reappeared will greatly increase the chances that the magistrates will require the “university” to answer a summons.
Frankly, that’s the only way these people will be brought to their senses. In my assessment, it is now necessary to contain the threat of trial, imprisonment and execution for heresy that is now so often and so stridently demanded by the shameful environmentalist heirs to the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.
What is it about the words Anglia and University, like they shouldn’t appear in the same sentence and as if one wasn’t enough ?
” What is it about the words Anglia and University, like they shouldn’t appear in the same sentence and as if one wasn’t enough ? ”
Thisisgettingtiresome of course refers to that other celebrated institution for climate advocacy the UEA, whose CRU brought us ClimateGate in 2009, the year that ended with COP15 in Copenhagen (where Chrisopher also famously got the number of that cop who laid him out, despite best attention to following his St.John’s training).
The President says that anyone who dares challenge the doctrine of “Climate Change” (or “Global Warming”) is “Putting at risk the United States” and “Undermines our national security.” How far is that from a charge of treason, or at least sedition?
I wonder who wrote that speech. The faux-scientist and failed prophet John Holdren? It is long past time for the Republicans in Congress to stand up and denounce the President and the Administration for even suggesting that to disagree with the High Priesthood of Climastrology is treasonous. Or do we now have a State Religion in the former Land of the Free?
/Mr Lynn
Here is a link to the full speech (unfortunately worth reading to know what we are up against), just some relevant clips:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/05/20/remarks-president-united-states-coast-guard-academy-commencement
“Yet even as we meet threats like terrorism, we cannot, and we must not, ignore a peril that can affect generations. Now, I know there are still some folks back in Washington who refuse to admit that climate change is real. […]
Climate change, and especially rising seas, is a threat to our homeland security, our economic infrastructure, the safety and health of the American people. [….]
As men and women in uniform, you know that it can be just as important, if not more important, to prevent threats before they can cause catastrophic harm. And only way — the only way — the world is going to prevent the worst effects of climate change is to slow down the warming of the planet. […]
So fighting climate change and using energy wisely also makes our forces more nimble and more ready. And that’s something that should unite us as Americans. This cannot be subject to the usual politics and the usual rhetoric. ”
That last sentence calls into question what he might wish to do then to silence the “usual politics and the usual rhetoric”, i.e. any disagreement.
Pope Pius XII, the courageous pope who spoke out against Hitler. Hmmm, that would be Hitler’s Pope, would it?
http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Pope-Secret-History-Pius/dp/014311400X
R
Pope Pius XII, as Secretary of State to his predecessor, Pope Pius XI, drafted the great encyclical letter Mit Brennender Sorge (With Burning Concern), the first to be promulgated in a language other than Latin since the Reformation, condeming Nazism in 1937 when everyone else in Europe apart from Churchill and 25 of his colleagues in the Commons was busy appeasing Hitler.
Pope Pius XII was also personally responsible for using the Vatican as a vital, indeed central, part of the “Underground railway” that got tens of thousands of Jews safely out of the Nazis’ clutches. The Chief Rabbi and depute Chief Rabbi of Rome were so grateful to the Pope for his persistent support for the Jewish community that they both became Catholics immediately after the War was over. Pope Pius XII is commemorated with gratitude by a special monument in the Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust in Israel. I visited Israel as a guest of the government some years ago, and I have seen it.
The best account of how the Holy See, though much maligned, was in fact Hitler’s most effective ideological opponent both inside and outside Germany will be found in “The Vatican in he Age of the Dictators”, by the Anglican scholar Anthony Rhodes, who wrote the book because he was astonished at the vast amounts of propaganda in circulation to the effect that the Pope was a Nazi-loving Jew-hater.
It was only very recently that we discovered why the Pope ended up, unfairly, with this unenviable and entirely unjustified reputation. One of the most senior defectors we attracted to the West was Ion Mihai Pacepa, formerly head of the Securitate, the secret police in Ceausescu’s Communist personality-cult dictatorship in Romania. Pacepa, at his debriefing, revealed that he had been part of a special KGB unit, the Desinformatsiya directorate. Disinformation was circulated throughout the West by the KGB not so much via known Soviet outlets such as TASS (known to all in the intelligence community as CRASS), as via Westerners who were not known to be Communists dancing willingly to Moscow’s tune. Though we were already aware of the existence of the Desinformatsiya directorate, we had no idea of its scale till Pacepa told us.
Over a 40-year period beginning immediately after the end of the Second World War, the Desinformatsiya directorate ran one million Western agents of influence. And their first task – just to see whether they could absolutely control Western opinion – was to try to blacken the name of Pope Pius XII. At first, the results were mightily disappointing, simply because everyone knew perfectly well that the Pope was the best friend the Jews had had.
But the Directorate plugged away at it, and gradually the left-wing media – which were being taken over one by one by its agents of influence in any event – began hinting at the story and then eventually coming out with it openly. It was at that point that Anthony Rhodes, knowing nothing of what the directorate was up to, decided to write his book, still the clearest and most scholarly account of the role of the Holy See during the Fascist era.
Interestingly, since it was not possible to control a million agents of influence directly, each was trained to perpetuate the process without needing to contact Moscow at all. That is why the Communization of the commanding heights of trade unionism, media, governmental bureaucracies, churches, the arts, politics etc. continue to be penetrated by a gargantuan but largely invisible totalitarian machine that still runs today much as it did when Pacepa and his colleagues set it up. The clearest evidence of the extent of the directorate’s baneful influence is that a very large number of people today believe, often quite passionately but without quite knowing why, that Pope Pius XII was the Nazi-loving Jew-hater the directorate made him out to be. Very similar to the equally passionate but equally irrational belief in the global warming scam.
The truth, however, ,is described in authoritative detail in Pacepa’s excellent book Desinformatsiya, or Disinformation, obtainable in English from the online bookstore at wnd.com. Indeed, it is not altogether too fanciful to suppose that the chief reason why the hard Left are driving the global warming nonsense with such ruthlessness today is the flywheel effect of the very many still-operating disinformation agents and the successors they have each trained, whose commitment to the destruction of capitalism by every possible means remains no less burning today than it was during the Cold War.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
Over a 40-year period beginning immediately after the end of the Second World War, the Desinformatsiya directorate ran one million Western agents of influence.
Today there must be a lot more “agents of influence” than that. Is it any wonder that the enviro-lobby is so strong? Is it any wonder that everything they propose would directly hobble the U.S. and the West?
Ask: Cui bono? You will get your answer.
Oh, do come on Monckton. This was a Masonic war.
Britain, Canada, America, Australia, France and NZ were all Masonic.
Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain had all outlawed Masonry and closed the lodges.
And where did the Catholic Church stand in all this? Ah, yes, with the Axis persecuters of Masonry. The Church could not have found a better hero if they tried – he was anti-‘J’, anti-‘M’ and anti-‘C’ too. It was a win-win situation all round, which is why Pope Pius XII continued to take Peter’s Pence from Germany all though the war.
R
ralfellis,
That can’t be right. The Catholics have always forbidden their flock to become freemasons.
That can’t be right. The Catholics have always forbidden their flock to become freemasons.
________________________________
Which is what I said.
The Catholics were on the same side as Germany and the Axis alliance, in being anti-Masonic. So the Pius XIII loved everything HitIer was doing – he was eradicating Jews, Masons and Communist Atheists in Russia, the three primary enemies of the Catholic Church.
This is why Pope Pius XII was always known as HitIer’s Pope. Monkton will never admit it because he was converted to the dark side while still in the crib – but “There Are None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See”.
R
“those who cite Godwin’s Law confirm ipso facto that they are active supporters of today’s Fascists.”
Indeed, though isn’t it even more straightforward than that ? Those who invoke the “denier” tag immediately concede the argument, a la Godwin, on so doing. Just as well as had they descended to salutes, mimicked mini taches or other such familiar expressions.
we are all behind you take them all to the cleaners
It could be the case that invoking the Nazis over what is a rather juvenile stunt, condoned by a redbrick place in order to get more ‘Paying’ students, may be a little ridiculous. But hey, lets see what the Magistrates make of it 🙂
Would that be to get more paying, praying or baying students, one might wonder ?
OK, I went to Scibull.com to look for the paper, but I did so chuckling – surely someone saw the pun in that though scanning quickly through I didn’t see anyone being so impolite – Sci – bull ??? Did they pick that moniker on purpose? I expect they may have. 🙂
Isn’t it a Chinese site. Perhaps the irony really was lost in translation.
Hello Christopher,
As artful and fun as your claims of being wronged are to hear, I will say that I do not support any “hate” laws, either against types of speech or even as used to characterize some assault. Political speech would have to be directly inciting harm rather than obviously poking fun, even offensively, before I would be inclined to object. Charlie Hebdo being the most obvious case in point. They absolutely have every right to poke fun at Mohammed, global warming, Putin, the Catholic Church, you, etc. If I were you I would not use such an obviously wrong law even if you are eligible to do so. “Hate speech” laws are not legitimate in any case. Incitement to harm is the same when you have nothing against the class or race of a victim as when you despise their skin color.
Read the press release (now regrettably back online) and weep.
Please add my name to the tombstone. I can think of no better company for an epitaph. I would however delete the word ‘Denier” and replace it with Heretic. At my Alma Mater, where I studied natural or pure ( as opposed unnatural/impure?) science there is already a stone monument to four heretics who chose to be BarBQed together rather than submit to the religious consensus of the day. Scarcely had the smoke and the orthodoxy cleared but a new generation was born; among them Isaac Newton and William Shakespeare. Dominus (et WUWT) Illuminatio Mea.
I posted a comment in support of Manos last night and now it is gone. This is the first time I have had any hint that moderation = censorship on this web site which I very much enjoy, support, and admire. Please tell me it isn’t so. Manos is right. In the U.S. this would be protected speech, and it should be. As folks on the right side of the objective truth, why would this site ever, ever, ever want to suppress free expression that does not violate the rules of the site? I hope this was a mistake. If my comment was intentionally suppressed, then how can I regard WUWT as any different from the Real Climate and others who conveniently delete opinions they don’t like. The fear of directly addressing differing opinions by the “climate science” community was the primary reason I became a skeptic. If WUWT is now playing by those same rules, I will have to doubt the integrity of its owner and contributors as well. What a shame.
Oops. My mistake on previous post (7:51 pm). I post under different names sometimes and this was a case in which I posted under Steve but searched for my post under another name and not finding it assumed it had been moderated. So, my bad entirely and not WUWT’s-Thankfully-and sorry for the rant in the previous post
Isn’t there an App. for that 😉 http://boingboing.net/2011/02/18/hbgarys-high-volume.html
While the “artist” is being given a pass, I find his previous work a little disturbing in the context that is being described here with respect to “deniers”.
I don’t know the context of his previous work, but a drill pointing at a bust of a human head under the guise of a “sustainability” prize smacks a little bit of eugenics … I found the image disturbing. It appears that the artist is not fond of humans – but I suppose “art” can be interpreted many different ways. Drills have been used in medicine and in torture so I guess you could interpret the image many different ways, but the “sustainability” meme makes me suspicious. Sponsored by the “Global Sustainability Institute”.
http://ww2.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/global_sustainability_institute.html
Note that under this page they specifically discuss the 1972 Club of Rome “Limits to Growth”
http://ww2.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/global_sustainability_institute.html
Model, model, model, …
So now, what do we assume from a drill pointing at a human head?
And Dr. Aled Jones? Deep seated and real fear for the future from what is on their web site. I fear for his students. The current generation thinks computer models are real.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Billy Liar
May 20, 2015 at 3:39 pm
http://ww2.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/faculties/alss/deps/csoa/csoa_news/sustainability_prize_2014.html
He won 3rd prize for the same competition in 2014 – see pic at link, his beard looks a bit too grey for a callow youth.
It seems to me all British unis – ‘proper’ or not – advertise like that. I’ve been to one that is considered pretty good – and I saw them advertising on the Underground; when you pass through Ealing in west London, the not so proper TVU (Thames Valles Uni) advertises by the Underground and rail tracks, etc…
Well of course, they want your 15,000 bucks…
Excellent catch by DirkH: the peak in Willis’ graph does correspond with the introduction of Nylon:
http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-oBqKTcBarsA/VV2OyuC541I/AAAAAAAAAnA/8SAaoBfZOEA/s800/Nylon_D.png
Pejorative use of the D word in relation to the events of WW2 appears to be a relatively new phenomena:
http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-cX32nk13lok/VV2OrBwH0CI/AAAAAAAAAm4/G02RIq8QfBY/s800/Holocaust_D.png
Worthy reminders of how much may not be as it appears, or the old ‘correlation is not causation’. Did WWII indeed bring us nylons ? What of the source data on which all the handy research is based though ?
Nylon stockings were invented in 1939, and the war greatly messed up their production as Nylon got used in all sorts of war materiel.
http://image.glamourdaze.com/2009/09/I-want-your-stockings.jpg
http://glamourdaze.com/2009/09/1930s-fashion-invention-of-nylon.html
Most interesting, Cap’n Algorithm and DirkH. Looks like I was wrong, and the 1945 peak was indeed from the usage relating to nylon.
I do find much earlier examples of the denial of the Holocaust, viz:
SOURCE
An Ngram search for “deny the Holocaust” shows that that term predates the popularity of “Holocaust denier”, with a start in 1960 and a peak in the late seventies. And as many people may not be aware, in most of the European nations it’s a crime to be a Holocaust denier. So calling climate scientists who disagree with you “deniers” clearly has extremely negative overtones.
Ah, well, everything is complex … next time I’m gonna pick a simpler universe.
Regards, and thanks for the research,
w.
Nah–thank you for referencing the interesting and handy “Ngram” tool. I wasn’t familiar with it.
(Another wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod)
to be fair, that’s not a death threat. I had 2 proper death threats last night in the pub.
To be fair, they may have lacked the subtlety or sophistication of a Tombstone with your name on it but if you take them seriously then you can only be taken seriously if you act on them.
Recall how that Academic from the University of Graz was it, responded when called out and invited to behave civilly. Christopher was determined but drill much too accommodating in my view, in pursuing that despicable behaviour.
to be fair, that’s not a death threat. I had 2 proper death threats last night in the pub.
is there an echo in here ?
It is the creation of somebody who tries to get attention by latching on to some large concept like death but not really saying what it is they think about death, assuming everybody understands the reference, which is probably a mistake.
I have noticed this sort of behaviour before with these ” artistic” students.
Really I would ignore it unless you want to make mischief then go ahead.
No harm in the ‘artist’ learning how they may be be misunderstood, while it is not the artist being pursued, but the institution that promoted the display & publication of whatever message it carries.
this thing is a feeble attempt at communication.
” Oy you!, yes you FVtard would you like my fist in your face ? ”
” I’ll bite your nose off ”
Now that is communication.
The communication may have been feeble, but perhaps all the more insidious for that.
The response is a far more effective & public way of holdings influential institutions to account however, than the direct speaking you suggest.
The lawsuit I’d like to see is one directed at those who have claimed that WUWT and Anthony are “on the payroll” of Heartland. This includes, Mann, SourceWatch, and Desmogblog. This would have a much bigger impact, because millions have read and believed that charge, because it would damage the credibility of those false accusers to lose in court, and because it would provide an opportunity to cross-examine and expose Gleick about the origin and authorship of his phony Heartland “Strategy” document, which Desmogblog bases its claims on.
I laid out the case for such a suit in three WUWT comments here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/10/open-thread-weekend-20/#comment-1633276
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/07/why-climate-change-doesnt-scare-me/#comment-1656581
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/07/why-climate-change-doesnt-scare-me/#comment-1656913
$250,000 allocated by Heartland–or somebody–to this suit would provide ten times more bang for the buck than a similar allocation to any other project. It would get lots of press and put alarmists on the defensive. And it would do so without exposing the names of Heartleand’s donors.
[Snip. Stop your ad hominem attacks. ~mod.]
Send flowers? If they could,
I think they would send you triffids…
They describe themselves as Anglia Ruskin ‘University’.
The quotation marks tell us all we need to about this ‘university’!
I should have typed “….. all we need to know about” – I was laughing too much – my apologies.
One can never know how seriously to take a threat, even a veiled one, as nobody can really truly know the mind of another. However, after a tragic event when someone does something unthinkable, the interviews with the friends and associates of the villain always say something akin to “well, yeah, he would mutter about doing this, but we assumed he was just blowing off steam. I guess we should have taken him more seriously.”
You can also not ever know how a zealous person wanting to make the ultimate statement might interpret this. They might see this as the perfect hit list, rationalizing that in the long run they’re saving lives, and feel like their actions were justified in defense of the planet. Or perhaps a psychotic person sees the university promoting this “art”, and in their schizophrenic world these are marching orders to be followed.
Freedom comes with responsibility. There is a world of difference between a piece of art sitting on a workbench in an art studio at the university, and one that is sanctioned by the university with an award. There is a world of difference between a piece of art which vaguely references “climate change deniers” and one that specifically calls out names. This is a world of difference between hoping that “deniers” have no power (i.e. behind bars), and portraying them as dead as names on a tombstone. There is a world of difference between holding a certain position privately, and actively promoting it by publishing it clearly under the banner of the university on the web site.
A couple of days in court tap dancing and considering the ramifications of their actions might do them some good. It might urge some caution and civility to others in positions of authority to be more responsible with how they wage their campaigns. I’ll even help by composing their mia culpa:
“Recently the university awarded a citation to a student artist who piece contained the names of some prominent climate change opponents on a tombstone. The university then subsequently promoted the award on its web site. Without commenting on the merits of the art or award, the university regrets these actions. The sanctioning of this particular piece of art could have been interpreted as a threat to the individuals named, and that was not the university’s intent.
“The university does not wish any harm to the individuals named, nor do support violence in any manner for holding any particular opinion regarding climate change. We have therefore rescinded the award for this particular art work, and apologize without reservation for any perception of a threat it may have conveyed. The university supports the open and free exchange of ideas, and future citations will reflect that ideal.”
I am sure that if the university were to publish such a statement, Mr. Monckton might have a change in perspective about the need to pursue prosecution.
Perhaps as punishment you should require the student to write one hundred lines; “there is a pause, I know it”, although considering the “university” the requirement the writing need be ‘joined up’ will have to be waved… and crayons allowed?
Is that his Lordship in the background climbing the fence at Cambridge railway station with a pot of blue paint and a wet paintbrush in his hand? : )
No, it’s my clerk.
The proper response to this “art” is not censorship, it’s a tombstone of the hockey stick.
Heh, heh. What if the subjects of this ‘tombstoning’ were to commission works of their own ? In honour of the ‘university’, the institute, it’s directors & the artist and displayed prominently and with similar fanfare. Would that be brushed of so lightly by the original antagonists as the present subjects are expected to swallow this vile assault ? Works in Cotwold stone or ‘redbrick’perhaps and sited under an olive tree to signify a pleasantly warming Anglia.
Meanwhile , as I don’t expected a masterpiece worthy of the ‘university’ to be knocked up overnight, I expect Josh might delight us with a cartoon or two.
@richard Courtney 21 May post.
Sir, there is no doubt that both as a matter of dogma and doctrine, Nazism was Leftist. Just read their literature and understand their founding philosophies. The Italian form of Fascism is very similar, and there is plenty for a good argument about Spanish Fascism being Leftist too. Equally there is no argument that Communism and the ghastly subset of Socialism it spawned, are Leftist.
The default position of the political Left is totalitarianism – when they lose the debate about ideas, they demonise their opposition (always in the name of “the people”) and then start murdering them. It is just possible that we are at the very early stages of this process with CAGW, especially now that “Big Government” is weighing in with all its resources and power.
Perhaps the greatest success of the post-War intellectual Left is that it has successfully controlled the debate about Nazism and misled people like you into believing that Nazism was (and indeed that any sort of “nationalism”) is a disease of the political Right, while Socialism, particularly in its modern European guise, is benevolent. It is not and never will be, because it seeks to control absolutely.
Be careful.
With all due respect: There are always plenty of real things to criticize about any person or group. You wreck your credibility with the Hitler name-calling.
CAGW-ers, are not equivalent to Nazis, nor is “the Left.” They just aren’t. It doesn’t matter how you categorize Hitler’s politics. His Austrian-ness doesn’t indict all Austrians. He was a singular monster, and your comparison is offensive.
Ask a victim of historical Fascism and/or Nazism what they think about your analogy.
Unsolicited advice: Always try to be better and more ethical than your opponent.
@richard Courtney 21 May post
…I should add to my riposte that I agree with you insofar as there is little to choose between the outward appearance and political methodologies of the hard Right, and those of the hard Left.
The trick is not to confuse the underlying philosophies when trying to deal with these evils – they are very different political animals, and different approaches are required to neutralise them.
So much for being either a political liar or deluded fool.
What are some of these different approaches to neutralising them, when universal approaches like relentless pursuit of the truth and standing up to bullies aren’t enough ?
@CJ Richards
Always walk softly and carry a very big stick, and be prepared to use it. I see some whingers on here commenting about Dresden etc yesterday.
Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima etc..That is what I mean by being prepared to use a big stick. It reminds Right and Left wing lunatics not to start something they might not be able to finish.
@TakebacktheGreen 22 May post
Sir, I have called no-one a Nazi.
I observe merely that organised CAGW alarmism is coming largely from the Left of the political spectrum.
I point out that the most pernicious and murderous regimes in history have all been Leftist, and that the default position of the political Left is totalitarianism.
In UK, try having a sensible debate about immigration, for example, and in seconds you will be labelled a “racist” or “bigot” by those of Left-leaning persuasion. Try debating climate issues from a neutral, knowledge-based perspective as opposed to a “green-emotive” one, and you will be labelled a “denier” by those on the Left.
This is evidence of how the Left operates, broadly speaking. It shuts down any debate it cannot win. The totalitarian “we bien pensants know best for you the herd” attitude comes to the fore very quickly.
This is quite the opposite to the Libertarian standpoint, though not different from the extreme Right – there the basis for shutting down the debate and what follows is usually some form of chauvinism rather than appealing to a utopian ideal.
It takes courage to face this sort of thing down – and the sort of principled stand Lord Monckton takes. What he is doing in this instance may appear mildly eccentric and an over-reaction, but it is absolutely necessary.
Martin Niemoller is quoted elsewhere on this thread – his words are as pertinent today in the context of the climate debate (especially now Big Government has weighed in) as they were when he wrote them.
As for your suggestion that my observation would somehow offend a victim of Nazism (or any other -ism), you miss the point completely. Those victims, I imagine, have long since spotted the danger inherent in organised “Global Warmism” and its modus operandi in academia and in co-opting governments.
You should perhaps go off and read a little Stephen Schneider. He was very quick to play the Nazi card against sceptics, while at the same time openly espousing Goebbel’s principle on propaganda.
Its a matter of public record…and it should give you cause to think.
Your argumentation demonstrates why allowing politics into what should be a scientific debate is a distracting waste of time. “Politics” is philosophical, not scientific. Discussing Nazism is the ultimate distraction. I’m enabling it by replying, but one final try:
1) I didn’t say you called anyone a Nazi. Straw man argument.
2) You didn’t “merely…” anything. The takeaway: The politics of CAGW-ers and Climate Realists is not important. The science is. How many times does that have to be said? As an anti-theist, climate realist, pro-GMO, anti-organic, evolution-accepting, scientifically literate person, I find myself allied with all portions of the political spectrum at different times. If I didn’t set politics aside, it would be madness.
3) Immigration. Another non-scientific example.
4) People of all persuasions, including Libertarian, try to shut down debates they can’t win. Human nature plus social training.
5) It is intrinsically self-serving to decide for one’s self that one’s own experience is the “final straw.” Worse, that one’s enemies are as bad as genocidal maniacs. It distracts from the issue, gives attention to opponents, and loses sympathy. There’s a reason behind the saying “Take the high road.” (I also said I understand and sympathize with Monckton’s anger.)
6) It is fallacious to pretend you know the minds of victims of Nazism. That’s why I suggested you actually ask. Test your hypothesis. I predict you will find yourself and your question very unpopular.
7) Before I studied the CAGW issue for myself and realized my former opinion was wrong, I saw and read several interviews with Schneider and had the same opinion then that I do now. He was a bitchy, sarcastic, snide, hateful and unpleasant person who only harmed his side. (The clips of him in “Cool It” are fairly representative.)
Is that the standard we’re aiming for? Why should I think about him? Why shouldn’t I want people on “my side” to be better than that? Why shouldn’t we be allowed to constructively criticize our “allies” when they harm our cause?
You must realize and accept this: When skeptics make climate change into a political issue and try to win by personal attack, it is exactly as stupid as when CAGW-ers do it.
Skeptics don’t drink petroleum and CAGW-ers aren’t Nazis.
@takebackthegreen
Sir, odd though it may seem, we do not disagree too much:
1) I didn’t say you called anyone a Nazi. Straw man argument….
I did not say CAGW-ers were equivalent to Nazis, nor that “the Left” are. I point out some general truths about the political Left, draw attention to some nascent tendencies in the CAGW meme, and urge caution about CAGW-ers. Do you deny that?
2) You didn’t “merely…” anything. The takeaway: The politics of CAGW-ers and Climate Realists is not important…
With respect, the politics of CAGW is important the moment governments swing their weight behind the CAGW hypothesis and all the solutions that (failed) hypothesis proposes – at expense to the taxpayer and of civil liberty. Return to (1) above…
…The science is [important]. The problem is CAGW-ers don’t want to discuss the science sensibly. How many times does that have to be said?…
I agree.
As an anti-theist, climate realist, pro-GMO, anti-organic, evolution-accepting, scientifically literate person, I find myself allied with all portions of the political spectrum at different times. If I didn’t set politics aside, it would be madness…
Again, I agree, subject to the caveat above. Your point of departure is not very different from mine philosophically speaking.
3) Immigration. Another non-scientific example….
Of course it is non-scientific. It is there to demonstrate a nascent tendency of “the Left” we should be alert to.
4) People of all persuasions, including Libertarian, try to shut down debates they can’t win. Human nature plus social training….
You appear to conflate what “people” as opposed to philosophical approaches, do. Libertarianism does not as a matter of philosophical approach, shut down debate. It would require an essay in political philosophy to discuss this fully, so I will try to summarise by saying Libertarianism encourages competition of ideas and responsibility for self, whereas the Left has alarming tendencies to tell people what to think, and holds that Nanny knows Best in the pursuit of Utopia. When Nanny is challenged or defied, she gets nasty.
5) It is intrinsically self-serving to decide for one’s self that one’s own experience is the “final straw.” Worse, that one’s enemies are as bad as genocidal maniacs. It distracts from the issue, gives attention to opponents, and loses sympathy. There’s a reason behind the saying “Take the high road.” (I also said I understand and sympathize with Monckton’s anger.)…
I agree. I’m not sure whether you are making a general observation, or saying this is my approach – It is not and I didn’t say it was. See my comments above.
6) It is fallacious to pretend you know the minds of victims of Nazism. That’s why I suggested you actually ask. Test your hypothesis. I predict you will find yourself and your question very unpopular….
You do precisely what you criticise in me by implying victims of Nazism would be appalled by my analysis. It was you who presumed to know what these victims might think when you made your original observation, I simply countered your point, adopting your line.
7) Before I studied the CAGW issue for myself and realized my former opinion was wrong, I saw and read several interviews with Schneider and had the same opinion then that I do now. He was a bitchy, sarcastic, snide, hateful and unpleasant person who only harmed his side. (The clips of him in “Cool It” are fairly representative.)….
Agree. He was also an enthusiastic acolyte of the “Ice Age Cometh” cult of the 1970s, til that didn’t happen. The he became the High Priest of CAGW. What, I ask, is the real agenda of someone like this if not ultimately political?
Is that the standard we’re aiming for? Why should I think about him? Why shouldn’t I want people on “my side” to be better than that? Why shouldn’t we be allowed to constructively criticize our “allies” when they harm our cause?…
Agree entirely, save that when that debate is shut down by aggressive name-calling and wholesale co-opting of government by Left-leaning pressure groups, we should all be very wary of what happens next, given the history of the political Left.
I am not suggesting that Schneider would have resorted to brutality, or indeed that any individual CAGW-er would, in order to further their viewpoint. The problem comes when governments are co-opted – they don’t shrink from brutality.
It’s perhaps worth observing the Nazis came to power completely constitutionally. Once they had control of the levers of German state, they ran amok. All the nastiness that people had not quite believed the Nazis meant, turned out to be exactly what they meant. Have a look at the video clip of exploding “deniers” earlier on this thread…and reflect.
You must realize and accept this: When skeptics make climate change into a political issue and try to win by personal attack, it is exactly as stupid as when CAGW-ers do it…
I “must” do nothing. Leaving that aside, I have not ever sought to make a political issue out of the CAGW debate. When, however, the CAGW-ers ignore the evidence that destroys central tenets of the CAGW hypothesis, co-opt government by assiduous lobbying, and turn aggressively on sceptics wanting to debate the science, it behooves us to think very carefully about the nature of the beast we are dealing with, and what its agenda might be.
Skeptics don’t drink petroleum and CAGW-ers aren’t Nazis.
I agree. And for the record, I am appalled by the frankly criminal despoiling of the Earth and its resources by man. I am in favour of a fully-integrated approach to energy provision, for controlled and managed exploitation of natural resources, of international co-operation at every level (short of world government) to husband those resources and ensure the environment is protected and where damaged, restored. I would describe myself as a conservative environmentalist. I am open minded, trained by a lifetime of academic study and work to think carefully and analyse forensically.
And when I see nascent tendencies towards totalitarianism, I start to become concerned.
I see that my comments now await moderation. I didn’t think anything I’ve said was at all controversial. But intended or not, I don’t want to be viewed as such. So I’m happy to continue reading this site and refrain from further comment.
[Reply: The word “Nazi” in any comment will put it into moderation for review. It’s not personal, there are certain trigger words that either Anthony or WordPress use to allow a comment to be checked before approving. Your comments have been posted now. ~mod.]
Thank you for your rapid clarification, which makes complete sense.
Many thanks to your lordship for your tireless efforts. You have my unwavering support.
Like you I graduated from Cambridge University (Pembroke College). I have degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering.
It blows my mind that our Alma Mater supports Climate Alarmism. They are doing it for the money. It makes me feel dirty.
I see that refuge for closet Guardian readers who like being humoured that they think for themselves, the ‘Independent’ has picked up the story.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/climatechange-sceptic-viscount-monckton-of-brenchley-claims-tombstone-artwork-critical-of-his-position-is-a-death-threat-10265255.html
What on earth id happening to the universities of the west? They have been infiltrated with left thinking progressive liberals who seem angry with and despise democratic principles like freedom of expression when it comes to views that differ to their views.
Just look what recently happened at the University of Western Australia, as an example.