Yesterday’s Toast-of-the-Tea-Party Renaissance Genius has become today’s embarrassing crazy uncle.
2 years ago, the congressional GOP chose “Lord” Chris Monckton as their sole witness in hearings before congress on climate change. (see above)
Last month, Monckton was conspicuously absent as a signatory from the “Wall Street 16” climate denial polemic printed in Rupert Murdock’s Wall Street Journal (which included economists. why not a classics major?). I haven’t seen him on Fox News in ages. About the only reliable venue he has left is, predictably, the loony bin over at Anthony Watt’s Tea Party.
Monckton’s ravings, – that he’s won a Nobel Prize, (he hasn’t), that he’s a member of the House of Lords (he’s not), that he’s cured AIDS (what do you think?), are delusional, sure, but no more delusional than the idea that every significant scientific group on the world who has studied global climate is wrong, and part of some global UN plot to raise taxes.
His Splendid Magnificence was in His heyday following his validation by the anti-science wing of the US congress, when an obscure physics professor at a Minneapolis University decided to actually examine, point by point, the series of claims made by His Munificent Resplendency in a well-viewed speech to a right-wing “think tank” audience. The result was John Abraham’s stunning and utterly convincing evisceration of virtually everything in the Monckton presentation – and the subsequent leper status, as anyone with a grain of intelligence fled the putrid roadkill smell of an exposed fraud.
So, my problem is, what do we have to do to raise his Serene Munificence’ profile again? Keeping His Stately Stupendousness as the poster boy for global warming denial should be a high priority for science advocates, and anyone interested in truth-in-advertising.
Now we have another chance.
In recent weeks, new video has surfaced of His Brilliant Resplendency in conference with a motley collection of the daft, daffy and deranged from down-under, suggesting that the “super rich” form new Fox TV clones in the US and Australia, for “right thinking people”.
“the more libertarian minded, right-thinking people in the United States, who have got Fox News, and therefore got things like the Tea Party movement, and therefore, at last, put some lead in the pencil of the Republican Party (go Fox!! – PS)
…and it seems to me that devoting some time to encouraging those we know who are super-rich to invest in, perhaps even establishing a new satellite TV channel, its not an expensive thing…”
Monckton goes on to wax poetic about Glenn Beck, who has been “explaining how the US Constitution works..”.
Presumably, such a channel would explain climate change with the same keen insight that Glenn Beck has brought to the US Constitution, as well as have plenty of ads on where to buy gold, and info-mercials for Monckton’s Wonder Oil…
The video here was posted on Desmogblog, with some bit of background –
BACK in July last year in a boardroom of a western Australian free-market think tank, the extrovert British climate change sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton was holding court.
The topic for discussion? How to better capture the Australian media to help push a right wing, free-market and climate sceptic agenda. At the time, Lord Monckton was in Australia at the behest of a mining association and Gina Rinehart to deliver a series of talks on climate change and spread his conspiracy theories that human-caused climate change is a left-wing plot to bring down the West.
At one point during the tour, Monckton told a boisterous partisan crowd: “So to the bogus scientists who have produced the bogus science that invented this bogus scare I say, we are coming after you. We are going to prosecute you, and we are going to lock you up.”Lord Monckton had been invited to Australia by the iron and coal mining boss Rinehart, the country’s richest woman with a rising personal fortune in the region of $20 billion.
I offer this as a heads up to our Australian and UK readership – look out for what’s coming your way – the Tea Party of which he speaks would make Lewis Carroll’s head spin..
Below, His Weirdship makes his AIDS cure claim. We await the infomercial.
All you need to know is in this Monkton interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w833cAs9EN0
I’ve long suspected Monckton may not be right in the head but that isn’t likely to disqualify him from being the toast of the US RightWingNuts.
After all, they have Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachman, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Pat Robertson…….shall I continue?
It’s worth pointing out that, in addition to John Abraham’s excellent evisceration of Monckton, the science writer Peter Hadfield (Potholder54 on Youtube) has produced a wonderful series of videos that dismember is arguments very nicely.
There’s currently a war of words (posts?) going on at WUWT between Monckton and Hadfield as Watts posted Monckton’s rebuttal ( using his usual evasions & equivocations ) some time ago and then grudgingly permitted Hadfield to post a response on a more-or-less equal footing which was submitted yesterday.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/monckton-responds-to-potholer54/
Brace yourself before reading the comments.
Also note that Watts didn’t create a new post but merely added Hadfield’s points & clarifications into the original from last month so there’ll be a discontinuity in the comment dates.
Both Monckton and Hadfield have at least one or two entries in both the older and newer comments.
Finally, if you just cannot get enough of His Lordship, there’s a video rebuttal of his to Prof Abraham – in 21 parts (!?!).
Here’s the link to the intro; all the vids are on the cfact YouTube channel
“There’s currently a war of words (posts?) going on at WUWT between Monckton and Hadfield as Watts posted Monckton’s rebuttal ( using his usual evasions & equivocations ) some time ago and then grudgingly permitted Hadfield to post a response on a more-or-less equal footing which was submitted yesterday.”
It’s a shame Anthony relegated Hadfield’s (Potholer54’s) response to an addendum on a month old post. Kinda like hiding the Ark of the Covenant in an enormous warehouse of worthless crates.
Yes and no; Watts did post an update on the main page about the Hadfield rebuttal and anyone subscribed to the mailing list or the original post would have been notified.
And the new comments have been just as inflamefested as the ones from Jan 11-24th.
But it’s not likely that more than a few minds will be opened to Monckton’s shenanigans and while Watts prides himself on “moderation with a light touch”, the amount of noise makes it hard to follow – the comments now run to several hundred onscreen pages and don’t seem to be slowing down much.
The Australian group GetUp is now on the Monckton case:
https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/mining/monckton/get-this-ad-in-the-paper?t=dXNlcmlkPTM1Mjc2LGVtYWlsaWQ9NTYw
Thanks for the warning, Peter. I am grateful to Pendantry for pointing me to Abraham’s demolition job on Monckton. Like you, clearly, I had thought that that would be the end of him but maybe not… In these days of the Occupy Movement and the ascendancy of the 99% it seems supremely arrogant of the “super-rich” to not only carry on with BAU but actually try and ramp-up the misinformation…
Anyway, for the record, before seeing Abraham’s presentation, this was my attempt at de-frocking the fake Lord Monkfish of Stenchley:
Lord Monckton – AGW non-expert (par excellence) (22 September 2011).
Ooh – sweet sub head – Wish I’d thought of that one.
Peter Hadfield aka potholer54 has a whole video series on YouTube debunking Christopher Monckton as grossly misleading.
=> Lord Monckton Bunkum Part 1 – Global cooling and melting ice
=> Monckton Bunkum Part 2 – Sensitivity
=> Monckton Bunkum Part 3 – Correlations and Himalayan glaciers
=> Monckton Bunkum Part 4 — Quotes and misquotes
The fifth video clip even with a bold challenge:
=> Monckton bunkum Part 5 — What, MORE errors, my lord?
“This will have to be the last video in the Monckton Bunkum series, because he’s made so many mistakes in his presentations it will take at least three more videos to debunk them all, and I’m getting tired of having to correct him. So I’ve issued a challenge to Monckton fans in this video — instead of finding things Monckton got wrong (which is easy), find something he actually managed to get right. It has to be something that contradicts the conclusion that CO2 is largely responsible for recent global warming. Now here’s the scary part: You won’t be able to simply repeat a Monckton claim and tell me it must be true, you have to check Monckton’s source and verify it.”
And Monckton replies:
=> Monckton responds (part 1/2)
=> Monckton responds (part 2/2)
Actually Monckton responds to Peter Hadfield aka “potholer54″ – plus Hadfield’s response on WUWT. Short announce. Comments are open!
I would love to be able to reply to stuff on WUWT but, unfortunately…
Anthony Watts blacklisted little ol’ me after I referred to him as an ex-TV weatherman and he was then caught out by a spoof of Robert Henson’s Rough Guide to Climate Change that appears on my blog, which he thought was a real book I had actually written…
What more evidence do you need that the man is a fool?
Watts doesn’t seem to be very literate. He can’t even spell the phrase “nom de plumes” as he’s using it several times
🙂
That’s the kind of ‘audience’ he’s trying to attract: the illiterate.
You can’t simply dismiss them out of hand – his audience is large, loud and motivated.
A response has to be made – ignoring them will cause a Tea Party scenario like the one that has effectively stymied Obama for the last 2 years.
The entire leadership of the Republican Right denies climate change and it cannot be assumed that a) Obama will be re-elected , b) Democrats will regain control of the House, c) retain control of the Senate
It may be implausible, but not unthinkable, that Republicans will control the Oval Office and both House and Senate come Jan 2013.
Also, since the current SCOTUS seems to be more aligned with the right and corporate interests, it could be a very bad 4 years for AGW proponents.
So complacency and dismissiveness are foolhardy, given the stakes.
Well. It wasn’t meant to be complacent. But I’m calling a fish a fish. And, you cannot teach a monkey playing the piano. Watts surely needs to be debunked for what he is. But I doubt it would change the mind of one single hardliner from the climate change denial front.
Another issue is where Germany is headed – tough economic times, a cold winter and the recent publication of Die Kalte Sonne by a well-respected environmentalist is bound to have some negative effects.
That second video is… quite revealing.