Chris Of Arabia

Climate change denier Christopher Monckton, adding to the gaiety of nations.

When Chris Met Ezra

I'm surprised that the entire Universe did not disintegrate in a flash of pure dorkiness as soon as their elbows touched.  More pics here.

Venues Cancel On Lord Monckton

No longer a big draw in the U.K, Climate Change Denier Chris Monckton (3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) has spend the last couple of summers touring the former colonies.  This summer, he's back in Australia.  But there's a wee problem.  From Leon Ashby, president of the Australian Climate Sceptics Party:

The tour with Lord Monckton travelling Australia is having its challenges with 6 venues canceled before Lord Monckton appears.

The obvious influence against the Monckton events is the Getup network which had the campaign against Monckton advertised on its web site.

Its people were imitating club members and complaining to clubs so they pull the event.

The other influence is an apparent political interference from someone higher up the " sporting funding chain" that leaned on the clubs to cancel.

This was obvious with the Port Adelaide Football club cancellation.

The letter goes on to note that some other venues are entertaining second thoughts after Lord Monckton likened the Australian government's chief climate advisor Ross Garnaut to a Nazi.

Good on whoever's behind these protests.  Debating the likes of  Monckton is basically wasting your breath.

Monckton Gets Political

Swivel-eyed lunatic and AGW denier Viscount Monckton of Brenchley has been appointed joint deputy leader of UKIP (UK Independence Party). His immediate goals:

My first task will be to build on the Initiative Referendum Bill already tabled in the House of Lords by Lord Pearson and Lord Willoughby de Broke by drafting new, radically democratic constitutions for Britain and for Europe. After 1000 years of inexorable progress towards democracy, in the last 30 years pernicious peculation by Parliament’s political pygmies has thrown Britain’s democracy away.
From its wiki entry, UKIP sounds like a Conservative splinter party. Although their main goal is a U.K. withdrawal from European Union, they have a handful of seats in the Euro-Parliament, as well as two in the House of Lords. Note: Monckton will not add to their ranks in the latter chamber, despite the fact he datelines his writings "House of Lords". UKIP describes itself as "non-racist", but the 2010 election smoked out a few loons.

Monckton himself is deeply, deeply crazy. Having once argued that AIDs victims should be segregated from the general population, he now claims to be working on a cure for the disease. And in February he suggested that NASA blew up one of its satellites so it wouldn't provide the hard data needed to disprove the great global warming hoax.

Good luck Mr. Monckton! Good luck UKIP!

More On the Adventures Of The IOP

Ever since the once respected Institute of Physics issued its wild-eyed statement on the CRU Hack, its been trying to "clarify" its way out of the consequences (ie. shock and revulsion among its membership). What has become increasingly clear is that Denialists were able to hijack its Energy Group, and then its Energy sub-Group, and slip their statement out the door without proper oversight from the governing body. Some general background on that here and here. And it looks like Terri Jackson, one of the folks in question, is using her IOP connections to stake a place on the global warming denial rubber chicken circuit.


DC's piece is most interesting, as it presents strong evidence that knowledge of the IOP's statement was conveyed in advance (almost a month in advance, in fact) to climate change denier and swivel-eyed lunatic Christopher Monckton:

Monckton was touring Australia – perhaps still is – and during that tour he made some allusions to Climate Scientists being about to face criminal charges, and also to peak academic bodies having some very interesting submissions to make to the UK inquiry.
[...]

From what I’ve seen, Monckton, Plimer, Carter, etc are in frequent enough contact with each other and the organisations that circulate fud as their strategy, that I’m fairly confident Monckton knew ahead of time and was basically boasting

As DC notes:

Monckton’s tour began in early February, well before the parliamentary submission deadline of February 12. And the IOP submission wasn’t released to the general public until the end of that month, along with the other received submissions.

So, a thoroughly planned out and well-executed exercise in fud creation. Very much like the infiltration of the APS, which Monckton also had a hand in.

Deniers On Tour!

Lord Christopher Monckton's Canadian tour touches down at the Economic Club Of Canada later this month. Sponsored by the (CPoC connected and thoroughly discredited) Friends of Science, Monckton will be playing two luncheon dates at the International and Westin Hotels. Monckton will speak on "Apocalypse Cancelled: The Overheated Hype Behind Global Warming" and perform all of his hits, including "I Only Have Eyes For You (And That Guy Just Off To Your Right)".

Get your tickets now, for only...79 bucks a pop? You gotta be kidding me! I can get front row to U2 for that kind of money.

h/t

Climate Scientists Need A War Room

Chris Mooney triggered an interesting line of thought about a month ago when he suggested that folks interested in winning the political debate over what actions should be taken to combat Global Warming needed an anti-Morano. What, or who, is a Morano?

Marc Morano has long been Senator James Inhofe’s top global warming spinmeister and talking head. His special ability is to argue super-fast, spewing out questionable claims, a kind of howitzer of climate “skepticism.” (Below, for example, see Morano’s recent debate with Joe Romm provided in its first installment, with the second here. Joe tries to be patient in debating Morano, and to correct him as much as possible–a valiant attempt, but it’s simply impossible to correct everything Morano says as he bowls you over with dubious assertions.)

In recent months, Marc Morano has left the employ of Senator Inhofe a launched Cimate Depot, a Drudge-style aggregator which links almost exclusively to material from AGW denialist sources. All the "big name" skeptics appear--McIntyre, Monckton, Watts--as well as somewhat more credible researchers like the Pielke's. The end result is a seeming torrent of "counter evidence" to AGW theory, all ready for the picking by journalists willing to hack for the denialist cause, whose columns are then recycled onto the front page of the site to keep the flow of fake news coming.

The response to Mooney's proposal among those following the climate science debate has been, for the most part (but not entirely) negative, largely because people have interpreted Mr. Mooney's proposal as meaning "our side needs a lying ass of its own". But he brushes against an excellent point--those members of the scientific community that want to see real action taken on the AGW file need some kind of PR counter to the work of Morano and people like him (Joseph D’Aleo for example, who runs Icecap, which was one of the first denialist "news" sites though now but a pale shadow of Climate Depot).

So here's my take on Mooney-- a counter aggregator, a rapid response website that would:

1) publish links to new papers/newspaper stories dealing with new developments in the actual science as these appear in the MSM. Links would go to material featuring the work of legitimate researchers like Landsea, who question certain details of the overall picture, but would exclude folks like Monckton, who essentially spout nonsense.

But more importantly, the site would

2) aggregate on-line refutations of junk science papers as soon as these become available. For example, blogs like Deltoid, DeSmog, and Tamino have developed well-deserved reputations for debunking AGW related pseudo-science, but there are many other science bloggers out there with expertise to share. In fact, an attempt might be made to solicit responses from these people to whatever the pseudo-science story du jour might be.

Also,

3) Since the vast majority of AGW denialists simply do not engage in rational debate(witness this outburst of literal gibberish from Ian Plimer), the website should encourage and participate in various campaigns to ridicule and prank the lower echelons of the denier community. For example, why attempt to parse Monckton's pages of senseless equations and foamy denunciations when it is simply enough to post (or link to) a picture of him? See? Refuted already. In fact, every time someone gets a look at Monckton, the credibility of the whole movement is shaken. The method is the same as that employed against creationists. The message is: you don't deserve to be included in an honest discussion, you deserve only to be mocked. It sounds harsh, but in Canada at least we have learned that it can also be highly effective as a political strategy.

The point of all this of course would be to provide a place for sympathetic journalists and other members of the on-line citizenry to find ammunition for the ongoing debate. More specifically, it would (hopefully) create a conduit from the blogs to the professional press on issues surrounding AGW (the way National News Watch serves to get political news from Canada's blogging underground to our community of journalists).

Now, one of the problems with bringing such a plan to fruition lies in the science blogging community itself. With a few exceptions, these folks present as a cross between Dudley Do-Right and a bunch of leaf eating vegans. Some are still pushing the line that "The Public" needs to be "better educated" around science issues. And that's all very nice but its also something I've heard throughout the entire length of my adult life and it appears that any attempts in this direction have failed quite utterly.

So why not try Plan B, which is to develop a killer instinct politically and build an on-line war room.

Deniapalooza II Coming To New York City

Monckton Will Be There? Will You?

The Lonely Denier: Meet Gerald E. Marsh

Euro-Denier Maurizio Morabito has a point when he writes:

Interestingly, the FPS [Forum on Physics and Society] and the APS [The American Physical Society] did not make too much of a fuss in the past, when publishing “heretical” climate-related opinions. For an example, see Gerald E. Marsh’s “Climate Stability and Policy” in April 2008.

He's talking about how the APS has come down hard on the editors of one of their own news letters [FPS] after having been embarrassed by Lord Monckton in its pages. Here is the Marsh Paper Mr. Morabito refers to, and its conclusion is:

...that humanity faces a much greater danger from the glaciation associated with the next Ice Age, and that the carbon dioxide increases that we have seen during the past two hundred years are not sufficient to avert such glaciation and its associated disruptions to the biosphere and civilization as we know it. Such conflicting considerations have obvious implications for the formulation of public policy regarding human attempts to manage climate changes.

*Sigh*

Well, I suppose they did not make too much of a fuss previously because previous FPS newsletters did not make much of a splash beyond their usual readers. Marsh, whose website can be found here, seems to have forged few connections within the larger Denialist community. So, for example, earlier non-peer reviewed work of his was referenced by Canadafreepress, a far right Canadian news site, and Atmoz critiques a non-peer reviewed paper of his re the Sun's role in climate change here. But otherwise a wiki search of "Gerald E. Marsh" climate doesn't turn up much. Lord Monckton, on the other hand, knows how to do PR, if not science, and is deeply involved in any number of Skeptics organizations, including the ICSC and SPPI, which have a proven ability to blast their message into the Right Wing Blogosphere and the lower echelons of the MSM.

Now that they have been internationally embarrassed, the APS has responded vigorously.

As for the future of the APS and its newsletter (FPS), unfortunately

If John Mashey is right, all they [the APS] were guilty of was a failure to scrutinise rigorously the activities of volunteers who run a newsletter [the FPS] that happens to have their logo on the masthead. I think the implications are quite worrying: either learned societies will have to start acting like the repressive conspiracies the denialists claim they are, or this sort of thing will keep happening.

...a problem to which I see no easy solution.

How The APS Was Infiltrated By Deniers!

John Mashey is so good on AGW issues that I don't know why he doesn't have a blog of his own. In any case, his hypothesis re how known nutjob Lord Monckton managed to embarrass the American Physical Society is worth giving a higher profile. I've taken material from my own comments section, and copped stuff from Deltoid, and added a few clarifying bits of my own:

In 2004, University of Hartford (UHA) (CT) Physics Professor Larry Gould likely heard talks that included Cristy & Lindzen, and became convinced that AGW was a hoax, etc. in 2004, he was the Chair of the APS' New England Section (NES).

Here is Larry Gould's website.

Lately, he's been co-editor of the APS-NES newsletter, and has been writing very strong anti-AGW editorial material, promoting Monckton, "Great Global Warming Swindle", Steve Milloy, etc.

[He] has been studying climate science for about 4 years, although as far as I can tell, has never published any such research in peer-reviewed journals. It looks like that interest dates from a APS-NES meeting in 2004 with Christy, Lindzen, Rock, and Weart.

[He] wrote an editorial in Fall APS-NES Newsletter, which could serve as a useful catalog of denialist writings, although references to peer-reviewed material are ... scarce...

About that same time, [he] appears to have signed on for the OISM Petition Project. At least, "Laurence Gould PhD" appears in the Connecticut list.

Then, this article pops up in APS' FPS, with Monckton claiming it was requested. One wonders who got the FPS to request it, since FPS is normally commentary written by physicists for the FPS membership. [I'd wondered from the beginning why on Earth they would seek Monckton to write an article. Right now, I doubt that they did: I'd speculate that Gould proposed it to them. Then, SPPI's Robert Ferguson was poised to blast it to the Web, including a logn quote from Gould.]

The SPPI is The Science and Public Policy Institute, a well-known and venerable Denialist website. Robert Ferguson is its director. On July 15th--the day after Monckton's paper appears on the APS site*--the following appears on the SPPI site:

'Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chair (2004) of the New England Section of the American Physical Society (APS), has been studying climate-change science for four years. He said:

"I was impressed by an hour-long academic lecture which criticized claims about 'global warming' and explained the implications of the physics of radiative transfer for climate change. I was pleased that the audience responded to the informative presentation with a prolonged, standing ovation. That is what happened when, at the invitation of the President of our University, Christopher Monckton lectured here in Hartford this spring. I am delighted that Physics and Society, an APS journal, has published his detailed paper refining and reporting his important and revealing results.'

John writes:

From past watchings of SPPI, Ferguson tends to be "ready-to-go", so one would expect that Gould had seen this material before...

Finally, the Executive Committee of the APS Forum on Physics and Society appears to have issued a further statement repudiating the judgement of Jeffrey Marque, the editor who approved Monckton's paper:

'The executive committee of the Forum on Physics and Society, however, believes that the statement in the July 2008 edition of our newsletter, Physics and Society, that "There is considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution," exaggerates the number of scientists who disagree with the IPCC conclusion on anthropogenic CO2 and global warming. That statement does not represent the views of APS or the Executive Committee of the Forum on Physics and Society. The FPS Executive Committee strongly endorses the position of the APS Council that "Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate.'

...although the link back to the APS page where this quote originated doesn't work.

A neat piece of trickery, all told, which spawned a zillion stories about America's physicists changing their mind on Global Warming.

* A link to this paper was provided on the morning of July 14th on the Climatesceptics mailing list by Alister McFarquhar.

APS: Monckton's Paper Stamped JUNK SCIENCE

The APS has now added a disclaimer to the Lord Monckton Paper mentioned here. It reads:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions.

And Jeffrey Marque, the APS forum editer who allowed its publication is this guy.

APS Recants: Global Warming Back On

Yesterday, news went out in the deniosphere: The American Physical Society was questioning the AGW consensus! All because one of their editors, Jeffrey Marque, made the following post to an AP forum:


With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, together with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution. Since the correctness or fallacy of that conclusion has immense implications for public policy and for the future of the biosphere, we thought it appropriate to present a debate within the pages of P&S concerning that conclusion. This editor (JJM) invited several people to contribute articles that were either pro or con. Christopher Monckton responded with this issue's article that argues against the correctness of the IPCC conclusion...

Well, obviously Mr. Marque triggered a crapstorm in the blogosphere, because this morning the APS felt it necessary to issue a clarification:

The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:

"Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate."

An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that "Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum." This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.

Now, a couple of things. As noted, the original text was a post to a forum, hardly an official declaration by the APC. Secondly, the statement itself is so heavily qualified (very probably likely to be primarily responsible) as to be harmless, if perhaps also meaningless. So what I think got Mr. Marquette into trouble was his reference to Christopher Monckton as being a member of the scientific community who disagrees with the AGW consensus. Well, Lord Monckton is definitely not a scientist. He's a one time advisor to Margaret Thatcher, a well known low-caliber denialist (meaning he's particularly hard to take seriously), and an all-purpose wing-nut (Google "Monckton & AIDS", or read through last link). Furthermore, he looks like this.

Mr. Marquette seems to have got rooked by a nutter, in other words.

Here's Monckton's paper, by the way. The correct term for something like this is "baffling them with bullshit".

Deniers In Paradise

The Heartland Institute has sent a team of global warming deniers (or, as I like to call them, Warmocaust Collusionists) to Bali to stir up any shit they're able to.

Unfortunately, these "dissenting scientists" have been told to bugger off by the U.N.:

The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) has been denied the opportunity to present at panel discussions, side events, and exhibits; its members were denied press credentials.

Reading through their line-up, man, its like the Rolling Stones are going on tour again. The old boys of the movement are all in Bali, including Vincent Gray (looks like he wrote his Wiki entry himself), and Christopher Monckton (who, incidentally, doesn't have a degree to his name).

One legitimate delegate has already run into Monckton at the event and got his ear talked off. Tim Lambert has the skinny on the Moncton's career as an all purpose wingnut.

They've managed to book themselves some pretty nice digs, at the Hotel Inna Putri Bali(pictured above), with published rates of about $200 to $300 per night.

Lavish facilities, exclusive privacy and an unobtrusive service that will make you feel like royalty. A stretch of white - sanded beach where the tide appears never to go out. Our broad range of suites and cottages offer luxurious seclusion

People think the denialist movement has become a joke, but there's a lot of dough still behind them. They've sent four people to Bali. I wonder how many groups were able to muster up the $$$ to send as many.