Monckton
tlambert | August 11, 2010Monckton's fight with the House of Lords continues, with The Guardian reporting
Last month, Michael Pownall, clerk of the parliaments, wrote to Lord Monckton, a hereditary peer, stressing that he should not refer to himself as a member of the House of Lords, and nor should he use any emblem representing the portcullis. ...
Buckingham Palace confirmed it is "aware of this matter", but said it "can not disclose any details on private correspondence between Buckingham Palace and an individual". It did, though, guide the Guardian towards a document on its website which says misuse of the emblem…
tlambert | August 4, 2010Christopher Monckton is now threatening to sue Scott Mandia as well:
I also note that you have publicly accused me of "fraud", and have widely circulated that accusation on the internet, and have expressed the intention to invite the mass media to repeat it. Since this is a serious charge, do you have any evidence to back it up, or should I add your name to that of Professor Abraham in the libel case that will be filed shortly?
Gareth Renowden responds with:
On the evidence, it is clear that Monckton is a shameless humbug, a proven liar and a hypocrite, who intentionally misrepresents the…
tlambert | July 16, 2010Brian Angliss has a useful summary of Monckton's attempt to intimidate John Abraham while Eli Rabett looks at Monckton's correspondence with University of St. Thomas. The best bit is where Monckton professes to be unaware of any "disparaging", "outrageous", or "defamatory" comments he has made about the University of St. Thomas and Father Dease on Alex Jones despite calling the university a "half-assed Catholic Bible college" and Dease a "creep" on that show.
But I want to look at Monckton's continuing claim to be member of the House of Lords. If you think that the House of Lords saying that…
tlambert | July 14, 2010Monckton's response to Abraham has drawn the attention of bloggers everywhere. George Monbiot finds it "magnificently bonkers". Gareth Renowden examines Monckton's claim to have a science background. Eli Rabett is collecting limericks. Richard Littlemore believes if they look at Abraham's presentation and Monckton's response, "most people will conclude that John Abraham is a careful scientist and that the Lord Monckton is a belligerent and unapologetic polemicist".
Which is perhaps the reason why Monckton, supported by Anthony Watts, is trying to suppress Abraham's presentation. Over at…
tlambert | July 13, 2010A summary by John Abraham of his thorough demolition of Monckton was published last month in the Guardian, along with commentary by George Monbiot.
Now Monckton has responded with 446 questions for Abraham. Just to be clear here, "446 questions" is not hyperbole for "lots of questions". There are 446 questions in an 86 page pdf. And what questions they are. Eli Rabbett is already enjoying himself here and here. I decided to pick out three questions to answer and question Monckton on, and let you guys have fun with the rest in the comments.
466: Will you, therefore, now be good enough to…
tlambert | May 31, 2010John P Abraham has taken the time to go through one of Christopher Monckton's talks and check whether the references that Monckton cites say what Monckton claims they do. Of course, as anyone who has checked Monckton's work can discover, they don't. But Abrahams has gone the extra mile and checked with the authors of the papers as well and again and again gotten replies from the scientists saying "Monckton is wrong". The presentation is 84 minutes long and is devastating. Even at that length only some of Monckton's errors are covered. It's based on a Monckton talk from last year, before…
tlambert | May 13, 2010Christopher Monckton made an official complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about this post from George Monbiot, because, among other things, Monbiot suggested that Monckton was not a member of the House of Lords. Monckton is not, in fact, a member of the House of Lords and his complaint was rejected.
tlambert | May 9, 2010The most damning thing about Christopher Monckton's testimony to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming on global warming science (video here), is the fact that the Republicans could not or would not get a single scientist to testify.
His main argument is based on the same confusion that I dealt with in my debate with him -- the idea that Pinker (2005) which found an increase in short wave radiation at the surface, actually found an increase in radiative forcing. Rachel Pinker herself explained the difference: (my emphasis)
The CO2 "radiative forcing" value that…
tlambert | April 16, 2010Peter Sinclair's latest video continues on with Christopher Monckton. I'm in this one!
tlambert | March 27, 2010I have uploaded my debate with Monckton to youtube. I had to cut it up into 15 parts which I've put in a playlist.
My presentation is part 3 and 4, embedded below.
tlambert | March 20, 2010Deep Climate covers the latest in the IOPgate scandal
The controversy over the Institute of Physics biased submission to the U.K. Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee's investigation of the stolen emails from East Anglia's Climate Research Unit is about to get a whole lot hotter.
Of particular interest to Deltoid readers might be the Monckton connection (quoting Donald Oats on 8 Mar):
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…
illconsidered | March 3, 2010While on the subject of great work by Tim Lambert, his recent debate with Christopher Monkton is available for viewing here.
It is 113 minutes long and I am pressed for time, so I am posting it before watching it. Feel free to point out favorite parts in the comments. Thanks to the Sydney Morning Herald for putting it on.
I have no doubt it will be educational and entertaining, can't wait to see it!
tlambert | February 28, 2010Andrew Bolt responded to my debate with Monckton by defaming me, calling me "vituperative, deceptive, a cherrypicker, an ideologue, a misrepresenter and a Manichean conspiracist only too keen to smear a sceptic as a crook who lies for Exxon's dollars". You'll be glad to hear that Bolt now says I take back my nice words about Lambert. Even though he admitted that "Many of these issues are over my head" he is now utterly convinced by a dishonest post from Joanne Nova that I somehow tricked Monckton.
Nova quote mines Pinker's explanation for this phrase:
if we give Christopher Monckton the…
tlambert | February 17, 2010Ian Musgrave explains how the Snowball Earth proves the opposite of what Christopher monckton claimed:
Moncktons' claim that this shows that climate sensitivity to CO2 must be low in this scenario is dead wrong, in fact simulations show that with the sensitivity most researchers claim for CO2, you still need a huge amount of CO2 to melt a Snowball Earth with a fainter Sun (1,2 and the measured CO2 after the glaciation ended was around 12,000 ppm, not 300,000 as was apparently claimed in Moncktons' talk, 3). With a low climate sensitivity, the Earth would never unfreeze.
tlambert | February 12, 2010You know that famous scene in Annie Hall where a bore is going on and on about Marshall McLuhan's work and Allen produces McLuhan who tells the bore that he got McLuhan all wrong? Well, that's kind of what happened in my debate with Monckton. Based on what he had identified as his most important argument in previous talks I was pretty sure he would argue that climate sensitivity was low based on his misunderstanding of Pinker et al Do Satellites Detect Trends in Surface Solar Radiation?. And sure enough, he did.
If you read the title of Pinker's paper, you'll see that it's about changes in…
tlambert | February 10, 2010SMH Online plan to put up a live feed of the debate. I'll put up a link to the page if this happens.
The format is now settled: Monckton opens the batting with a 15 minute presentation. Then I go for 15 minutes. Then we put two questions to each other (alternating). Then its questions from the audience. And finally we each get five minutes each to close things.
Friday February 12th, 12:30 - 2:30 Grand Ballroom, Hilton Hotel, 488 George St Sydney
$30 at the door, preregister by emailing cool@exemail.com.au
tlambert | February 9, 2010Media Watch has examined some more of Monckton's outlandish claims.
It turns out that the graph he claimed came from the "Barrier Reef Authority" actually came from John McLean.
And if you actually look at the McLean graph, rather than showing no change it shows warming. You can see it here at Marohasy's. The very first comment is from Louis Hissink:
Eyeballing the above graph, (based on professional experience) suggests a slight increase in SST over the time period.
And the trends over a longer period can be seen here, showing plenty of warming on the GReat Barrier Reef.
Also on Media Watch…
tlambert | February 9, 2010At my suggestion the organisers of the debate have changed the format of the debate slightly. Instead of the moderator asking questions, we'll ask each other four questions, two on notice, two without. So you can suggest your questions for Monckton here. Monckton's slides can be seen here.
tlambert | February 6, 2010I will be debating Christopher Monckton this Friday.
John Smeed emails:
The Grand Ballroom at the Sydney Hilton Hotel is booked for 12.30pm to 2.30pm on Friday 12 February 2010 where it was planned that Alan Jones would MC a Lord Monckton lecture.
I have now rearranged this function to become a 'Presidential Style' debate (like the format used in the USA Presidential elections) on DOES ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING ENDANGER MANKIND ? with Alan Jones as the Moderator.
Each speaker will present a 10-15 minute Synopsis of his argument
The Moderator, Alan Jones, will ask a sequence of say four (4…