Global Warming/Climate Change

Madder and Madder

Lord Monckton’s increasingly extravagant claims threaten to destroy the movement he champions

by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom

The longer this goes on, the better it will be for all those who take science seriously. Lord Monckton is digging his hole ever deeper, and dragging down into it everyone stupid enough to follow him. Those of us who do battle with climate change deniers can’t inflict one tenth as much damage to their cause that Monckton wreaks every time he opens his mouth.

He has now answered the devastating debunking of his claims published by the professor of mechanical engineering John Abraham(1) with a characteristically bonkers article(2). It conforms to the cast iron rules of climate change denial, which are as follows:

1. Falsely accuse the other person of ad hominem attacks, while making vicious ad hominem attacks of your own.

I have seen it done many times before, but never as blatantly as this. Monckton manages to pack his double standards into a single sentence:

“So unusual is this attempt actually to meet us in argument, and so venomously ad hominem are Abraham’s artful puerilities, delivered in a nasal and irritatingly matey tone (at least we are spared his face — he looks like an overcooked prawn), that climate-extremist bloggers everywhere have circulated them and praised them to the warming skies.”

Those who have followed Abraham’s destruction of Monckton’s wild claims will know that he doesn’t make any ad hominem attacks at all(3): in fact he goes out of his way to be civil and courteous to his subject and does his best to give him the benefit of the doubt. Unlike the bad-mannered lord, he sticks to the facts. Just for the record, Abraham looks nothing like an overcooked prawn, but quite normal and pleasant(4).

Does Viscount Monckton possess so little self-awareness that he couldn’t spot the contradiction between the standard of argument he expects of others and his own behaviour? Or does he take his followers for morons?

2. Ignore or gloss over the most substantial criticisms. Monckton concentrates on some of the least damaging of Abraham’s revelations. Abraham has replied to him(5). You’ll note that, unlike Monckton, he remains courteous and calm. And that he swiftly destroys the viscount’s specious responses.

3. Never admit that you are wrong. Even when your errors are staring you in the face, do not acknowledge them. Never apologise, never concede. This is the crucial difference between scientists and charlatans. True scientists welcome challenges to their work, admit their mistakes and seek to refine and improve their hypotheses in the light of them. Charlatans raise the volume and denounce the people who expose their errors. Or they quietly drop their claims, without ever acknowledging that they were wrong, and replace them with a new set of implausible assertions.

I have now read thousands of articles by climate change deniers – far more than I would like to have done – and have never come across a single admission that they have got something wrong. I challenge the deniers who are about to populate this thread to produce an example of someone on their side of the debate acknowledging an error.

4. Project your worst characteristics onto your opponent. Without providing any evidence to support his claim, Monckton repeatedly accuses Abraham of being a liar and of using “flagrant and deliberate misrepresentation”. This comes from a man who has, among other interesting assertions, falsely claimed to be both a member of the House of Lords(6) and a Nobel laureate(7). He also lambasts John Abraham for not being a climate scientist, though Abraham does in fact work in closely related fields. Monckton’s own qualification, of course, is a classics degree.

To these well-trodden tactics Monckton adds one of his own: run to daddy. He says that

“I have already initiated the process of having Abraham hauled up before whatever academic panel his Bible college can muster, to answer disciplinary charges of willful [sic] academic dishonesty amounting to gross professional misconduct unbecoming a member of his profession.”

There is, as yet, no evidence that he has done such a thing: the university is not aware of any complaint from Viscount Monckton and nor is Abraham. But it must be the 20th such threat I have seen him make. He throws threats of libel around like confetti, reported me to the Press Complaints Commission (his complaint was not upheld(8)) and claims to have initiated disciplinary proceedings against another academic who criticised him (oddly, this didn’t materialise either(9)).

For all his bullying and bluster he is (to deploy the Scots he often uses) a “wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie”. He is capable, as you have seen, of astonishing viciousness, but as soon as someone questions or criticises him, he runs off to a complain to a higher authority – or threatens to. This suggests that, like most bullies, he can deal it out but he can’t take it.

When Abraham published his destruction of Monckton’s claims, the Telegraph had a brief moment of sanity, allowing its blogger Tom Chivers to post a celebration of “one of the most magisterial scientific take-downs on record.” Chivers noted that:

“Lord Monckton is a fantasist, a blethering popinjay useful only for amusement. He can be safely ignored in all serious scientific debate. But it reflects badly on those people who want seriously to argue against the science of climate change that this capering jester is among the public figureheads of their movement. If I were, for example, m’colleagues James Delingpole or Christopher Booker, I would publically wash my hands of Lord Monckton, and soon.”

No sooner was the post up than it was down again. Chivers reported in an update to the blog that he had refused to take it down pending a conversation with his editor. But shortly afterwards the blog was removed from the Telegraph website without explanation. Fortunately Chivers’s post had already been reproduced elsewhere(10).

As Chivers suggests, Monckton’s claims to be a serious contender are over. From now on, like the defrocked Vicar of Stiffkey(11), he’ll be a circus act, a figure of fun whose only followers are as crazed as he is.

Delightfully, he has just been given a whole new ring in which to perform. In the craziest political decision since Gordon Brown put Digby Jones in his cabinet, the UK Independence party has just made Monckton its deputy leader. His appointment has provided him with yet another opportunity to inflate his credentials. Among other claims he maintains that he was the “Author of a 1200-word article for the Daily Telegraph on the reasons in international law why the Falkland Islands are British, read out on the BBC World Service’s Argentinian broadcasts every 20 minutes during the Falklands War.”(12)

I phoned the BBC World Service. They do not have an Argentinian service, and have never made specifically “Argentinian broadcasts”. There was, however, an entirely separate organisation set up by Thatcher’s government to beam propaganda into Argentina during the Falklands war, called Radio Atlantico del Sur. It had nothing to do with the BBC. The idea that it might have read out Monckton’s essay every 20 minutes is entirely plausible: I can’t think of a better means of demoralising the enemy.

His Ukip CV adds more details to Baron Monckhausen’s wonderful claim to have invented the universal cure.

“Patients have been cured of various infectious diseases, including Graves’ Disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, and herpes simplex VI.”

But what happened to the other diseases? When he joined UKIP in December, he claimed that

“Patients have been cured of various infectious diseases, including Graves’ disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, food poisoning, and HIV.”

Never mind. The best bit is the name of the company he has set up to market this miraculous treatment: Resurrexi Pharmaceutical. Last week I proposed that it was only a matter of time before Monckton proclaimed himself the risen Christ(13). Looks like we didn’t have to wait too long.

Anyway, UKIP is now led by two aristocrats. One, Marina Hyde suggests, is “the sort of patrician dullard you pray not to be seated next to at dinner”(14). The other is clearly deranged. This is going to be a lot of fun.

References:

  1. https://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/jpabraham/
  2. https://pajamasmedia.com/blog/monckton-at-last-the-climate-extremists-try-to-debate-us-pjm-exclusive/?singlepage=true
  3. https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jun/03/monckton-climate-change
  4. https://www.stthomas.edu/engineering/faculty/jpabraham.htm
  5. https://www.skepticalscience.com/Abraham-reply-to-Monckton.html
  6. https://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Moncktons_letter_to_Snowe_Rockefeller_on_1218.html
  7. https://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/Letter_to_McCain.pdf
  8. https://www.pcc.org.uk/news/index.html?article=NjQwMg
  9. https://www.sltrib.com/ci_14856887
  10. https://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2010/06/telegraph-steps-outside-its-alternate.html
  11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Davidson
  12. https://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/1675-christopher-a-man-of-many-talents
  13. https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jun/03/monckton-climate-change
  14. https://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/13/general-election-ukip-manifesto-launch

 

4 Comments

  1. hurhurhur

    charlatans? or science? at lest the charletans are not backed by money.
    what reason do you think mr rudd hasn’t started the climate tax yet? not enough evidence thats why.Not saying that there wont be enough evidence in the future, as i’m open minded to that but as of yet there isnt enough.The sciance is to young.
    unfortunately it seems People like you are just trying to win this ego game all the time and take sides to point at the losser, which is a shame as i think we need to leave the ego behind. Like permaculture teaches us we should look at the issue from all sides then get to together as a (human)group and come up with a solution. As much as i dont agree with what your saying dosn’t mean i’m not on yourside, If climate change is man made, then great its man made lets deal with it together, and if its not man made then great Its not man made lets deal with that together also.Us humans need to start working together not taking sides.
    lets not all end up like the politicians.
    be happy
    knighter

  2. Regardless of which side is ‘right’, I think this argument is a distraction. Along with peak oil it’s being used to bring in Bad Things. To name a few, biodiesel, carbon taxes which aren’t administered by local organizations, and a brand of totalitarianism that would make any past despot extremely jealous.

    I think a problem has been outlined in a way that divides people instead of bringing them together. Permaculture people have been aware of big problems in the way civilization operates for a long time. Bill came up with a thesis that resonated with many people and has been worked on and adapted hugely since.

    How a problem is presented has a huge bearing on the reaction and thereby on the solutions chosen. Look at what Bill’s presentation gave birth to, and then look at the Climate Change fiasco. Same problem, different people’s presentation. Now look at the ‘solutions’ that come from those presentations. It’s like the difference between allopathic and holistic medicine.

    The solutions presented by permaculture say ‘let’s get together and make our world beautiful, a place where we can live happily and thrive’. They look at the whole problem and present solutions that address all of the different aspects of our lives, as well as seeing us in the wider context of life on earth. They also leave open opportunities for everyone to do things in their own way and encourage diversity.

    The climate change debate and its ‘solutions’ divert people into a neurotic fascination with one aspect of our behavior and produce the same top-down, authoritarian reaction that has brought us into this mess already. The solutions it proposes address only climate change. Carbon quotas are an accountant’s solution, they address only one aspect of the already narrow spectrum imposed by the reduction to concentrating on climate change.

    By diverting our attention from the whole view permaculture has, we can be more easily led to accept the solutions proposed by the people who led us in to the mess.

    Climate change is but one aspect, and permaculture already addresses almost everything (and for those who understand the importance of zone 5, everything). We don’t need this narrowing of our vision. Following and building upon the principles of permaculture, climate change would be fixed (if it is a problem) anyway, along with all the others.

    The reason the powerful people want to divert everyone’s attention is, I believe, that holistic solutions would produce a world in which they are just normal everyday people, with no more power than anyone else. They realize there are big problems for survival, but can’t get their heads around real solutions because they are unable to imagine a world they are not ‘in control’ of.

  3. “The solutions presented by permaculture say ‘let’s get together and make our world beautiful, a place where we can live happily and thrive’.”

    What exactly does that mean? You fear a carbon tax, right? Do you think Permaculture allows you to have your cake and eat it too? A food forest AND happy-motoring forever in Hummers?

    I’m always surprised to read these comments on permaculture-mothership because they reflect how many people come to permaculture with all this ideological baggage and they bastardize the message of permaculture in order to cannibalize it for a few useful gardening tips while desperately avoiding:

    a) changing the way they think
    and
    b) making any behavioral changes that could be considered a personal sacrifice.

  4. I used to be like you. Even relatively recently I would have taken the bait and replied in kind to your cursory retort with an equally bigoted and illogical extrapolation of what you wrote, though you didn’t really write enough for me to also insult your effort with brevity, ignoring 90% of what you had written. But now I feel more inclined to assume you are not a rude and bigoted SHADO Commander with poor comprehension abilities, instead hoping that you just had a bad day with the Mysterons and Captain Scarlet disobeying your orders (again), which in turn did nothing to help your amorous advances to Rhapsody Angel.

    In case you’re in a better mood now, I’ll ignore the straw man and just ask you what carbon taxes would be needed (allowing the huuuuge assumption that they would have any desirable effect, given who is implementing them and how) if we were to successfully promote permaculture worldwide?

    I know that the mainstream media and many celebrities are trying to make us think we are either with the ‘authorities’ or with the terrorists (e.g. George Bush, who said exactly that) but it is not true. Not everyone who is opposed to carbon taxes is in favor of making lots of CO2. My post is a very clear example of that. It’s not the Mysterons we have to worry about, you can spot them a mile off, mate!

    In reply to the second half of your message, I can really only ask if you are in the right page. Please explain to me exactly how it is that you deduced that I do not understand the principles of permaculture, as outlined in Permaculture 1 and 2 (for example) and exactly how it is that Carbon Taxes fit in to the self-supporting and cyclical systems threrin described?

    In case that is too long a sentence (sorry but I can only go by what little you wrote)- what natural systems does a global carbon tax implemented by bureaucrats, designed by bankers and imposed by force on the people mimic?

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