‘The courage to do nothing’

Guess who did, after all, manage to speak in Bali?

Ladies, gentlemen, I give you Lord Monckton. Or, to be more precise, the Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. A Scottish member of the House of Lords, Monckton was born Christopher Walter. He is a descendant of a member of Churchill’s cabinet who founded the law firm Monckton Chambers, a licenced day-skipper with the Royal Yacht Association, a puzzle-setter of considerable renown, a member of the Worshipful Company of Broderers (one of London’s great Livery Companies), and a Knight of the Order of Malta. As a Catholic Tory, he has startlingly mediaeval views on handling deadly epidemics, which suggests that when he does see a crisis, he’s all for acting in dramatic fashion. On the upside, he is opposed to European political union and thinks it’s a good idea that people own their own homes. Oh, and he’s a gadfly around Al Gore.

He describes the former US vice president’s jeremiad An Inconvenient Truth as “a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors”, and for the use of that word alone, he deserves our respect.

After a to-and-fro with Gore in the Sunday Telegraph, of which a dialogue adaptation (PDF) was published by the Center for Science and Public Policy, he issued the politician-turned-film-maker with a grandly stated challenge to a debate. As with similar challenges from Czech president Vaclav Klaus and Dennis Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Gore turned chicken. Chivalry is clearly dead. Monckton has since published “35 Inconvenient Truths” in the politician-turned-high-priest’s film (PDF). Luboš Motl, from whom I borrowed this delightful snap of Monckton, has a list of Monckton writings published by the Telegraph. The Science and Public Policy Institute has published nine papers by the venerable viscount.

Monckton was among the skeptical scientists, researchers and politicians who, with considerable difficulty, managed to speak to holidaymakers at the UN’s tropical getaway in Bali. Reports the Canada Free Press:

An international team of scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore, descended on Bali this week to urge the world to “have the courage to do nothing” in response to UN demands.

Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher, had a blunt message for UN climate conference participants on Monday.

“Climate change is a non problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing,” Monckton told participants.

“The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change),” Monckton added.

Monckton also noted that the UN has not been overly welcoming to the group of skeptical scientists.

“UN organizers refused my credentials and appeared desperate that I should not come to this conference. They have also made several attempts to interfere with our public meetings,” Monckton explained.

Monckton offers a detailed exposition of his position in an article datelined Bali, yesterday, in which he accuses the IPCC of having “deliberately, persistently and prodigiously exaggerated not only the effect of greenhouse gases on temperature but also the environmental consequences of warmer weather.” Specific examples of errors (PDF) include elementary unit of measurement confusion and failure to correctly add numbers. Apparently, it is the consensus of 2 500 of the world’s top scientists that 0.042 + 0.050 + 0.050 + 0.140 = 0.110. Don’t you dare argue, you crazy wingnut. The science is settled.

Other heretics the UN would rather we hadn’t heard from include:

• Australian scientist and mathematician Dr David Evans, who became a skeptic after reviewing recent research on the subject and has written a paper (PDF link to ‘Carbon Emissions Don’t Cause Global Warming’) summarising the evidence that changed his mind, as well as a dramatic confessional: I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train.
• Owen McShane and Bryan Leland of the International Climate Science Coalition, which was formed by climate scientists in New Zealand and was among the groups denied the opportunity to speak officialy at the event because it argues that a global carbon tax or emissions trading arrangement would be at best financially irresponsible and at worst encourage simple fraud. This group is notable for having ably rebutted the predictable and hilariously-headlined criticism by Greenpeace which its launch elicited last year.
• Dr Vincent Gray, a long-standing IPCC reviewer (and therefore, like Monckton, a co-Nobellist with Al Gore), who disputes the scientific quality of the IPCC’s assessments (large PDF), and is quoted in the article as saying: “There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any affect whatsoever on the climate. … All the science of the IPCC is unsound. … It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics and the mathematics.”
• South African engineering professor William Alexander, who weighed in with a warning to poor countries that nothing that might emerge from this conference will be in their interests, and much could cause active harm. His published work includes research (link in PDF) on the links between solar activity, climate predictability and water resources development.

(Thanks to Trevor for posting the Canada Free Press link in a comment on my post about scientists and journalists who aren’t on the IPCC’s global warming alarmism bandwagon being denied credentials to speak at, or cover, the Bali conference. It may not be as funny as the piece Rory spotted that Bali’s airport couldn’t accommodate the fleet of private and charter jets converging on the island, but it is considerably more encouraging.)

PS: I’ve been plagued by a cascade of troubles, including rolling blackouts (for which I have a rather surprising presidential apology, so that’s okay then), several major outages at internet providers upstream from my ISP, and a veritable invasion of plumbers and electricians with carte blanche. This has left, at various times, me and/or this site offline. My apologies.