At the arboretum

It's winter time and there's not so much to see amongst the trees but there were paper barks.

and there was a spray of fir needles

But best of all was this bird poo that looked like half a skull!

Norwegian problem

Chris Trotter is pursuing the Right-wing's furious dodging of responsibility around the political terrorism that occurred when the Right-wing gunman murdered the Left-wing youths on Norway's Utoya Island and exploded a bomb in an attempt to kill members of the Left wing Norwegian Government.
Don't go looking for clarity around the politically motivated murders on any of our New Zealand Right-wing blogs - the silence there will deafen you and the hands clamped over Right-wing blogger mouths will frustrate you as much as it does me, should you be seeking genuine and open discussion.

Trotter says:

"Anders Behring Breivik is indisputably a political terrorist, and the Norwegian authorities have treated him as such. He is being tried for terrorism.

So, why have governments and newspaper editors around the world shied away from using the words “terrorism” and “terrorist” to describe the murderous acts of this 32-year-old ultra-nationalist, anti-socialist, cultural exclusionist?

Over and over again we hear and read about Breivik as “the gunman” who went on a shooting “rampage” or “spree”.

Breivik’s victims have been similarly misrepresented. These young people weren’t gunned down for being “teenagers”, and Utoya Island wasn’t chosen simply because it was a “summer camp”. Breivik’s target was the annual gathering of the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party – the dominant partner in Norway’s left-wing coalition government."

Log of wood

We had friend's around for dinner last night and it was a very enjoyable time with lots of talk and great ideas, plus of course great food. We talked language and accents, pack horses, graphic design and tramping - all sorts as we sat around he fire that is was feeding with various woods harvested from my forest garden when Vince whipped out this collection of woody verses:

Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year,
Chestnut's only good they say,
If for logs 'tis laid away.
Make a fire with elder tree,
Death within your house will be;
But ash new or ash old,
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold.

Birch and fir logs burn too fast,
Blaze up bright and do not last,
It is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E'en the very flames are cold
But ash green or ash brown
Is fit for a queen with golden crown.

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke,
Apple wood will scent your room
Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom
Oaken logs, if dry and old
Keep away the winter's cold
But ash wet or ash dry
a king shall warm his slippers by.

We finished the evening with a little cider-sampling and one of my demijohns was declared palatable ('smells sweet but tastes very dry'). The others remain a plentiful source of cider vinegar.

Sunday's sun

Peter Jackson of Te Anau often sends me photographs he's taken of the heavens. Aurora are his speciality and star-scapes of wondrous design but today he's focused on Tama nui i te Rangi and has caught the Great Disc looking spotty.
He says:
Kia ora,
Finally a bit of a clearing in the clouds and fog!
Here's a shot taken thru a 150mm f12 refractor with a 45 South solar filter. Photo taken with a handheld Canon Ixus 500 (It's 1st photo thru telescope) revealed probably the best spots for several years?
So a great time to be sun bathing (with appropriate solar filters of course!) &/or looking out for auroral activity.

Tim'n'Jac

He in his and she in ...his (other).

Tim launches his boat

Tim rang to say he was launching the boat he'd just finished building and would I like to be there for the maiden dipping. I raced down to the beach. While I waited I took photos.
The boat-less beach.

A sea prune

 

Translucent weed

The stern

That's not giving away too much, is it.

Monckton (pt 3)

Threatening Those Who Disagree With Him

1. Monckton has threatened to instigate academic misconduct investigations against several professors who have exposed his misrepresentations. The list so far includes Naomi Oreskes, John Abraham, and Barry Bickmore. He has even threatened a libel suit against John Abraham. Monckton has now threatened to extend the libel suit to include Scott Mandia. Here is Scott’s reply. John Abraham has stated that Monckton has threatened lawsuits against him several more times. Monckton and Monckton has also threatened . He also wrote to Bickmore’s university administration to tell them Bickmore was mentally imbalanced, and that he had beeen sending Monckton “hate mail”.

2. He launched a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission in the UK against The Guardian because of a column George Monbiot wrote about Monckton’s antics. The PCC threw out the complaint. In a bizarre twist, George Monbiot reported that someone claiming to be Monckton and using Monckton’s IP address had tried to edit his Wikipedia page to falsely claim that he had won a £50,000 settlement from The Guardian because of Monbiot’s article.

3. Monckton lobbed threats against Arthur Smith after Arthur objected that Monckton (and the Science and Public Policy Institute) had violated copyright. Smith had written a rebuttal of one of Monckton’s articles, and was trying to get it published. Monckton put the entire thing up on the web along with his comments, and altered the article to imply that Smith had written it at the behest of his employer, the American Physical Society, which was not true. Arthur prevailed after threatening legal action, because he was clearly in the right.

4. John Mashey pointed out an instance where one contrarian had plagiarized from Monckton (and cited papers that had been challenged and withdrawn), and then Monckton turned around and praised the work. When Richard Littlemore reported this, Monckton left a comment on the page saying that Mashey was “under investigation” for breaching “doctor-patient confidentiality,” and that he was guilty of “interfering in an unlawful manner on the blogosphere.” To this day, I don’t think anyone has any idea what Monckton was talking about.

5. George Monbiot chronicled how Monckton has threatened several times to sue The Guardian for libel. The U.K. has libel laws that are absurdly in favor of plaintiffs, and yet, these lawsuits have never materialized.

6. Senators John Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe wrote an open letter to Exxon-Mobile, urging them to stop funding climate-contrarian “think-tanks,” whose tactics resemble those of the tobacco industry, Lord Monckton wrote an open letter to the senators, in which he said, “In the circumstances, your comparison of Exxon’s funding of sceptical scientists and groups with the former antics of the tobacco industry is unjustifiable and unworthy of any credible elected representatives. Either withdraw that monstrous comparison forthwith, or resign so as not to pollute the office you hold.” Ok, so this isn’t really a threat, but Monckton’s language is so bombastic and filled with fake moral outrage that it almost feels like a threat.

In his letter, Monckton falsely claimed to be a member of Parliament, and 2) Naomi Oreskes, a prominent science historian, and Erik Conway, have shown that not only do the most prominent organizations fighting mainstream climate science follow the same playbook as the tobacco industry, but it’s often the SAME organizations and people doing the fighting on both fronts!

7. Monckton launched yet another complaint to the Press Complaints Commission against New Scientist magazine, which had the temerity to point out that Monckton’s article on climate sensitivity in an American Physical Society newsletter was not peer-reviewed, among other things. Of course, the editor had specifically noted that the newsletter is not a peer-reviewed publication, but Monckton said he had the article critiqued by a “Professor of Physics,” i.e., someone who isn’t a climate specialist. The complaint was not upheld.

8. His Lordship complained to Ofcom, the British regulator for TV and radio programming, that he had been unfairly treated by the producers of the BBC documentary, Earth: The Climate Wars. Ofcom found that the show’s producers should have given more information to Monckton upfront about the nature of the program (even though Monckton expressed familiarity with how the BBC had covered the issue in the past.) However, they found that the lack of informed consent did not result in any misrepresentation of Monckton’s views by unfair editing. The complaint summary linked above is a fascinating read, if you have about 15 minutes.

9. Monckton threatened to have IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri jailed for fraud because he used an IPCC graph that turns out to be correct, but misleading. In his letter to Pachauri, however, His Lordship used a temperature graph that had already been shown by several scientists to be blatantly fabricated. I’m sure Monckton is on his way to Scotland Yard right now to give himself up.

10. The BBC aired a documentary called “Meet the Climate Sceptics” which apparently focused largely on Monckton. (Click here to see the trailer.) In fact Monckton unsuccessfully attempted to have the courts stop the BBC from airing it unless they allowed him to insert a 3 minute video rebuttal into the program.

11. The ABC (Australia) aired a rather stunning gutting of Monckton and his crowd. Journalist Wendy Carlisle brought up several instances where Monckton’s sources contradicted him, the fact that he falsely claims to be a member of Parliament, his miracle cure-all, and more. So of course, Monckton threatened to sue unless given airtime to reply.

Making Up Crazy Conspiracy Theories

1. He accused NASA of crashing its own satellite so it wouldn’t have to deal with more data that contradicts the scientific consensus about climate change.

2. Monckton claimed that a treaty would be ratified at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen that would “impose a communist world government on the world.”

3. After the BP oil spill disaster, Monckton went on CNBC claiming that Pres. Obama has some sort of vendetta against BP because he hates the United Kingdom. What’s the evidence? Well, Obama has repeatedly referred to BP as “British Petroleum”. Which is, well, what “BP” originally stood for. Note that he wasn’t just saying that Obama was using the fact that BP is based in the UK to score political points, pass the buck, or whatever. He was claiming that Obama HATES the U.K., and mentioned some rumor about Obama’s Kenyan ancestors being mistreated by the Brits.

4. After Monckton and his allies went about crowing that his article in an APS newsletter was “peer-reviewed,” the APS started appending notices on all its newsletter articles stating they are not peer-reviewed. Monckton claimed it was all a Communist plot. Marxist, to be precise.

Butchering History

1. On the Michael Coren show, Monckton butchered the history of the DDT ban so badly that he claimed JFK did things after he was dead… among other things.

A Reluctant Posterchild for Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies

1. Some young environmentalist protesters in Copenhagen started chanting and disrupting some meeting Monckton was involved with. Monckton later called these people “Hitler Youth,” even though some were Jewish. Ok, so I would be annoyed about the protesters, too, but when asked about the incident, Monckton denied to an AP reporter that he had been the one to make that comment. But, um… someone had already posted the video on YouTube.

2. Monckton gave a speech at Utah Valley University, in which he said (3rd paragraph from bottom) that a group of local scientists (including Barry Bickmore) were “trying to impose the same kind of tyranny as Hitler.” When some of us called him on this during an e-mail exchange, he said he didn’t recall having compared us to Nazis.

3. As mentioned above, in a speech given at the 2011 Big Footprint Conference, sponsored by the American Freedom Alliance, Monckton gave a long tirade about “eco-fascists”, and compared them to Hitler. He also flashed up slides with quotations by various accused “eco-fascists” next to a large Nazi flag. Prof. Ross Garnaut, an Australian economist who wrote a government report on dealing with climate change, said that people who don’t know anything about climate science have no rational choice but to accept what the experts say about it. Garnaut was simply encouraging people to be rational. To everyone but the tinfoil hat crowd, summarily rejecting the consensus of scientific experts without knowing what you are talking about is, well… irrational.

Being an All-Purpose Extremist

1. It’s a good thing Monckton has developed a cure for AIDS! In 1987 he suggested rounding up all AIDS-sufferers and isolating them for life. Since nobody took his sage advice, he later acknowledged that the problem had gotten too big for his suggestion to be feasible.

2. Monckton suggested it might be a good idea to require scientists to have some kind of religious certification before being allowed to practice in a field like climatology. You know, because scientists are a pack of atheists who think lying is ok.

3. Monckton claimed that, as a member of Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit, he suggested spiking the Argentines’ water supplies with a “mild bacillus” so the British troops could more easily win the Falklands War. He said he believed Thatcher had followed his advice, even though this would clearly have been a violation of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.

He Can Dish it Out, But Can’t Take It

Lord Monckton has repeatedly accused scientists and others of lies, fraud, and conspiracy to impose a Communist world government. He routinely calls people who disagree with him “bed-wetters,” “zombies,” and “Hitler Youth” (see above.) Well, fine. However, nobody likes the kid who can dish it out, but can’t take it. (If you want to see an amazing string of epithets that came from Monckton’s mouth in a single talk, click here. It’s astonishing!)

1. When John Abraham posted an exceptionally mild-mannered, careful critique of one of Monckton’s presentations, His Lordship complained that, “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.” Watch Abraham’s presentation, then read Monckton’s response (heck, just read the passage I just quoted,) and decide for yourself whose language was “venomous,” and whose arguments were ad hominem.

2. When Barry Bickmore charged, in an e-mail conversation involving Monckton and a number of local scientists, that Monckton had 1) lied about his personal circumstances for monetary gain (see above), 2) lied about being a member of Parliament (see above), and 3) made up data to discredit the IPCC (see above), he said, “I do not propose to answer any further ad-hominem points, and, as I have explained, I shall not answer any points from anyone who continues to assert ad-hominem arguments against me. No further communications from this email address will be answered, therefore. – Monckton of Brenchley.” But as Richard Littlemore pointed out, if the issue is Monckton’s credibility, it isn’t ad hominem to point out that he routinely makes things up.

Going Ape

Lord Monckton has largely been ignored or dismissed by scientists in the past because, after all, how could anyone take him seriously (see above)? A number of scientists have begun systematically picking apart his scientific arguments (see above). This does not sit well with someone who thinks he is a super-genius who has single-handedly gutted the entire field of climatology and invented a miracle cure-all (among other things.) So when the pressure is on, Monckton can really lose it.

1. The University of St. Thomas unequivocally told Monckton to take a flying leap when he was campaigning to get them to launch an academic investigation against John Abraham, who had critiqued one of Monckton’s presentations. Monckton went on Alex Jones’s show and called Abraham a “wretched little man,” the University of St. Thomas a “half-assed Catholic Bible College,” and the President of the University (Father Dease) a “creep.” He also said the Archbishop of St. Paul (who oversees the University) was “probably so busy sorting out the problems with little boys that he hasn’t got time to deal with this one.” ‘

Conclusion

I trust that you can see, from the overwhelming body of evidence that I have presented to you, that Monckton is a fraud and regularly engages in reprehensible and extremist behaviour. He is not someone your club should be associated with, as doing so will bring your club and its members into disrepute. It is not sufficient for you to claim that the Northern Club is just the venue, and others are booking it for their own use. By hosting Monckton you are condoning his behaviour and allowing your club to be used so that he can spout his extremist garbage. I urge you to cancel Monckton’s luncheon.

The luncheon organisers may accuse you of censorship. But cancelling the luncheon is more like reputational quality control. Consider whether such extreme views and behaviour have a place in today’s society. Would The Northern Club host someone who rejected the link between HIV and AIDS, for instance? Would The Northern Club host someone who rejected the link between smoking and lung disease? Would the Northern Club host a Holocaust denier?

The science of greenhouse gas induced climate change is over 100 years old. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has gathered the scientific evidence from numerous peer reviewed scientific papers, written by hundreds of scientists, and established the consensus position. The IPCC states that evidence of climate change is “unequivocal”. A thorough debunking of Monckton’s claims is available from the following sources (amongst others):

1. Monckton Myths
2. Youtube videos by British journalist Peter Hatfield, Youtube channel Potholer54
3. Videos produced by Peter Sinclair

I am happy to meet with you to discuss this matter with you. You may wonder why I have bothered to raise this with you. For your answer, please read the first quote from Edmund Burke.

Regards,

Martin Tegg

Monckton (pt2)

Misrepresenting scientific literature

1. John Abraham pointed out a number of examples where Monckton cited scientific literature that actually refuted his points, or the authors of the papers said that Monckton had misinterpreted their results.

2. Tim Lambert caught Monckton making up stories about one Dr. Pinker, and it turns out that Dr. Pinker says Monckton misinterpreted her work.

3. Monckton cited statistics about variations in the amount of incoming solar radiation to come to exactly the opposite conclusion from the authors he cited.

4. He also repeatedly cited statistics about local temperature records and treated them as if they were global. (This is a big no-no.)

5. Lord Monckton totally botched his discussion of ocean acidification, revealing that he doesn’t understand ocean circulation, the significance of pH in aqueous systems, and so on.

6. Monckton published an article on climate sensitivity in a newsletter of the American Physical Society. He has repeatedly claimed that this constitutes a peer-reviewed scientific publication about climate change, but the fact is that society newsletters are not typically “peer-reviewed” in any normal sense, and the newsletter editor appended a notice on Monckton’s article saying it was not peer-reviewed. A single scientist associated with the journal (and not a climate specialist) giving you some comments on a draft isn’t the same thing. Almost 2 years later, Monckton was still claiming the newsletter is peer-reviewed scientific literature, however. In any case, Arthur Smith picked this article apart and found 125 errors of fact and logic. Tim Lambert provided a short explanation for why Monckton’s main argument was wrong.

7. Lord Monckton really wants the Medieval Warm Period to have been warmer than today, and will latch onto any piece of “evidence” that seems to support this. For example, he wrote that “There was little ice at the North Pole: a Chinese naval squadron sailed right round the Arctic in 1421 and found none.” He apparently got this claim from Gavin Menzies, but it has been shown to be complete garbage.

8. A New York Times reporter fact-checked Monckton after a debate by asking experts in the relevant fields to comment. The experts said that Monckton was in fantasyland about polar bear populations and global temperature histories. As an aside, I mentioned above that I had shown Monckton tended to erroneously use local temperature records in place of global ones, which is what he was criticized for in the Times.

9. Alden Griffith showed how Monckton has cherrypicked data when discussing trends in Arctic sea ice extent.

10. Skeptical Science has now posted Monckton Myths, a page that collects links to all of Monckton’s main pseudo-scientific arguments, and scientific rebuttals. Since Monckton recycles his arguments ad nauseum, long after they have been shown to be flatly wrong, this should be a valuable resource for many years!

Making up data

1. Monckton made up data on atmospheric CO2 concentration and global mean temperature that he claimed were IPCC predictions. (This has been addressed several times by Gavin Schmidt, John Nielsen-Gammon, Lucia Liljegren, and Barry Bickmore. And yet, Monckton still keeps publishing the same false claims.)

Abusing scientific equations

Barry Bickmore notes that it doesn’t take much effort to plug some numbers into a scientific equation and solve it. However, Scientists have to learn to plug the right numbers into equations appropriate for the problem at hand, and it usually requires considerable experience for this principle to sink into students’ brains. Before it sinks in, students often tend to use the wrong equations for a given scenario, or plug the wrong kinds of values into the right equations. Monckton does both.

1. Monckton attacked mainstream estimates of climate sensitivity by a misapplication of the Stefan-Bolzmann equation.

2. Monckton made some wild claims about climate drivers after he misinterpreted the work of Rachel Pinker and colleagues. He essentially plugged the wrong kind of numbers into an equation that converts a change in radiative forcing into change in global mean temperature.

3. He frequently uses an IPCC equation for the EQUILIBRIUM temperature response of climate models to calculate TRANSIENT temperature response. The IPCC publishes the transient responses, as well, but Monckton refuses to use that data, because he says the IPCC has monkeyed with their models to make the transient response agree better with global temperature data. In the past he has just substituted in the equilibrium values and plotted them as if they were time-series. However, in response to criticism he says he’s going to correct the equilibrium values–seemingly by multiplying them by a factor of 0.8 instead of looking at the actual model output.

More on Monckton (pt 1)

My 'monckton' posts have been short on detail. For those who would like something to digest, I invite you to chew on this, a letter from someone who does go to a lot of trouble to reveal Monckton's unpleasant background and motivations. It's long, but a great read. The author is challenging the club that's hosting the crank this coming Thursday. Enjoy.

The Manager

Northern Club

19 Princes Street, Auckland

CC: Jocelyn Morgan, Members Liaison Manager

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” – Edmund Burke

“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict” - Martin Luther King, Jr

29 July 2011

To Whom It May Concern,

Cancel Monckton Luncheon

I call your attention to your club’s plans to host Mr Christopher Monckton at a luncheon scheduled for 12.30pm on Thursday August 4. At this luncheon Monckton will deny that climate change is a serious problem and suggest that we do nothing to stop it. I urge you to cancel this luncheon due to the large risk that associating with Monckton poses to your club’s reputation. If your club has a charter or a code of ethics, I am sure that it contains statements prohibiting dishonesty, misrepresentation and fraudulent behaviour, and discouraging behaviour that would bring your club into disrepute. As I will show in this letter, Monckton is guilty of the extremes of this kind of behaviour.

Providing a platform for climate change denial is not ethical – consider the families of the victims

Before I detail Monckton’s behaviour, I would like to pause and ask you to consider the state of the world today and the ethical ramifications of providing a platform for someone who denies that climate change is a serious problem. Right now Somalia is experiencing the worst drought and famine for 60 years, with thousands starving, and many mothers forced to abandon their weakest children to die so they can take their stronger children to aid camps. As the linked article notes, a study this year in found that rainfall in East Africa is likely to continue to decrease due to climate change.

In the USA there is currently an extreme heat wave that has already resulted in 64 human deaths and the loss of thousands of cattle. See also here and here. Would these current and recent extreme events, such as the Russian heat wave of 2010 and the European heat wave of 2003, have occurred if humanity had not increased the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? NASA scientist Jim Hansen has stated “almost certainly not.”. The World Health Organisation considers that the climate change that has occurred since the mid 1970s may have caused over 150,000 deaths in 2000. Furthermore, a recent study indicates that 'deadly heat waves more likely in coming decades'.

Unfortunately, the behaviour of Monkton and others like him is all too common, A comparison with the damage caused by those who deny the link between the HIV virus and AIDS is apt. Former South African president Thabo Mbeki did not believe the consensus position that HIV caused AIDS and therefore refused to let South African doctors use the latest anti-retroviral drugs. Mbeki instead encouraged the use of folk medicine. The entirely predictable result was the death of thousands. Here in New Zealand, some parents refuse to immunise their children because they believe the scare stories spread by some about vaccines. The result - a measles outbreak.

Monckton’s dishonest, fraudulent and extreme behaviour

I will now provide details of Monckton’s behaviour. I apologise for the length, but there are so many examples. Please read the links yourself to see the proof of his behaviour. Most of the examples are obtained from Barry Bickmore, a geochemistry professor at Brigham Young University, Utah. (As an aside, Bickmore is both a Mormon and a Republican, thereby disproving Monckton’s theory that scientists expressing concern about climate change are raving lefty tree huggers).

Only a month ago in June – Monckton depicts respected Australian economist as a Nazi

1. The most recent example of Monkton’s malicious behaviour is his depiction of Australian economist Ross Garnaut as a Nazi. While standing in front of a picture of a giant swastika, Monkton said that Garnaut’s views that one should accept mainstream science were “fascist”. Said Monckton “Heil Hitler, on we go”. I wonder how your club’s Jewish members, or those with German heritage, feel about that?

Making up cures to diseases and providing false hope

1. Monckton claimed that he has developed a cure for Graves’ Disease, AIDS, Multiple Schlerosis, the flu, and the common cold. This is no joke–he actually filed an application to patent a “therapeutic treatment” in 2009. Is it homeopathy? Massive doses of vitamin C? The world waits with bated breath.

2. The list of diseases cured by Monckton’s miracle tonic expands from time to time. At one point he claimed, “Patients have been cured of various infectious diseases, including Graves’ Disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, and herpes simplex VI.” At another time he said, ”Patients have been cured of various infectious diseases, including Graves’ disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza, food poisoning, and HIV.” Maybe some of you physicians out there can help me interpret this, but it looks to me like Monckton is claiming that his Wonder Cure will 1) wipe out any virus without harming the patient, and 2) cure auto-immune disorders that may (or may not) have initially been triggered by a viral infection. It is unclear to me whether bacterial infections are supposed to be affected since, for instance, food poisoning could be caused by either. Monckton apparently is now saying the miracle cure should be effective against both viral and bacterial infections, as well as prions

Shady business dealings

1. Monckton lied about his personal circumstances to sell more of his Eternity puzzle, and admitted it. Later, he tried to talk his way out of the lie.

Inflating his résumé

1. Monckton represented himself to members of the U.S. Congress as a member of the U.K. House of Lords (the upper house of Parliament.) When people started pointing out that he doesn’t appear on the official list of members, however, he started saying that he is a member “without a seat or vote.” When queried, the House of Lords responded that there is no such thing as a member without a seat or vote, and Lord Monckton had never been a member because he inherited his title (Viscount) in 2006, after all but 92 hereditary peers had been barred from membership in the House of Lords since 1999. Monckton has no scientific training or science degree, merely a degree in classics and a journalism qualification.

When asked to respond about this misrepresentation by members of Congress, Monckton basically acknowledged that the British government doesn’t recognize him as a member of the House of Lords, but claimed that they’re wrong because his “Letters Patent” that granted his title to the family (and presumably mention membership in the House of Lords) had never been revoked by specific legislation. He said that the Lord President of the Council in the House of Lords had admitted that letters patent could only be annulled by specific legislation. However, Tim Lambert actually looked up what the Lord President of the Council said, and it turns out that she used the House of Lords Act 1999 as an example of legislation that altered the effect of Letters Patent. In other words, she said the exact opposite of Monckton’s claim.

Monckton has also gone about using a logo that it quite similar to that of Parliament. Derek at Friends of Gin and Tonic sent an inquiry to the House of Lords Information Office about Monckton’s claim to be a member and his use of the logo, and they responded that, “The House is currently taking steps with a view to ensuring that Lord Monckton does not in future either claim to be a member of the House or use the parliamentary emblem or any variant thereof.”

Leo Hickman at The Guardian followed up on this with the House of Lords, and found that it’s just possible Monckton could do prison time. We can only hope, but it appears that Monckton may be quietly backing down! In his latest post on the Watts Up With That? blog, Monckton has changed his logo to a gaudy coronet, rather than the gaudy coronet and pink portcullis. However, more recently, Monckton is still claiming to be a member of the House of Lords, and he has added the portcullis back into his logo (although with wavy chains instead of straight). Now the House has taken the step of publishing a “cease and desist” letter on their website. Full story by Leo Hickman in The Guardian.

2. Monckton claimed to be a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Al Gore and the IPCC because he supposedly sent the IPCC a letter pointing out something that needed to be corrected in a draft report. At one point he said the claim to be a Nobel laureate was all a joke, but it has continued to be posted by Monckton in his bio at the Science and Public Policy Institute, and the sorts of people who believe Monckton have often repeated the claim with a straight face. (This brings up an important question. On whom was Monckton playing the joke?)

3. Monckton has made several dubious claims about what he did as a member of Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit. In fact, Monckton was so important to Thatcher that in Thatcher's autobiography she never mentions Monkton at all. Thatcher, a trained chemist, is on record expressing concerns about climate change over 20 years ago in 1990.

4. One example of these dubious claims is 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.” George Monbiot phoned up the BBC, and they said they had never done any specifically Argentine broadcasts. Maybe Monckton was confused about who did the broadcasting, however.

Deflating others’ résumés

Monckton is not only prone to artificially inflate his own credentials–he also tends to deflate others’ credentials. This makes the issue of Monckton’s qualifications that much more entertaining. Since he was a classics major and journalist, anyone who got a minor in Nutrition or Physical Therapy would automatically have more formal scientific training than him. Why would Monckton, of all people, make an issue of others’ qualifications to talk about climate science?

1. In his wonderfully batty first response to John Abraham’s critique of one of his presentations, Monckton attacked the credentials of both Prof. Abraham and the journalist George Monbiot. He explained, “All of the sciences are becoming increasingly specialized. So most ‘scientists’ – Abraham and, a fortiori, the accident-prone Monbiot among them – have no more expertise in predicting or even understanding the strange behavior of the complex, non-linear, chaotic object that is the Earth’s climate than the man on the Clapham omnibus.” He called Abraham “a lecturer in fluid mechanics at a bible-college in Minnesota,” and Monbiot “a fourteenth-rate zoologist, so his specialization has even less to do with climate science than that of Abraham.” But as Prof. Abraham later pointed out, the physical processes he studies (fluid mechanics and heat transfer) and some of the techniques he uses (numerical simulation) are the same ones climatologists use to understand climate. So while he isn’t a climatologist, his professional background does help him understand clearly what the climatologists are saying. (This is a particularly good thing, e.g., if you are looking up scientific papers Monckton cites to see if he has represented their content correctly. See the next section.) Furthermore, he works at the University of St. Thomas, which is a Catholic University with graduate programs, rather than a ”Bible College,” and Prof. Abraham has extensively published his research. George Monbiot has a Master’s degree in Zoology from Oxford although he never mentions it when he discusses the climate.

2. Five scientists (including Barry Bickmore) recruited over 20 world-class experts in various climate-related specialties to respond to Monckton’s 2010 testimony to Congress. Monckton responded by dismissing all of the experts because of “Climategate.” Apparently, even if you were only mentioned in those stolen e-mails, that means you are now discredited! He attacked the organizers because most of them aren’t climate specialists, but, um… that’s why all those experts were recruited.

Prune

It's not really. It's an apple, still hanging from the tree but looking unattractive to the hungry browser. It's brothers and sisters are still sound though and are attracting the attentions of the tui and bellbirds who, like the finches, are taking advantage of a food forest that hasn't been strip-harvested. This fungaly fruit isn't going to tempt them though. The tree it's dangling from is due to be pruned at soil-level soon. It grew from a seed and hasn't excelled, aside from the hang-on-through-the-winter-ability of it's fruit.

Wands

I pruned the hazel copse and called it coppicing. This is the third year this clump has been cut and the process seems to be a sustainable one. These wands are looking good; tall, straightish and un-branched. I've a bevy of them leaned up against the birch, curing.