Kiwi scientists rally against climate change sceptic
By Kurt Bayer @KurtBayerAPNZ
New Zealand's top climate change scientists have rallied together to slam a visiting sceptic who is touring the country to proclaim global warming as a myth that should be ignored.
Lord Christopher Monckton, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, says human-induced climate change is not happening.
Read the latest: Climate change sceptic rejects criticism as 'hate speech'
The British aristocrat, the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, is on a 16-venue nationwide speaking tour telling New Zealanders they shouldn't be worried about rising temperatures or sea levels.
Carbon taxes and emissions-trading schemes should also be scrapped because they are too expensive, he believes.
But government scientists and academics have warned that Lord Monckton's views are not based on science, and go against all the research they have done and read.
Dr James Renwick, associate professor of physical geography at Victoria University, dismissed Lord Monckton's views as "rubbish".
"He's a great showman and speaker, and climate change is a vehicle to self-publicise.
"But he has no training and has studiously avoided learning anything about science, I would say."
Niwa principal scientist Brett Mullan said Lord Monckton's views were "very damaging" for public perception.
Professor Dave Frame, director of the Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University, described him as a "vaudeville act" to be ignored.
"Someone who goes around saying things we know are not true can actually be quite harmful."
Lord Monckton has rejected the claims as ''hate speech".
He once argued for the quarantine of AIDS patients in internment camp-like facilities, and is a vocal leader of the climate change-denying movement.
In Copenhagen in 2009, the member of the right-wing anti-European UK Independence Party (UKIP) caused fury when he called young climate activists, 'Hitler Youth'.
In 2011, he was forced to apologise after comparing Australia's chief climate adviser Ross Garnaut to a Nazi.
Lord Monckton, 61, has no scientific training, having studied classics and journalism. He has toured the world trying to convince people that climate change is being exaggerated.
Ahead of his Kiwi tour, which started on Monday in Matakana, Northland, he said he would provide "hard scientific and economic evidence" to support his claims.
He says global warming paused around 20 years ago, and previous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions have all been "wrong".
Even if the world does heat up by three per cent this century, as predicted by the world's leading scientists, Lord Monckton says it's pointless - and too expensive - to try to stop it.
"It is 50 times less cost-effective to try to prevent global warming today than to let it happen and leave enough money to our grandchildren to allow them to cope, not only with any warming that may occur but with any other crisis that they may face," he says.
However Dr Mullan said there was "a huge amount of very solid science" to show an increase in greenhouse gases.
He accused Lord Monckton of picking data and statistics to suit his argument.
"The whole strategy of these sceptics and deniers is to take these things out of context to present a different picture," Dr Mullan said.
"That's not the way it's done in science. You look at the evidence for and against, analyse it objectively, and have it reviewed by other experts. It's not decided by who can come up with the fastest set of witty one-liners."
Lord Monckton promotes himself as an 'expert reviewer' for the IPCC's forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report, and says he'll take a "strictly scientific, economic, rational and logical approach" to global warming questions.
But Dr Mullan said anybody can offer themselves forward as an expert reviewer.
Those claims were an attempt to legitimise his arguments, Dr Mullan said.
New Zealand's top climate change scientists have rallied together to slam a visiting sceptic who is touring the country to proclaim global warming as a myth that should be ignored.
Lord Christopher Monckton, a former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, says human-induced climate change is not happening.
Read the latest: Climate change sceptic rejects criticism as 'hate speech'
The British aristocrat, the 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, is on a 16-venue nationwide speaking tour telling New Zealanders they shouldn't be worried about rising temperatures or sea levels.
Carbon taxes and emissions-trading schemes should also be scrapped because they are too expensive, he believes.
But government scientists and academics have warned that Lord Monckton's views are not based on science, and go against all the research they have done and read.
Dr James Renwick, associate professor of physical geography at Victoria University, dismissed Lord Monckton's views as "rubbish".
"He's a great showman and speaker, and climate change is a vehicle to self-publicise.
"But he has no training and has studiously avoided learning anything about science, I would say."
Niwa principal scientist Brett Mullan said Lord Monckton's views were "very damaging" for public perception.
Professor Dave Frame, director of the Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University, described him as a "vaudeville act" to be ignored.
"Someone who goes around saying things we know are not true can actually be quite harmful."
Lord Monckton has rejected the claims as ''hate speech".
He once argued for the quarantine of AIDS patients in internment camp-like facilities, and is a vocal leader of the climate change-denying movement.
In Copenhagen in 2009, the member of the right-wing anti-European UK Independence Party (UKIP) caused fury when he called young climate activists, 'Hitler Youth'.
In 2011, he was forced to apologise after comparing Australia's chief climate adviser Ross Garnaut to a Nazi.
Lord Monckton, 61, has no scientific training, having studied classics and journalism. He has toured the world trying to convince people that climate change is being exaggerated.
Ahead of his Kiwi tour, which started on Monday in Matakana, Northland, he said he would provide "hard scientific and economic evidence" to support his claims.
He says global warming paused around 20 years ago, and previous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions have all been "wrong".
Even if the world does heat up by three per cent this century, as predicted by the world's leading scientists, Lord Monckton says it's pointless - and too expensive - to try to stop it.
"It is 50 times less cost-effective to try to prevent global warming today than to let it happen and leave enough money to our grandchildren to allow them to cope, not only with any warming that may occur but with any other crisis that they may face," he says.
However Dr Mullan said there was "a huge amount of very solid science" to show an increase in greenhouse gases.
He accused Lord Monckton of picking data and statistics to suit his argument.
"The whole strategy of these sceptics and deniers is to take these things out of context to present a different picture," Dr Mullan said.
"That's not the way it's done in science. You look at the evidence for and against, analyse it objectively, and have it reviewed by other experts. It's not decided by who can come up with the fastest set of witty one-liners."
Lord Monckton promotes himself as an 'expert reviewer' for the IPCC's forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report, and says he'll take a "strictly scientific, economic, rational and logical approach" to global warming questions.
But Dr Mullan said anybody can offer themselves forward as an expert reviewer.
Those claims were an attempt to legitimise his arguments, Dr Mullan said.
9 comments:
Yet again attack the person rather than the facts. Just a continued rear guard action from a fading new age religion.
Hi, Paranormal!
Hi backatchya RG.
Because of the publicity I thought I might go and see what Lord Monckton has to say today. I'm interested to see the content of his speech and compare it to Nigel Lawson's speech at the Auckland War Memorial Museum a few years back. It'll be an interesting comparison of the two.
Guess we won't be seeing you at a Monckton speech any time soon?
Hey paranormal, re attacking the person, Monckton is the one calling people nazis!
Oh really CG? Can you show where that is? I couldn't see it in that article.
BTW your standard lefty mantra about 'deniers' is trying to imply that intelligent people that question your new religion are akin to holocaust deniers. Perhaps that's where you get your nazi inference from?
Having heard him this afternoon I can see why you lot are so scared of him.
I'm not scared on Monckton. He's but a clown. I wouldn't pay to hear him joshin' though. That money would go to the Denier Crowd, and they're enemies of the people. Starve them of publicity, I say.
Paranormal- this is from the ABC in 2011, I’ll include the link.
“Climate change sceptic Christopher Monckton says he was catastrophically stupid to compare the prominent Australian economist Ross Garnaut to Adolf Hitler.
In a speech in Los Angeles, Lord Monckton displayed a quote from the Federal Government's chief climate change adviser, Professor Garnaut, next to a Nazi swastika.
Lord Monckton called Professor Garnaut a fascist for suggesting people accept climate science.
But Lord Monckton has now told Channel Ten that he has apologised.
"First of all I should apologise on air once again to Professor Garnaut for having made the point I was trying to make in such a catastrophically stupid and offensive way," he said.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-26/monckton-apologises-for-nazi-jibe/2771948
AGW is not a 'religion' Religion is faith based. I expect your ears are still ringing with whatever Monckton filled them with.
Meanwhile back in the real world- as reported in the Guardian on March 27th -
"Forecasts of global temperature rises over the past 15 years have proved remarkably accurate, new analysis of scientists' modelling of climate change shows.The paper, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Geoscience, explores the performance of a climate forecast based on data up to 1996 by comparing it with the actual temperatures observed since. The results show that scientists accurately predicted the warming experienced in the past decade, relative to the decade to 1996, to within a few hundredths of a degree."
Meanwhile in the real world, forecasts of global warming over the past 15 years have been wildly inaccurate. Even Pachauri has admitted it.
AGW is a religion because it is faith based. You guys all BELIEVE it is happening. There is no absolute proof to show that it is happening. You have all had to take a leap of faith to believe in it. And the Guardian - really?
Thanks for the link. I wasn't aware of that. Monckton was pretty stupid to bring in that comparison. Even he has admitted it.
"There is no absolute proof to show that it is happening."
Interesting. You don't say, 'no proof', you say, 'no absolute proof.
Pretty desperate there, para.
You do understand his science works, don't you? Absolute, isn't really a term you hear alot with the scientific method. Is it all science you distrust, I wonder?
An you talk of religion!
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