Open Your Eyes News Review: Lord Monckton speech on Anthropogenic Global Warming – Perth, 8th February 2010
Review: Lord Monckton speech on Anthropogenic Global Warming ““ Perth, 8th February 2010
Christopher Monckton is clearly a product of his upbringing with a self deprecating style and presentation that was straight from the Oxford Union “How to present a speech” book, complete with two quick anecdotes and a witty joke to start proceedings and warm the audience up. With no obvious notes and just a handful of fairly amateur looking slides he kept the packed room’s attention for nearly two hours as he covered the, now familiar to many, ground of why the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming just doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny.
The initial plank to this argument was historical. The obvious geological evidence that presents the rather inconvenient historical truths that the Earth’s temperature is always going up and down; that we have been emerging from the Little Ice Age for the last 150 years so it isn’t that surprising that temperatures have been slowly rising; and that CO2 has historically been a thousand times more prevalent in the atmosphere than today and yet that coincided in a period when there were ice sheets at the equator.
The second key plank of evidence was the science. Here he rightly highlighted the sun as the key suspect in most climatic changes; the inaccuracy of temperature measurement before the satellite era; the impact of the urban heat island effect on most calculations; the manipulation of the data as exposed by the recent climate-gate scandal; and finally the highly complex mathematical equations used to calculate the impact of CO2 and sunlight on the earth’s atmosphere. Here however though he, a mathematician, was in his element the vast majority of the audience was clearly completely lost.
Ultimately however his core argument was a moral one. If mankind continues down the current path of vilifying CO2 emissions then millions upon millions of our fellow humans will die. The reason for this is stark but obvious for all to see. If you want to reduce poverty (and the birth rate) you should raise peoples standards of living, especially through the provision of electricity. By de-carbonising the world economy we will massively reduce the opportunity for the 3rd World to do this; we will further increase world food prices through the immoral scam that is bio-fuels and increased production and distribution costs; we will cripple the world economy; and even if the IPCC’s calculations are correct, we will hardly impact global temperatures one iota. But to reitterate the point ““ millions of our fellow humans will die needlessly. However he missed, tellingly perhaps, the other key factor that is by targeting CO2 mankind ignores the real and massive environmental destruction and pollution that he is inflicting on this planet and ourselves.
However after seeing the doyen of the skeptics live, and chatting briefly to him afterwards, I am still none the wiser as to what his motives and agenda actually are, and a number of nagging questions still remain:
- Is he doing this purely philanthropically?
- Is he serving the agenda of corporate interests? After-all the Perth leg of his Australia tour was partly funded by Australia’s richest woman, Gina Reinhart, who was at the presentation.
- Why did he side-step the very final question of the evening which addressed the surely crucial question of the multi-trillion dollar carbon trading industry that is being created out of the AGW myth? Surely the power and the influence the global banks over the complete agenda is crucial to the understanding and psychology of how we got to this point in the first place?
- Why the very blatant reference to his membership of the secretive and elite Knights of Malta? A reference that would surely be lost on most of the room, and yet to the more informed minority to whom it was presumably aimed, this would sound very large alarm bells and skepticism of his actual agenda
- And finally, the question still remains, though he is clearly an adroit speaker, clearly his arguments are well formed, and clearly he has gained a high international profile from this, however is this slightly eccentric, highly intelligent, English aristocrat really going to be most effective figurehead of the movement to stem this tide of self interest and religious fervor that has taken us down this insane path in the first place? Or is he just being set up as (or created to be) the pantomime villain for the masses?
James Fairbairn, Editor of Open Your Eyes News
Tags: climate, population
Mr. Fairbairn:
You said:
“However he missed, tellingly perhaps, the other key factor that is by targeting CO2 mankind ignores the real and massive environmental destruction and pollution that he is inflicting on this planet and ourselves.”
If the point is that money could be better spent correcting real pollution, rather than CO2, Monckton has othertimes made it.
And what’s wrong with the Knights of Malta and a Catholic wanting to do the right Christian thing or with a thinking person righting wrong thinking?
And “pantomime villain for the masses?” What are you trying to say? Please!
Richard, not sure what you mean by your first point (“Monckton has othertimes made it”)
Regarding Knights of Malta I am not saying that there is anything bad, however there are many who would be highly skeptical of the agenda a member of an elite secret society, so why did he make such an obvious point of highlighting his membership?
Regarding “pantomime villian” quite simply to the mass American audience the English aristocrat is often portrayed in entertainment as the villian of the piece. If there is a greater agenda at work in terms of manipulating the masses, then he is liable to be portrayed as exactly that ultimately. – JF
Great article James, that’s the best article on Monckton I’ve read since the announcement was made that he was touring Australia.
I saw Monckton at the UWA Business School on Feb 8th and he also flashed up the Knights of Malta cross, referring to it as such (not admitting membership). He then applied some formula to it which inverted the colours to something looking quite psychedelic. It’s not a stretch to call this “occult,” especially when he doesn’t admit his membership. Necessary for the point of the presentation? Hardly.
For someone already criticised in the mainstream for being outlandish with his opinion – yet he is one of the rare climate change skeptics to get decent mainstream publicity – this is yet another queer aspect to Monckton’s questionable but vast background.
Is he being put forth as the major climate change skeptic just to in the future bring him down, or to promote the next solution or alternative to what was proposed at Copenhagen? I asked Monckton how Tony Abbott received him and the “global warming fraud being the main drive behind the push toward World Government” in their meeting in Melbourne, and he responded that the agenda for World Government failed at Copenhagen and IF the UN were to try that again, they’d do it incrementally step, by step, by step.
Yes, IF.
He then moved onto Abbott and, after stating that he “can’t really get involved in your politics over here,” did nothing short than give him a glowing endorsement. Said “Abbott came across to me as someone who would love to call out climate change as a load of garbage, but can’t because he has only a slim majority in his party. He is a smart man, a Rhodes Scholar, and I know – because I do my research on who these people actually are – that in his holidays he spends time with people less fortunate that he is. That’s a real measure of a person’s character to me.”
We’ll have video of this soon.
There’s something suss about Monckton.
Mr. Fairbairn:
Please excuse my “othertimes.” “On other occasions,” may clarify my remark.
Perhaps Monckton highlighted his Knights of Malta membership to explain his motive. The Knights’ organization may be private, but it’s no “secret” that its mission is to help the poor and sick.
“Middle” pointed out that Monckton admired Abbot for attending to the relatively afflicted.
I join Middle in congratulating you on your reporting skill. However, when you opine on motives you sound (pace) as though you are inferring conspiracy theories.
I didn’t realize that there was an American contingent which disliked English aristocrats. Thanks for explaining.
An English accent, in my North American experience, has conveyed more authority on the speaker. My fellow Canadians unanimously were wowed by Monckton’s beautifully enunciated presentations.
Hi Richard
RE “On other occasions’ – this is the first time I have seen him so I cannot comment. If he has previously highlighted the fact that by focussing on AGW we are ignoring the real environmental issues caused by man, then that is very good and he should be congratulated for it. All I can comment on is what he did, or in this case didn’t say on this occasion.
RE English accents, that is not unfortunately how the popular media tend to portray the English aristocracy, as can be seen in countless Hollywood movies.(PS: I have a very similar accent myself)
RE Conspiracy theories, I am saying that is how some of his actions/comments/motives could well be read as such by certain members of the audience. As I hope I made clear in the piece I myself after seeing him, though a powerful and well delivered speech, the content of which I can find little fault in, I am still none the wiser to his motives, and why he made the very pointed Knights of Malta reference. In my political experience that was what is referred to a “dog whistle” message – something that only a targeted part of the audience will hear. But for what purpose? Quite possibly you are spot on regarding its avowed mission to help the poor and the sick.
Kind Regards, James
Well Monckton’s endorsement of Abbott – including the mention of Abbott’s philanthropy towards people less fortunate than himself – has become even stranger with the recent controversy about Abbott’s loose lips, “Abbott upsets aid groups”:
“OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has dismayed welfare services by telling them that governments cannot stop people from being homeless ”if that’s their choice” and declining to match the Rudd government’s goal to halve homelessness by 2020.”
http://www.theage.com.au/national/abbott-upsets-aid-groups-20100215-o2wy.html
It seems I asked Lord Monckton the “right” question and I can only hope he stumbles across this article sometime in the near future and considers Abbott’s apparent benevolance. I mean just to clarify, Monckton said earlier in his presentation regarding the ETS, describing it as “gesture politics” that BOTH sides of politics are getting involved in here, and from where he’s from. He was damning of “gesture politics” which is just enacted to make the Government look good while doing nothing but damage.
So how he found an endorsement for General “Green Army” Abbott, I don’t know. We’re only asking questions here Richard. You say: “I join Middle in congratulating you on your reporting skill. However, when you opine on motives you sound (pace) as though you are inferring conspiracy theories.”
What does that mean exactly and why is your comment slanted in the negative? What else are journalists meant to do outside of comment on possible motives?
Dear Middle:
My bias is that Monckton’s efforts are primarily altruistic.
Questioning that his thoroughly explained reasoning, and attributable data which is available for dispute, is subterfuge for a hidden agenda seemed a demagogic and paranoid stretch to discredit him.
To me.
My apologies for jumping to a conclusion.
Did you go to either of the presentations here in Perth? Lord Monckton was on the Alex Jones radio show on the 17th of February, again contradicting what he said in Perth – and I assume the whole of Australia – regarding the global warming fraud being the main drive behind World Government, and again calling “The Opposition Leader in Australia” a climate change skeptic and not calling him out for proposing a “Green Army.” Yet for the 2nd half of his interview he was talking about how green jobs will ruin the economy and the global warming/carbon tax fraud was setup purely for political agenda.
Listen to it for yourself, and I’d be interested in your thoughts seeing as you were there James. Monckton talks about his tour of Australia as well as recent “climategate” controversies:
http://faustiesblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/climategate-lord-monckton-on-alex-jones.html
or download the whole show:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5371746/Alex_Jones_Show_-_2010_Feb_17_WE_%5Bsebaygo1%5D