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Christopher Monckton is
joint deputy leader of the UK Independence Party, a journalist
and a former Number 10 Policy Unit researcher. He retains the title
of 3rd Viscount
Monckton of Brenchley, but his claim to be a member of the
Upper House has been rejected by the House of Lords.
Monckton describes global warming as the "
largest fraud of all time" and claimed a proposed UN treaty on
climate change was a bid to "impose a communist world government on
the world." Hundreds of thousands of people have watched YouTube
videos of his climate change lectures.
Monckton published
a two-part essay in the Sunday Telegraph in November 2006 in
which he described climate change as a "Sci-Fi panic". He has given
evidence to the United States Senate on the subject and lectured at
universities in the US. He produced a short film, 'Apocalypse
No!' which he said he would send to schools along with an
edited version of the widely criticised Channel Four documentary,
the Great Global Warming Swindle.
Monckton claims to have read all 928 peer reviewed papers
referencing global climate change identified in Professor Naomi
Oreskes' study of the field. During the 2009 conference in
Copenhagen, Monckton described a Jewish climate change activist as
"Hitler
Youth."
Scientific claims about climate
Monckton's scientific claims have been comprehensively
challenged by climate change scientists. Following his appearance
at the US senate, five climate scientists including Professor
Michael Mann and Professor John Abraham produced a 48
page report which included responses from 21 specialists.
Different specialists identified Monckton's claims on global
average temperature as "very misleading"; on the relationship
between rising CO2 and ocean acidification as "profoundly wrong";
his argument that concern is focused on whether the current
temperature rise is unprecedented as "simply false"; and his claims
that rising carbon dioxide cannot and will not lead to rising ocean
acidity as "chemical nonsense."
Monckton's lecture given at Bethel University in St Paul,
Minnesota in October 2009 has been refuted in exacting detail by
Professor John Abraham of the University of St Thomas,
Minnesota, who documents Monckton "misrepresenting the science."
Monckton responded by issuing a 99-page
response, in which he accuses Professor Abraham of bad faith,
malice, appealing to a false authority, academic dishonesty, and
lying. He concludes with a demand that the university remove the
document from its servers and pay $110,000 compensation to a
charity of Monckton's choice. The university has not complied.
Monckton's response was characterised by George Monbiot
at the Guardian as "magnificently bonkers". In another article
Monckton referred to Abraham's work as "Goebbelian
propoganda" and "venomously ad hominem" before comparing
Abraham to "an overcooked prawn".
Tom Chivers, a blogger at the Daily Telegraph, wrote in a
blog post that was quickly removed from the Telegraph website:
"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."
Links to other sceptics
Monckton spoke at the
International Conference on Climate Change in New York in March
2009, organised by the conservative thinktank the Heartland
Institute.
In 2006, he authored a letter from the Center for Science and
Public Policy to two US senators. The senators had written to ExxonMobil
asking it to stop funding climate change sceptics. Monckton
wrote: "That great corporation has exercised its right of free
speech - and with good reason - in openly providing support for
scientists and groups that dare to question how much the increased
concentration of CO2 in the air may warm the world. You must honour
the Constitution, withdraw your letter and apologize to ExxonMobil, or
resign as Senators." He stated in the Sunday Telegraph essays that
he had not received "
a red cent from Exxon".
Monckton is an advisor to the conservative Washington-based
thinktank Science and
Policy Institute. His sister Rosa is the daughter-in-law of Lord Lawson, the
former Conservative chancellor and founder of the Global Warming Policy
Foundation.
Biography
Monckton worked at Conservative Central Office as a press
officer from 1977 to 1978 before becoming editor of The Universe
and then managing editor of the Sunday Telegraph magazine. Monckton
was invited to join the Number 10 Policy Unit in 1982 with
responsibility for housing and parliamentary affairs. He has been
credited
with Margaret Thatcher's "right to buy" council house scheme.
Of the six members of the policy unit, Monckton claims, he was
"the only one who knew any science", and
he states: "I gave her advice on science as well as other
policy from 1982-1986, two years before the IPCC was founded." In her
autobiography Margaret Thatcher: The Downing Street Years, Mrs
Thatcher states that George Guise was the member of the
policy unit who advised her on science.
Her autobiography does not mention Monckton.
After four years Monckton returned to journalism, as assistant
editor of the Today newspaper and then consulting editor of the
Evening Standard.
According to his biography on the UKIP website, Monckton is
Director of a company called Resurrexi Pharmaceutical, which seeks
"broad spectrum cures for infectious diseases." Monckton's profile
states that : "Patients have been cured of various infectious
diseases, including Graves' Disease, multiple sclerosis, influenza,
and herpes simplex VI" and that patents have been filed. Monckton
wrote
an article for American Spectator in 1987 titled The Myth of
Heterosexual AIDS in which he
stated: "There is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen
the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of
the disease for life."
Monckton invented the geometric puzzle known as the "Eternity
Puzzle," with a £1 million cash prize offered to anyone who could
solve it within four years. The puzzle was completed
within 18 months by two Cambridge mathematicians. At the time
Monckton stated that he would have to sell his house to fund the
prize, but later
admitted he had said this for publicity purposes. Monckton had
claimed to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 as a
contributor to the IPCC process, and stated that he has the status of
'Nobel Peace Laureate' for his contribution to the IPCC process, but when
challenged later said that these claims were a
joke.
Monckton has frequently sued or threatened libel action. He has
threatened legal action against Scott Mandia, a professor at
Suffolk County College in Seldon, New York as well as against
Professor Abraham and against
George Monbiot at the Guardian.
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