I watched a bit of the Nation program today, which had “Lord” Christopher Monkton preaching his particular form of climate change skepticism.You might wonder why I’m even bothering to debunk Monkton further and whether this is even possible, but I can assure you it’s not to give his argument any relevance. Rather it’s to show just how stark raving mad Monkton actually is.
Personally, I have no problem with debating the issues surrounding climate change. What I do have a problem with however is when untruths are presented as fact and the media gives undue attention to a defunct argument without questioning the information being presented.
Let’s start with the so-called Climategate controversy that occurred in November 2009 when an unknown individual or group breached the Norwich based Climate Research Unit’s computer server and copied thousands of emails and computer files to various locations on the Internet.
Climate sceptics alleged that the emails revealed scientists had been manipulating climate data and were actively suppressing their critics. After a number of indepth investigations, the scientists were completely exonerated; something Monkton has obvious chosen to ignore.
The question is should we give time to somebody who lies about his background, refuses to recognise scientific facts, ignores the investigations of six committees into Climategate, ignores the findings of 98% of scientists, is predominantly funded by polluting industries and uses inaccurate and inappropriate claims to instigate an emotive response to try and gain attention? The simple answer to all that is no!
The refusal to give Monkton any left wing platform was a good decision because he’s not providing a truthful argument. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised then that the right wing has given him airtime. However even they must question Monkton’s sanity when he starts calling people Nazi’s for believing in climate change.
The climate change denier says the implementation of the Australian ETS was political suicide and therefore not worth it. However he fails to understand that the Gillard government undertook the policy change because they understand the dangers posed by climate change, not because they made a political consideration about their careers.
Political and financial considerations are partly to blame for the problem in the first place, and totally to blame for the slow reaction to the looming danger that has been scientifically shown to exist since the seventies.
Despite irrefutable evidence that climate change is predominantly a man made phenomena, unfortunately John Key’s belief system is akin to the discredited Monkton's. With the major issues climate change posses such as increased extreme weather, can we really trust John Key to prepare and react in time, being that he does not even accept that there is a danger? So far National's reaction has been weak at best.
The fact that capitalists will take advantage of the situation and try to make a profit from climate change is beside the point. The pressing danger of climate change over and above the 4 degree threshold is one that cannot be ignored, no matter the cost. Therefore Monkton’s financially based argument is highly irrelevant to the current situation, particularly when he continues to invoke Godwin's Law by making repeated Nazi Analogies.
Monkton's idiotic argument reminds me a bit of Don Brash’s recent attack on "bureaucrats" when he spoke at the annual Federated Farmers conference. He described people working in local government as “little Hitler’s” for upholding the RMA. That's right... Hitler was a greeny according to Dr Don Brash. He also suggested global warming might not be all that bad, showing just how far removed he is from the reality of the situation.
In 2009 at a conference in Copenhagen, Monkton maniacally described a group of 50 young clean energy campaigners who mounted a protest as "crazed Hitler Youth" and "Nazi's." Apparently the protesters outnumbered people attending to hear Monkton ten to one, which goes some way to debunk Monkton's other claim about public opinion on climate change.
In contrast to Monkton's berserk reaction on that occasion and because of his media training, Monkton often delivers his argument calmly, as seen in the video below where he explains:
"The number of people being killed by this misplaced belief in climate change is if anything greater than the number of people killed by Hitler," he said.
I really do hope that England stops sending out these crackpots... people might start getting the wrong idea.
