Christopher Monckton

I was at the Press Club debate - how could I resist? I’ve also been lucky enough to see Ian Plimer talk.  Both Monckton and Plimer are wonderful, persuasive speakers. They are entirely affable, avuncular individuals who are entirely unafraid to blend fact and fiction in such a way that, to the uninformed listener, what they say can seem both reasonable and reassuring. 

Unconstrained by the need to actually tell the truth, and with a gift for cherrypicking facts that support their world-view (especially when taken out of context) they rattle off non-sequiturs and utter nonsense to support their main argument which is, in a nutshell, that the world is not warming, even if it was warming it’s not human activity driving it, and even if human activity is driving global warming, doing nothing at all about it is the best solution.

In one of two rather oblique references to the Nazi party, Monckton quoted Albert Einstein who maintained, quite rightly, that 100 people’s (ie a consensus) opinion is not needed to disprove a theory; in fact only one single fact is needed.

Continue reading "It’s time for direct action. No, not the Abbott kind." »

Lord Christopher Monckton’s determination to have a win against carbon pricing yesterday drove him to make a genuinely dopey statement at the National Press Club.

“Australia is now regarded as a sovereign risk,” he said as a jarring conclusion to his opening statement in the debate with economist Dr Richard Denniss, executive director of the Australia Institute.

It wasn’t something that a touring expert - on climate change or anything else - should have said lightly. It meant that financial centres overseas fear Australia will default on its debts and other payments, despite the AAA rating from both the major credit assessors S&P and Moodys.

Continue reading "Debunking the bunkum of that dopey Monckton" »

Christopher Monckton – the British hereditary peer formerly known as ‘Lord’* – has revealed plans of a possible Government plot to silence him.

The renowned climate change sceptic has had a turbulent visit to our shores, with a string of appearances cancelled, an on-air dust up with Adam Spencer, and a reported order from Fairfax to remove the title ‘Lord’ when referring to his Monckness.

This morning, Monckton told the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster (please do note the irony here) that he had wind of a plot to shut him up. He told Adelaide breakfast radio duo Matthew Abraham and David Bevan:

Continue reading "Oh Lordy, Monckton, it’s a Government plot" »