Lord Charles Monckton, Andrew Murray, And Dr. Ray Peat: Global Warming

[narouz]

In this thread I'd like to explore the connections amongst
"Lord" Charles Monckton,
Andrew Murray (of The Herb Doctors, which often features Dr. Raymond Peat as a guest),
and Dr. Peat himself.

One place to begin examining such connections is The Herb Doctors of last January--
see link after the quotes from Andrew, below.
I recommend giving a listen to the entire show.
But a good sense of the points under discussion can be heard
if one starts at about the 28 minutes mark and listens from there.

Because the show deals with climate change or global warming,
it will be natural that political implications or political ideology becomes part of the discussion.
After all, Peat is always on the lookout,
sniffing about for submerged ideology
surrepticiously driving the putative science.

So, to start us out,
I will provide quotes on the subject of global warming
from "Lord" Monckton, Murray, and Peat.


Andrew Murray, one of The Herb Doctors
(from The Herb Doctors January show linked to below at approximately. 28:00)

"Many people [believe] that we are such and evil species, using such an evil amount of carbon dioxide, that we need to be controlled. And I know that this person, Lord Charles Monckton, who's an English Lord--he's actually taken it upon himself as a fairly lifetime commitment to exposing the lies of global warming....
KMUD: 1-15-16 Water Quality, Atmospheric CO2, And Climate Change


Dr. Raymond Peat
(from the same Herb Doctors show linked to under Andrew Murray above, at approximately 30:00)

"I think the current trend of the [global] warming, the last 100 years or so, is being driven directly by the sun's normal cycle...showing evidence that the solar [constants?] have been increasing in recent decades, enough to fully account for the planetary warming...."


Lord Charles Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

"This week, I'll show how the UN undervalued the sun's effects on historical and contemporary climate, slashed the natural greenhouse effect, overstated the past century's temperature increase, repealed a fundamental law of physics and tripled the man-made greenhouse effect...

Two centuries ago, the astronomer William Herschel was reading Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations when he noticed that quoted grain prices fell when the number of sunspots rose. Gales of laughter ensued, but he was right. At solar maxima, when the sun was at its hottest and sunspots showed, temperature was warmer, grain grew faster and prices fell. Such observations show that even small solar changes affect climate detectably. But recent solar changes have been big.

Sami Solanki, a solar physicist, says that in the past half-century the sun has been warmer, for longer, than at any time in at least the past 11,400 years, contributing a base forcing equivalent to a quarter of the past century's warming. That's before adding climate feedbacks."
Climate chaos? Don't believe it

 

[dfspcc20]

Of all the ways we poison the environment, it's a shame CO2 gets all of the attention.

 

[narouz]

And I would like to connect ideas which might emerge here,
in this thread,
with ideas we're exploring on another thread,
Contemplating Peat As A Possible Right Winger

 

[Sheik]

If Peat is as humble as he seems to be I don't think he can be labeled as left or right wing. He doesn't seem to be invested in any particular ideology. He didn't get this far by holding reservations as to what the truth could turn out to be. It seems ironic that you're so invested in who he could turn out to be. The truth itself will get you farther than Ray Peat could.

 

[lollipop]

thunderbolts.info | A voice for the Electric Universe

Suspicious0bservers - Space Weather | Solar Activity | Weather | Earthquakes

 

[narouz]

Something about Lord Christopher Monkton:
he seems not to be a "Lord."
I'm not sure if this means he can't really call himself a "Lord" or not
(Lord Amazoniac could perhaps elucidate on this question).
Apparently, when Monckton travels about the globe giving his anti-global warming presentations
(to mostly lay audiences--non-scientists),
he has been putting a House of Lords logo on his stuff--
I guess on Power Point pages, stuff he hands out...

"For years Lord Christopher Monckton has claimed he is a member of the House of Lords in his presentations. The trouble is, since the House of Lords Act 1999 the vast majority of hereditary peers (which Monckton is) lost their right to vote in the upper house; Monckton was never among the group retaining voting rights. A small detail Monckton has overlooked and one which many audiences, especially those outside Britain, wouldn't even consider questioning."
House of Lords Tells Climate Skeptic Lord Monckton: Stop Pretending You're One of Us

from Wiki,
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In July 2011 the House of Lords took the "unprecedented step" of publishing online a cease and desist letter to Monckton from the Clerk of the Parliaments, which concluded, "I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not."[28][29]

This is a link to The Guardian where there is a more thorough exploration...
Lords distance themselves from climate sceptic Christopher Monckton

 

[narouz]

This is an essay by a scientist named Andrea Sella.
He teaches at University College London.
You can read more about him here:
About me
Sella reviews a documentary which followed "Lord" Charles Monckton
for some time on his campaign to spread his views about global warming...

Lord Monckton and the painful truth
Posted on February 4, 2011by Andrea Sella
You probably think I live in front of the television as, once again, I find myself commenting on a science documentary, this time from the wonderful BBC4. The programme, in the Storyville series, “Meet the Climate Sceptics” by Rupert Murray, followed Lord Monckton for a year as he campaigned in Australia and the US against climate change regulations.

Unless you live under a rock you have heard of Lord Monckton, a British aristocrat who has attempted over the past few years to take on climate scientists at their own game by learning enough atmospheric physics to be able to read the primary literature. Thus he is in a stronger position than many in the climate sceptic camp – not least the self-styled “interpreter of interpretation” James Delingpole, about whom I have written previously.
...
But to be honest, it struck me as a surprisingly sympathetic documentary, that painted a very different picture from what I had been led to expect. Lord Monckton is a likeable sort of chap, highly persuasive, with an ability to charm people, and a powerful stage persona. The documentary thus followed him as he spoke to sceptical conferences in Australia and the US, as well as his testimony before the US Congress where, the documentary suggested, he had single-handedly undermined the confidence in the scientific consensus of a cohort of influential US politicians to the point that any hope of limiting US emissions was doomed. This, the documentary argued, had led directly to the failure of the Copenhagen and Cancun conferences.

There is also no doubting Monckton’s genuine sincerity. He has clearly devoted an enormous amount of time and effort, at the age of over 60, to what for many people requires years of study when they are less than half Monckton’s age. He was also extraordinarily open about his life, reflecting on both his weak background in the sciences and his work to overcome it, but also his battle with Graves disease which had left him incapacitated and unable to function for almost 25 years.

As Monckton talked about his illness he mentioned that he had done research and discovered a way to cure himself and that he was living proof of the effectiveness of his cure. This kind of talk invariably sets alarm bells ringing. Before you start going all Ben Goldacre on me, there was more. Monckton added that the cure he had found was also rather effective for HIV/Aids, malaria, and multiple sclerosis.

John McEnroe used to scream “You cannot be serious” at Wimbledon and I found myself mouthing the words at the telly. Lord Monckton goes on record as saying that the same “cure” acts on two very different auto-immune disorders, a retrovirus and on a unicellular parasite??? One interpretation is that a) it’s dynamite and b) it reveals that Lord Monckton has little business sense. Were this true, surely he would have the method patented and would flogging it to GSK for several billion. The other interpretation is that he is an incurable optimist.

And it is the latter interpretation that really came out of the rest of the documentary. Armed with his readings, with plots of temperature and cloud cover, with linear regressions and equations written in very large font sizes, Monckton travels the world evangelizing, and lapping up the adulation of the crowds.

Somehow there was something very familiar about it. The learned academic in the tweedy jacket stands up in front of the conference. The powerpoint slides are slick and there is the logo in the corner to indicate their affiliation (in this case, it’s a somewhat garish version of the symbol of the House of Lords, an issue which I understand has aroused some controversy as he does not sit in the House). Then the graphs follow with an exposition of the argument…..

And yet that’s where the parallel ends.

First of all, Lord Monckton has no data of his own. This is unusual in a scientist at a conference. Academics critique the work of their colleagues all the time. Yet, it invariably happens because they can add some new insight from a different angle. Some new experiment, measurement, or observation that contrasts with what has been done before.

The second point is that at an academic conference it is unusual for scientists to spend much time on the basics. In one of the snippets from an Australian lecture Monckton is shown talking about a great equation – this turns out to be nothing more than Stefan’s law, with a correction factor – we’re talking at most first year undergraduate physics. At this point, Murray naughtily cuts to the audience looking a bit bewildered. Or maybe he said they were feeling bewildered. Either way it was a bit naughty of him. At a real academic conference, though, I suspect they would have been looking bored and possibly a bit pissed off.

The third difference, of course, is with the audience. He is not speaking to people with his level of knowledge. He is speaking to general audiences. And not any old audience. He is speaking to audiences who are coming to hear him tell them what they want to hear.

And there is a huge difference between speaking to a general audience and talking to specialists. It’s in the level of scrutiny that you have to expect.
...
As the programme ended, Murray had begun to suspect that there were things wrong with Monckton’s arguments and particularly statements that Monckton had made about how astronomers had all – he claimed – agreed in 2004 that the sun was involved. Murray confronted Monckton at the end, getting him quite gently to admit that he had cherry picked the literature for papers that served his own ends.

Monckton, like Delingpole before him, is furious and tried to get an injunction to stop the programme going out. He failed.

But he was given the opportunity to make a statement. Whether this was the result of the legal action, wasn’t made clear. He did his best to sound unbowed. “Listen to both sides. Believe no one. Because science is ultimately a sceptical endeavour.” All of which sounds very reasonable. But it is profoundly disingenuous. Lord Monckton is shown quite clearly telling his audiences things that just aren’t true.
....
The reason is that I was reviewing a documentary that followed Monckton for a year in an effort to understand the man behind the story. It was not a response to any one of his many speeches or publications. The programme made for fascinating programming, but you will remember that at the end Monckton was forced to admit that he had made statements in his presentations that he was aware to be quite untrue. That, I think, is the nub of the problem. It is that Mr Monckton is a charming man, highly indeed exceptionally intelligent, a brilliant speaker, and a superb self-publicist. But that he is also prepared to make false claims in support of his position. The fact that he has form in this area – such as his claim to be a member of the House of Lords, his claim to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, his claim to have discovered and patented cures for a wide variety of undrelated diseases when no trace of these can be found in the UK or US Patent Offices – should ring alarm bells.
As to your comment that anything should be questioned – I agree – but you need some pretty extraordinary evidence to overthrow the basics. Bring it on. We’re always up for a good row. Provided it’s supported by data not invention or wishful thinking.
I don’t like the idea of climate change one little bit. It’s conclusions appall me. And if they are half true then the consequences for me, for my children and for theirs (let alone those in less wealthy countries) do not bear thinking about. But making up facts to con people into not acting is a damned fool thing to do. And the observation that September 2011 was the warmest on record in Italy since 1753 should give us little room for comfort.
Lord Monckton and the painful truth

 

[narouz]

Seems that "Lord" Monckton owns a pharmaceutical company named Resurrexi Pharmaceutical,
which his CV says is developing a medicine which cure many bad diseases.
Here in this quick video he says so himself...
(I do regret the titling on the video--it is not my doing.)


from Wiki...
Monckton is a director of Resurrexi Pharmaceutical. It asserts it is "responsible for invention and development of a broad-spectrum cure for infectious diseases." In the BBC documentary, "Meet the Sceptics" (2011), he claimed to have cured himself of Graves' disease.[16] UKIP's CV for Monckton claims that his methods have produced cures for multiple sclerosis,influenza, and herpes, as well as reducing the viral load of an HIV patient.[17] In an interview with Australia's Radio National, Monckton said that his methods had had some initial successes but "we cannot claim that we can cure anything".[18]

 

[narouz]

In the July show of The Herb Doctors,
as Andrew shuttled about vaguely among various topics,
and warned that we should be prepared to soon shed our blood to save our freedom of the presss,
he did spend a moment discussing
the New World Order.

Here is a 5-minute video showing, in similarly desperate tones,
Charles Monckton warning of...I'm not sure...but some kind of New World Order/Illuminati thang...

 

[narouz]

Continuing our education about all things Lord Charles Monckton...

Monckton became a member of the UKIP (United Kingdom Indepence Party) in 2009.
Have a quick read about his affiliation...

(from Wiki...)
Spokesperson and candidate for UK Independence Party
Monckton joined the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in 2009 and became its chief spokesperson on climate change.[35][36]At the 2010 general election he was nominated as the UKIP candidate for the Scottish constituency of Perth and North Perthshire; although a hereditary peer, he was entitled to stand for election for the House of Commons as he is not a member of the House of Lords. He subsequently withdrew in accordance with UKIP's policy of not opposing other Eurosceptic parliamentary candidates.[37] In June 2010, UKIP announced he had been appointed its deputy leader, to serve alongside David Campbell Bannerman[38] under party leader The Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who owns an estate in Scotland adjoining Monckton's.[39] He was succeeded in the role of deputy leader by Paul Nuttall in November 2010.[40]

In 2011 he stood as lead party-list candidate for UKIP in the Scottish Parliament constituency of Mid Scotland and Fife[41] but did not gain election, with the UKIP list coming seventh after scoring 1.1% of the region's vote.[42] Monckton also headed UKIP's policy unit for a while but according to the party's spokesman he had relinquished any formal role by June 2012, moving into a "semi-detached" relationship with UKIP.[39] By January 2013 he had become UKIP's president in Scotland[43] but was sacked by UKIP leader Nigel Farage in November 2013 following factional infighting.[44]

If you watched the news here in the U.S. about the Brexit drama,
you many remember having seen
Nigel Farage...


And here is some brief information about the UKIP party...

(from Wiki...)
The UK Independence Party (UKIP /ˈjuːkɪp/) is a Eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Newton Abbot, Devon. UKIP has one Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, three representatives in the House of Lords, and 22 Members of the European Parliament, making it the largest UK party in the European Parliament. It has 488 councillors in UK local government and seven members in the National Assembly for Wales.

Although it describes itself as a libertarian party, political scientists have characterised UKIP's ideological approach as being that of right-wing populism, also identifying it as part of the broader European radical right.

 

[Richiebogie]

Climate change is a massive state-sponsored industry.

No money goes to those who question it.

Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased slightly but are still dangerously low. Plants struggle to grow.

Burning fossil fuels is win-win.

 

[achillea]

Global Warming (Sep. 13, 2006)

Just a few more than Mockton, Murray and Peat have identified the hoax.

 

[narouz]

A little detail,
but perhaps telling in our developing portrait of Lord Monckton.
Apparently Monckton has claimed he was Margaret Thatcher's science advisor...

from Wiki
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Monckton has said that he served as science adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during his years with the Number 10 Policy Unit, and that "it was I who—on the prime minister's behalf—kept a weather eye on the official science advisers to the government, from the chief scientific adviser downward."[25] John Gummer, who was Environment Minister under Thatcher said Monckton was "a bag carrier in Mrs Thatcher's office. And the idea that he advised her on climate change is laughable."[26] Writing in The Guardian, Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment notes that Thatcher's memoirs, The Downing Street Years, do not mention Monckton and refer to George Guise as her science advisor.[25]

There is a more thorough examination of this subject here...

from The Guardian,
Thatcher becomes latest recruit in Monckton's climate sceptic campaign
Thatcher becomes latest recruit in Monckton's climate sceptic campaign

 

[narouz]

Continuing our education about Lord Christopher Monckton...


Christopher Monckton Argues That Gays Have As Many As 20,000 Sexual Partners, Defending Anti-LGBT Lawmaker
Curtis M. Wong Senior Editor, HuffPost Queer Voices
11/26/2014 12:12 pm ET | Updated Feb 02, 2016

Gays have “an average of 500-1,000,” and as many as 20,000, sexual partners in their lifetime, according to a conservative pundit.

Christopher Monckton, who served as a “Special Advisor“ to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and has been an outspoken skeptic of climate change,made the claims in a column for WorldNet Daily earlier this week. In the piece, Monckton was defending Australian lawmaker Rosalie Crestani, who has proposed legislation that would reportedly ban media releases on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) issues in the city of Casey and cut diversity training for local staff.

Describing the community as “QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM,” as “that ought to cover every real or imaginary form of sexual deviancy they may dream up...”

Read the entire article here...
Christopher Monckton Argues That Gays Have As Many As 20,000 Sexual Partners, Defending Anti-LGBT Lawmaker

 

[narouz]

Going back--with Lord Monckton--to 2010,
this article discusses how the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives chose
him to appear as their only witness in the global warming hearing.
Monckton has no University degrees in science.
I mean...
every show of The Herb Doctors
Andrew asks Peat to cite his scientific credentials, education.
And Peat says PhD in Biology (or is it Biochemistry or Physiology?) from U. of Oregon.
I think that scientific education and degree lends to Peat some strong credibility, yes?

GOP Chooses Non-Scientist Lord Monckton as Sole Expert Witness at Climate Change Hearing
Brendan DeMelle
07/05/2010 05:12 am ET | Updated May 25, 2011

House Republicans have chosen Lord Christopher Monckton, a non-scientist with a penchant for outrageous remarks, as their sole witness at tomorrow’s hearing in front of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) called the hearing in an effort to further restore public confidence in climate science, and to set the record straight that ‘Climategate’ was not the scandal climate deniers and the right-wing media tried to portray in the wake of the theft of private emails from scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia.

A press release announcing the hearing states that the scientists “will address the claims of deniers head-on.”

The explanatory hearing will include testimony from Lisa Graumlich, director of the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona, who served on the British panel that last month exonerated the CRU scientists of any malpractice.

Rep. Markey has also called three top American climate scientists to explain that climate science remains fundamentally sound and supported by evidence gathered by reputed scientific institutions around the world. The three expert scientist witnesses were involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that have been attacked by climate deniers, including Lord Monckton.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the Ranking Minority Member of the committee, chose Monckton as the Republican’s sole witness at the hearing.

Of all the people in the world the GOP could call to testify, they chose Christopher (not-really-a-Lord) Monckton, a non-scientist with a diploma in journalism studiesand a knack for trampling Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies.

Monckton called American college students advocating for clean energy the “Hitler Youth” and “Nazis” during his crazed rampage at the Americans For Prosperity event at the Copenhagen climate summit. Monckton repeated the “Hitler Youth” comments directly to me in an interview the following day, and then took it way too far when he told Jewish student Ben Wessel, whose grandparents escaped the Holocaust, “I am not going to shake the hand of Hitler youth.” Despite extensive video evidence, Monckton went on to lie to the Associated Press, claiming that he never uttered those words.

At the Tax Day Tea Party in D.C. last month, Monckton opened his speech with a‘joke’ suggesting that President Obama was born in Kenya. Monckton previously called President Obama a “monster” during his speech at a GOP fundraiser in Wisconsin, which followed another of his paid appearances for Americans for Prosperity.

In a 1987 article for the American Spectator titled the The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, Monckton wrote that:

.... 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. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month ... all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently.

With such a long record of inflammatory and baseless statements, what could the GOP possibly see in Monckton that would warrant his appearance as an expert witness on a climate science panel otherwise made up of scientists?

Watch Peter Sinclair’s excellent pieces picking apart the claims made by Lord Debunkton, especially this episode of Climate Denial Crock of the Week...
GOP Chooses Non-Scientist Lord Monckton as Sole Expert Witness at Climate Change Hearing

 

[narouz]

“The right response to the non-problem of global warming is to have the courage to do nothing.”
--from “US Congress told 'climate change is not real',” ABC News, March 26, 2009.

“[T]here 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. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month […] all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently.”
--from “Lord Christopher Monckton: Meet A Leader Of Climate Change Denial (VIDEO),” Huffpost Green, March 18, 2010. Archived May 27, 2016.