CLIMATE science denial think-tank the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow is flying a four-strong delegation to next weekโs UN climate conference in South Africa, with a promise to engage in a โbalanced, civil and genuineโย dialogue.
But the chances of much civility appear to be somewhere between zero and naught, given their delegate Lord Christopher Moncktonโs latest outpouring of bilious, conspiratorial anti-environmentalism.
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During a video chat with The Daily Callerโs Ginni Thomas, Monckton claims environmental groups โhate humanityโ, that the UN process (which he is flying into at Durban) is to โset-up a world governmentโ and throws around claims of fascism and communism like confetti.ย
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Never a man to understate his case, CFACT delegate Lord Monckton is fast becoming the Harold Camping of the climate science denial industry, claiming the global warming โscareโ is an attempt to โshut down the Westโ, โstamp out democracyโ and establish โa tyranny over the mind of manโ.
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The cleanest form of energy on the planet? Monckton tells host Ginni Thomas, itโs โcoalโ.
The fact is that if we allow our fossil fuels to be interfered with or priced out of the market, so as to subside futile, bird-killing, bat-slicing windmills, or these ridiculous solar panels, then all we do is cut of our nose to spite our face
Now the trouble with this is, that itโs actually fossil fuels that are receiving the bulk of subsidies. According to that famous left-wing environmental organisation, the International Energy Agency, fossil fuel industries received $409 billion in 2010 (up from $300 billion in 2009).
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Monckton tells Thomas that he โlikes to speak for freedomโ. ย Actually, Monckton also likes to threaten to sue people who disagree with him, which isnโt quite speaking for freedom.
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Monckton has issued threats to sue Guardian columnist George Monbiot, scientist professors Scott Mandia and John Abraham and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He also went to the UKโs High Court in an unsuccessful bid to have his own response inserted at the end of a BBC-commissioned documentary Meet the Climate Skeptics.
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Lord Monckton also attacks plans being discussed in the state of Maryland for a more sustainable future. If implemented in full, Monckton says the plan will take the state โback to the stone-age but without even the right to light a carbon emitting fire in your cave.โ
Alarmist, anyone?
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Actually, caves as housing options arenโt mentioned in Marylandโs plan, but it does talk of the utter evils of a โrange of housing densities, types, and sizesโฆ for citizens of all ages and incomesโ.
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The plan also states how quality of life can come through โuniversal stewardship of the land, water, and air resulting in sustainable communities and protection of the environmentโ.
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Elsewhere in Lord Moncktonโs tirade, he says that raising CO2 levels โwould hugely increase yields of crops – the extra carbon dioxide is tree foodโ. He adds that โif you want to green the planet, then what you want is more carbon dioxide and not lessโ.
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I asked Associate Professor Ros Gleadow of Monash University and President of the Australian Society of Plant Scientists, about this common meme that CO2 is merely โfood for plantsโ and that increasing it would just raise crop yields.
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She told DeSmogBlog that under enhanced CO2, the nutritional quality and protein levels of most plants decreases. This could affect plants such as wheat, where protein levels are vital in bread making. Because protein levels would fall, this reduction could also affect the ability of humans to tolerate cyanide, which gets released when foods such as cassava โ a staple in Africa – are eaten.
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She added because plants grown in higher CO2 regimes need fewer leaves to grow, this would also impact on animals which ate those leaves.
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For Australia, this means koalas. Just before Lord Monckton came to the land of koalas for a mining-industry sponsored tour earlier this year, he compared the countryโs former climate policy adviser Professor Ross Garnaut to a Nazi and used a picture of a large swastika next to a quote from Professor Garnaut to ram his point home.
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On arriving in Australia, Monckton issued an apology โ of sorts โ saying he had been โcatastrophically stupid and offensiveโ and that he had written to Professor Garnaut to withdraw the comment โunreservedlyโ.
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But in his interview with Ginni Thomas, Monckton now claims his previously โcatastrophically stupidโ statement was actually โvery mildโ.
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You donโt actually hear Ginni Thomas at all during the interview, so at no point does she even attempt to restrain or challenge his stataments.
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But perhaps the most conspiratorial part of the interview, comes when Monckton claims that Google had been paid โsomething like a quarter of a million dollarsโ to publish bogus pages on the internet in order to push a video of him down the search engineโs page ranking. Without this intervention, Monckton claim modestly the video would have โgone to 20 millionโ and been โunstoppableโ.
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A Google spokesperson told DeSmogBlog
Google ranks websites to deliver the best possible results for users. We rely on a fundamentally algorithmic approach because this is the most scalable way to answer more than a billion search queries each day. Search rankings are completely unrelated to Googleโs paid advertising services and other partnerships, and there is absolutely no way for a webmaster to pay money to increase search rankings.
According to research by MediaMatters, CFACT has received more than $2million in funding over the years from ExxonMobil and foundationโs chaired by Richard Scaife, the billionaire heir to the Mellon familyโs oil, banking and aluminium businesses.
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In addition, CFACT also received $160,000 in 2010 from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, according to the foundationโsย latest annual report.ย
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For the record, SSF also gave $250,000 to the George C Marshall Institute, another promoter of climate science misinformation, and $600,000 to the Heritage Foundation, which heavily downplays the need to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and argues against scientific consensus.ย Theย Allegheny Foundation, also chaired by Richard Scaife, gave $1.25 million to Heritage last year.
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Given their funding, CFACT can obviously afford to stick Lord Monckton on a plane to Durban to attend a UN conference. Let’s hope he doesn’t run into any more of those โHitler Youthโ.
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