A red sky in the morning...is a denier's warning

If you are looking for something to bore you senseless for two days, you can trot along to Conway Hall in London to what is being marketed as "New Dawn of Truth" (see Christopher Monckton's WUWT article archived here). The title alone should be enough to put any sane person off. (Think sandwich boards in Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner.) However if the title isn't enough, take a look at the promo image which, as you'll guess, was produced by Christopher himself using materials filched from elsewhere.

I don't know if Christopher got permission from IT engineer Jason Pope to use his photo of Tower Bridge. He didn't give him credit, that's for sure. And I couldn't say whether or not Mr Pope would appreciate the monstrosity of a pink sword slashed through his photograph.

The program for the denier festival (if you could call it that) is a list of mostly little-known pseudo-scientists who are probably feeling left out now that nature has been giving us a taste of what's to come with global warming. By my count there are 39 authors of articles in the "New Dawn of Truth Conference Volume". There is no consistent theme, though "it's the sun" and "it's not CO2" are the most common forms of science denial. The denier memes in order of popularity are:

You can see the memes by authors in a pdf file here. (Page 2 has the list of authors.) The papers themselves range from boringly stupid to tediously dull so that's enough on that subject. (You've seen it all before at WUWT and elsewhere. The only thing missing is a prediction of an ice age from Denier Don Easterbrook.)

The conference was organised by a bunch of science deniers who call themselves the Independent Committee on Geoethics. The main person behind it seems to be Nils-Axel Morner, who has awarded himself the grand sounding title of Secretary General.

An International Fly by Night: Clexit

As well as this "Independent Committee on Geoethics" the brochure announces another group. It's not really an organisation, it's three people who've called themselves the "founding leaders". They are being grandiosely touted as a "new international organisation" but it's actually only three dim deniers:

• Christopher Monckton (UK), 
• Marc Marano (USA) (sic) and 
• Viv Forbes (Australia). 

I admit I cannot see those three chaps hitting it off and I fully expect this to be the one and only time their names are linked in this manner. If I didn't know better I'd say it was a send-up of conspiracy wackos because they've called themselves what some have thought sounds vaguely obscene: "Clexit".

The text is straight out of conspiracy nuttery 101. Here are some examples:

Nations do not need UN and EU bureaucrats manipulating science in order to justify their dreams to redistribute wealth and revert to the central planning that enslaved and impoverished the old communist economies. This vicious and relentless war on carbon dioxide will be seen by future generations as the most misguided mass delusion that the world has ever seen. 

They've written about the magic of carbon dioxide, too. This trace gas is too trace to affect climate, however it's not too trace to totally transform plant life.

Carbon dioxide is NOT a dangerous pollutant – it is a natural, non-toxic and beneficial gas which feeds all life on earth. Its increasing concentration is improving the environment not harming it.

Carbon dioxide is also an insignificant player in global warming – it was unable to prevent the big ice ages or the Little Ice Age, and there was no human industry to create the Medieval Warming.  

I wonder does this trio know that CO2 was rather low when ice sheets were much larger? I wonder do they know that the planet as a whole is so much warmer than it was in medieval times.

And I wonder do they realise that if the world fails to do enough to curb global warming now, then in the future their alarmist fears of "global control" may end up happening - either that or total chaos:

The EU is a driving force promoting green energy, environmental extremism, world carbon taxes and global control by unelected bureaucrats. BREXIT was Britain’s answer to the growing EU over-reach. If the UN/EU persists in this climate mania, the rest of the world must support “CLEXIT”. 

You can read more courtesy of Anthony Watts, who hosted the "papers" on his website. He didn't support the program, however. He wrote a disclaimer at the bottom of Christopher Monckton's article. I suspect that was only because of what Anthony calls "barycentrism" articles, plus the personal peccadilloes of one of the other authors:

Note: While I carry this story on WUWT for informational purposes, that should in no way imply that I endorse the topics of the conference itself or the speakers – Anthony Watts 

His disclaimer didn't extend to "Clexit". He has another article on that (archived here), from coal miner Viv Forbes, whose fortunes may have taken a dive lately. This time Anthony touted the silliness, leading in with "Harmful, Costly, Unscientific Climate Treaties should be torn up". Yawn.

From the WUWT comments

Christopher Monckton's article was another over-the-top complaint that the University College London didn't want him and his ragtag bunch of quacks besmirching the name of that venerable institution. As Victor Venema pointed out, the folk at Conway Hall are probably a bit uncomfortable, too. I guess they are just renting out a tiny room. They haven't mentioned it in the list of events.

Tom Halla is very confused about what constitutes censorship. He seems to think that any and all venues ought to host anything and everything, from Lizard Men worshipers to Flat Earthers.

August 1, 2016 at 11:45 am
Censorship is a sign the censors have no good argument for their side.

A number of people were puzzled by Anthony saying he didn't endorse this particular denier fest. janets wrote:

August 2, 2016 at 10:38 am
I had exactly the same impression. I was enjoying Lord Monckton’s always erudite discourse (inspissate is my new favourite word today :D) and was brought up short by that rather jarring note at the end. I’m sure Anthony didn’t intend it, but it really felt as though he doesn’t agree with the conference in some way, and permitted the post only in a spirit of disapproving tolerance. A little the way I feel when I have to dispose of one of the semi-dismembered and partially disembowled rodents which my cats are so fond of leaving on the hall carpet. 

Some of them couldn't accept Anthony's disendorsement, so they rationalised it away. DonM wrote:

August 2, 2016 at 12:57 pm
Lack of endorsement is just that, it doesn’t imply disagreement or condemnation.
Maybe the reasoning behind the notation at the end of the article is a fear of such incorrect inferences by some…. 

Graham told Anthony off and said he should have written it as a comment, not at the end of the article:

August 2, 2016 at 9:45 pm
Unexpected, unnecessary, jolting, bizarre. All of the above describe my take on AW’s “disclaimer”. Is it the first time? Readers habitually take such a disclaimer for granted. Indeed, many articles posted here are contentious to say the least. Fair enough, too. That’s why it’s a respected blog. The comments section is the place for opinion and that’s where the “disclaimer” belongs. That way, AW would be free to be forthright in expressing what to me appears to be implicit rejection. 

philjourdan has it about right:

August 2, 2016 at 8:25 am
An observation. Providing disclaimers may apply to the topic at hand, but if not done with every topic (pro or con), then the contra implication is that when they are not provided, the topic and/or author is endorsed. 

ptolemy2 doesn't think much of the program:

August 1, 2016 at 3:39 pm
I’m a supporter of Chris Monkton and passionate skeptic of CAGW. However I took a look at the program of this conference and its horrible. I’m afraid Butterworth is right that this is fringe science. Discredited ideas about strong forcing of climate by planetary orbits are given prominence. Worse, there is a platform for electric universe quasi-religious nonsense.
Worst of all is the oral presentation by Oliver Manuel, an obsessive thread-bomber and pseudoscientific charlatan. The subject of his scepticism is not CO2 and global warming, but the – apparently flawed – notion that the bright yellow thing in the sky is a sun. Oh no – Dr Manuel corrects this myth for us by explaining that it is instead a “clothed neutron star”. The delusional Oliver has been repeatedly banned from WUWT. Now he is preaching his neutron gospel in this climate anti-conference. This is an appalling misjudgment by tallbloke and the conference committee. It would be less damaging to credibility to headline Rupert Sheldrake and the conscious universe, than Manuel’s wretched drivel.
And the name “New Dawn of Truth” and accompanying logo would make me if I attended feel very uneasy as if I were being lured into a religious cult.
Sorry but count me out, go Butterworth!

Jim Watson said something about religion. He doesn't know the difference between science and blind faith, though I'm guessing that, like most at WUWT, he favours the latter and discards the former:

August 1, 2016 at 11:52 am
The global warming crowd is doing to Science in a few short years what the Church couldn’t accomplish in centuries. 

Solomon Green is cheerily optimistic and absurdly unrealistic:

August 1, 2016 at 12:17 pm
Is there any likelihood of the press covering all or part of the conference? Have invitations gone to Monbiot, Harrabin, Shukman etc. and, if so, have any replied or asked to send alternates? 

robert_g  thinks the list of people is "impressive". I've never heard of most of them and the ones I've heard of I would put in the distinctly unimpressive category.

August 1, 2016 at 12:40 pm
Congratulations on going forth with the conference. The list of presenters is impressive. I am sure the event will amazingly interesting and productive.
All the best in pursuing the professional misconduct charge as to the craven actions and extraordinarily ignorant statements of Professor B. 

Andrew D Burnette thinks it's an act of cowardice to suggest, ever so politely, that the bunch of idiots take their idiocy elsewhere:

August 1, 2016 at 12:57 pm
I really like your approach to calling out the coward Mr. Monckton. It makes them seem all the more cowardly when they don’t respond. Bravo.

ntesdorf is living a fantasy:

August 2, 2016 at 11:29 am
Nothing drives the Warmistas into a greater Fury than having someone even vaguely suggest that there could be another explanation for all the unexplained facts. Their censorship of ideas is a sure sign the Warmistas have no good arguments to put. 

Stuart M can do whatever he likes with the raw data. A lot has been freely available for years (some still isn't). Remember all those FOI requests? No denier did a thing with all the data made available (much of which was already available anyway).

August 3, 2016 at 11:10 am
Release of the raw data which has been publicly funded across the globe would allow crowd analysis. The geniuses with statistics, models and code did not join the climatology department.