Today on Anthony Watts blog, WUWT, Monckton rejects at least 97% of climate science and says that the IPCC has zero evidence that humans have caused at least 50% of global warming since the 1950s. Clearly he has never read an IPCC report (or else he's a shameless liar).
Monckton earns a distinction in Childish Bluster
Not much more to say than that. I'll do a Chris Horner and Anthony Watts and quote a short passage from his article, followed by some two or three word snippets - all from Monckton's essay (archived here - latest here). Monckton writes:
Not the least of many signs that the rationalists who have dared to doubt the official story are winning the debate on the climate is the childish bluster to which the dwindling band of true-believers resort when they meet an argument they cannot defeat.
Monckton proceeds to deliver some of the best examples of Childish Bluster I've come across in an essay. Here is a sample - as you can see he earned his Distinction through extra points for the lack of sophistication, vulgarity and aiming for the lowest common denominator among the WUWT readership. He did aim a bit higher than the audience warranted, otherwise it would have been a High Distinction:
Many of you will have seen Monckton's previous attempt at Childish Bluster, but here it is again to remind you of just how much he has improved since the days when he was completely lost for words Childish Bluster.
His Childish Bluster has improved out of sight...but Monckton still fails Arithmetic
You doubtless will not be surprised to learn that Monckton, while having a knack for Childish Bluster isn't that good at Arithmetic. He doesn't know that 3896 is 97.1% of 4014. Nor does he seem to understand that 78 is only 1.9% of 4014 and an even tinier 0.007 of 11,944.
Yep, that's right. Using Monckton-like arithmetic (but more accurately), only seven in every thousand scientific abstracts going way back over 20 years actually rejected mainstream climate science. Or - of those abstracts that attributed a cause to global warming - only 1.9% rejected human activities as the cause. Yes, fewer than two out of every hundred abstracts going way back over twenty years.
In case you were wondering, I've lost count and am not sure if this is the umpteenth or umptieth protest by Anthony Watts and Christopher Monckton against the scientific consensus. In about three weeks they'll be able to flail at the scientific consensus embodied in the new WG1 report from the IPCC. Let's see if they can improve their arithmetic mark. I don't know if they can improve on their score for childish bluster. They've already earned a Distinction but there is a clue above if they want a High Distinction :)
Oh - and you can read Monckton's Distinction-earning essay without having to suffer WUWT, because I've archived it here (latest here). But before you do, how about a selection of comments, mostly from lovestruck WUWT-ers:
Streetcred says:
September 10, 2013 at 1:55 am
What’s there not to like about this Monckton bloke ? Just one observation M’Lord, the perceived warming is largely Mann made.
High Treason is a born again conspiracy theorist and says:
September 10, 2013 at 2:07 am
Lies, damned lies and statistics. We can look forward to more and more desperate and fanciful BS coming out in a desperate attempt to get us to believe. Eventually the propaganda machine will run out of puff/fluff and implode into the sea of treachery from which it emerged.There is a strong possibility that the AGW rubbish will be conveniently “forgotten”by the UN in 2015 to make way for the “Millenium 2015″ project.
Lilith has fallen in love and says:
September 10, 2013 at 2:24 am
I don’t think my husband would mind if I told you that I LOVE YOU.
And so has Hot under the collar:
September 10, 2013 at 2:27 am
I don’t think my wife will mind if I tell him I love him too!
Update - here are a couple of comments just in case you thought I was exaggerating when I said Monckton didn't target as low as the lowest common denominator. Satire? Politics? Sagacious and sardonic wit? Fresh intellectual air?
John Leon says (excerpt):
September 10, 2013 at 4:57 am
To those who think Lord Monckton’s description of the puerile persons responsible for his paper is insulting should maybe consider the fact that satire has always had a place in politics,
Jan Smit says (excerpt):
September 10, 2013 at 5:06 am
Oh come on guys; insults? Don’t be so bloody precious. The Good Lord’s sagacious and sardonic wit are a joy to read. A veritable breath of fresh intellectual air. May he live long and prosper. He does not stoop to their level by returning mud pie with mud pie. No, rather he slices their petulant pétard pudding with the Saracen sword of his surgical intellect, revealing their prognistications for what they really are – hot-air tantrums. Not so much hissy fits, as hissy farts…
vomit inducing
ReplyDeleteI am beginning to regret Monckton not being a member of the House of Lords. His antics would make an excellent case for reforming the Lords.
ReplyDeleteThere is a mix of morbid curiosity and embarrassment in witnessing Mr. Monckton's steady decline from Court Jester to Sideshow Clown to garden-variety Crank, played out before an audience of cheering enablers. However, being a sad figure does not excuse his behavior.
ReplyDeleteOn the lighter side, I suspect that JRR Tolkien had a prescient vision of Monckton:
"And as the Climate Scientists gazed south to the Land of WUWT, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell."
Having posted a couple of comments on the lairey lord's snark I was expecting the usual sycophancy from the WUWTers as you have quoted above.
ReplyDeleteBut something odd has happened in that thread. Certainly there are some of the usual suspects praising the lord... but there are a significant number of posters who take issue with the 'tone' of the piece. Some of this may be ascribed to the American myopia when faced with irony and satire. But some is the clear recognition that a essay attacking others for childishness has taken its foot out of its mouth simply to shoot itself when it uses childish insults.
The response is mixed, it is probably a minority that 'regret' the tone of the potty peer, but it seems to represent a small inkling on the part of some of the WUWTers that such language does indeed indicate desperation and a lack of better, cogent, rational argument.
izen
The audience is also mixed these days, and includes those who regard Monckton as unsound on the greenhouse effect. Absent a very public recantation they're going to give him at best a frosty reception.
DeleteIt just struck me that Monckton and the late Douglas Adams were at Cambridge at the same time. Shame Adams is no longer with us both to teach the potty peer about the environment and how to write with wit and humour. Monckton is so lame when he tries to be funny. His piles of bad smelling insults are just puerile.
ReplyDeleteAny frustration or hint of criticism and Monckton is once again that odd bird at Harrow screeching hysterically at his tormenters. He'll never escape those hateful corridors, however grandiose the fantasies he weaves around himself. When the rubes have left the tent, and the lights have gone down and he's there alone on the stage ... it all comes crowding back. "Bedwetter! Bedwetter! Bedwetter! .."
ReplyDeleteI like to think so, anyway.