Climate denialist big guns to gate-crash Copenhagen
Francis Sedgemore, Tuesday 1 December 2009
I’ve just received from an American PR firm a press release which announces with fanfare that the loony-right lobby group CFACT is to send a team of “10 climate policy experts” to the Copenhagen Climate Summit, which begins next week in the currently dank and dismal Danish capital.
The style of the press release is classic ‘get-your-retaliation-in-first’, but it also goes into rather a lot of personal detail about the members of the CFACT delegation. So who are the hysterical anti-environmental conservative ideologues sending to Copenhagen? Here’s the list…
- Steve Milloy – founder of JunkScience.com
- Manuel de Araujois – Mozambican politician and PhD student in Norwich
- Leighton Steward – retired geologist and oil industry executive
- Marc Morano – founder of ClimateDepot.com
- Steve Fielding – Australian Senator and Roman Catholic fundamentalist (more babies!!)
- Barun Mitra – Indian right-libertarian and thinktank director
- Christopher Monckton – English chinless wonder with far too much time on his hands
- Craig Rucker – co-founder of CFACT
- David Rothbard – co-founder of CFACT, and the world’s “most exciting conservative”
- Fred Singer – retired engineer and atmospheric physicist
Just one of the 10 CFACTers listed above is competent to speak on climate science, and even then Singer is so out of the loop that it’s difficult to take the man seriously. The others with whom I’m familiar (Milloy, Steward, Morano, Fielding, Monckton, Rucker and Rothbard) are known only as prolific emitters of political hot air. Steward likes to talk science, but then only to insist that carbon dioxide is the most wonderful molecule in existence, and we cannot have enough of the stuff. Monckton is an in-bred twit, good only for his schadenfreudliche entertainment value.
Now I’m quite happy to listen to serious critics of the climate science consensus, but on reading this list my first reaction was to yawn and scratch my balls.
Is this it – the denialists’ grand response to ClimateGate?
Oh sweet Lord preserve us!
Feed the writer! 
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 07:48 UTC
Isn’t Christopher Monckton married to the late Princess Diana’s ‘best friend’?
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 07:51 UTC
No, the fount of all wisdom that is wikipedia indicates that he’s her sister. She’s married to Dominic Lawson. Interesting set of family interactions when thinking about climate change.
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 08:50 UTC
Phew! The thought of Monckton having a connection with the saintly Diana (PBUH) fills me with horror. In fact, the thought of Monckton being in a position to breed is worrying. In order to protect pubic morals, the future revolutionary government of England should bar Monckton and his ilk from marrying.
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 09:49 UTC
Sorry you are too late. Apart from being a member of the Worshipful Company of Broderers, he is already married.
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 10:20 UTC
We could always have him neutered.
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 16:18 UTC
Well, I don’t know if I’d go quite that far. But looking at his wikipedia page in more detail, I’d be interested to know his degree classification, and it looks like he is responsible for those bloody Sudoku things that clog our newspapers.
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 16:24 UTC
Shouldn’t that warrant a public flogging? On second thoughts, Monckton’s class are into that sort of thing, aren’t they?
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 16:25 UTC
I may have been reading rather too much into the wording of the stuff about his undergraduate studies, but he does do the sudokus. I love the comment about “ego the size of the Antarctic ice sheet”. Its a rather good Wikipedia entry.
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 20:28 UTC
How on Earth does he fit an ego the size of the Antarctic ice sheet in a brain the size of a pea?
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 21:23 UTC
“…he’s her sister…” Something went wrong there.
And I never understood what the British mean by “class”, but how does it figure into Sudokus? I work on at least one Sudoku everyday, and trust me, no one thinks I’m high-class.
Wednesday 2 December 2009 at 21:41 UTC
Actually, I still don’t know what Sudoku is, although I’m told it’s some kind of reality displacement activity.
Thursday 3 December 2009 at 10:44 UTC
Being of Monckton’s class myself I can assure you that Theresa May is the world’s most exciting conservative. Especially from regarded from a supine position.
Thursday 3 December 2009 at 10:48 UTC
Boyo likes a (older) girl in leather.
Thursday 3 December 2009 at 23:32 UTC
Certainly not a leathery old girl. Not since the evening I accidentally milked Baroness Thatcher, anyway.