Climate Sceptic Alert: “The Mad Monckton”
Just when you thought the debate on climate change was done and dusted, an annoying climate sceptic has popped up trying to continue the oil industry’s campaign to deny and delay action on the issue.
For the last couple of Sundays, Christopher Monckton has written in the Sunday Telegraph, the torch-bearer of the old guard of the right of the right-wing of the Tories. Under the headline “Climate Chaos: Don’t Believe It”, he accused “the UN and its scientists of distorting the truth” over the climate change. In yesterday’s Guardian, George Monbiot took issue with Monckton and called his articles a “a mixture of cherry-picking, downright misrepresentation and pseudo-scientific gibberish”.
Today Monckton hit back saying: “It’s a shame that George Monbiot didn’t check his facts with me before using his column to describe my two recent Sunday Telegraph articles on climate change as “nonsense from start to finish”. He implies that a classically trained peer ought not to express scientific opinions. It’s still a free country, George. And at least I got the science right”.
Ok so what is Monckton’s background and scientific credentials to suggest that he is right and the UNPCC and the rest of the majority of the world’s scientific community are wrong?
He is the eldest son of the 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, who was educated at Harrow School, Churchill College, Cambridge and Cardiff University. He has a degree in classics and a diploma in journalism.
He is a right-wing political activist and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher. He is also a former member of the Committee for a Free Britain. The CFB’s first public act was to place advertisements in national newspapers warning the country of the consequences of a Labour victory in the 1987 General Election.
The following year the London magazine City Limits (October 20, 1988) gave extensive coverage to what they called the “Tories’ Loony Fringe” activities at the Conservative Party (UK) Conference at Brighton that month, and reported on the CFB’s extravagant reception. Those invited included non other that Richard Perle, the neo-Con who led the drive for war in Iraq. The CFB fizzled out in the early nineties.
Since then Monckton was a director of his own, namesake consultancy company, Christopher Monckton Ltd., between 1987 and 2006, when he retired through ill health. He is also a member of the Worshipful Company of Broderers, an Officer of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem and a Knight of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Upon the death of his father in 2006, Monckton inherited his title
Anyone know anything else about him? Please let us know..