A March 19 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard touts a challenge by Lord Monckton, “a former advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,” to Al Gore to hold “an internationally televised, head-to-head, nation-unto-nation confrontation on the question, ‘That our effect on climate is not dangerous.’ ” But Sheppard doesn’t tell us the rest of the story.
According to The Raw Story, Lord Monckton (aka Christopher Monckton, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley) has no scientific credentials, holding degrees only in classics and journalism. So why is he in any way authoritative on the issue of global warming? Apparently, he wrote a long article in the London Telegraph claiming that, in the words of British Guardian columnist George Monbiot, “climate change is a hoax perpetrated by a leftwing conspiracy coordinated by the United Nations.” Monbiot calls Monckton’s article “a mixture of cherry-picking, downright misrepresentation and pseudo-scientific gibberish,” adding, “There is scarcely a line in Lord Monckton’s paper which is not wildly wrong.”
Further, as Raw Story also notes (but Sheppard doesn’t), Monckton’s challenge is being promoted by the conservative Center for Science and Public Policy, whose operator, Frontiers of Freedom, has received funding from ExxonMobil and tobacco companies.