Drudge hypes article claiming Gore "chickened out" from confronting skeptic
SUMMARY: Matt Drudge highlighted the claim from global warming skeptic Marc Morano that "House Democrats have refused to allow [a global warming skeptic] to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday." But Newt Gingrich and others who disagree with Gore on climate change legislation the House is considering are also testifying at the hearing.
On April 24, Internet gossip Matt Drudge highlighted a claim from global warming skeptic Marc Morano with the headline: "Dems Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing..." The Drudge headline linked to a post on Morano's website, Climate Depot, in which Morano wrote that Lord Christopher Monckton, a former policy adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, told him that "House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday." Morano further wrote that on April 23, Monckton "was informed that the former Vice-President had 'chickened out' and there would be no joint appearance." Neither Drudge nor Morano noted that witnesses who disagree with Gore on the cap-and-trade legislation currently being considered by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), are also testifying at the hearing.
According to Morano's post, Monckton argues that "there has been no 'global warming' for at least a decade" and that "there has been seven and a half years' global cooling." Media Matters for America has noted that climate experts reject the idea that the relatively cooler global average temperatures in several of the last 10 years are any indication that global warming is slowing or does not exist.
In a recent profile, The New York Times described Morano as "a crucial organizing force who has taken diffuse pieces of scientific research and fused them into a political battering ram" for global warming skeptics.
From the Drudge Report:
From Morano's April 23 piece, "House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated":
UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.
"The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face," Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. "They are cowards."
According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had "chickened out" and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment's fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building.
[...]
"[House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry] Waxman [D-CA] knows there has been no 'global warming' for at least a decade. Waxman knows there has been seven and a half years' global cooling. Waxman knows that, in the words of the UK High Court judge who condemned Gore's mawkish movie as materially, seriously, serially inaccurate, 'the Armageddon scenario that he depicts is not based on any scientific view,'" Monckton explained. Monckton has previously testified before the House Committee in March. (See: Monckton: Have the courage to do nothing...US Congress told climate change is not real ) Monckton has also publicly challenged Gore to a debate. (See: Al Gore Challenged to International TV Debate on Global Warming By Lord Monckton -- March 19, 2007 )
so for the next drama series, it is going to be Gore ?
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090421.html
It's not the warming that's speculative, it's the human causation.
How presumptuous of us to assume we are driving the climate, when one good-sized volcanic eruption can emit more greenhouse gas than all human activity in history.
and don't forget one big CME directed at us can do the same.
It's not true that only the causation of the warming is at issue. There are lots of people on the right who say that the last few years are evidence of cooling because there was one really, really hot year back 8 years ago.
It is not a guess or a supposition that we're causing the rise in temperature. It's a known fact as much as any facts can be known in science. Heck, gravity is still called a theory!
And you are right that volcanos can have adverse affects on our climate. So what? Most volcanos not only spew stuff that might heat up the climate, but also push out clouds and soot that can cool the climate.
The fact that there are other things that can affect the climate doesn't matter in this discussion, and it's likely because the denialist who was not invited to the Congressional hearings would make similar arguments to yours is why he wasnt' invited!
It's a known fact ... Heck, gravity is still called a theory!
You're right about our knowledge of the reality of human-affected global warming. But a quibble about the gravity part:
First, the theory of gravity is not about gravity's existence but about its nature. But given that, yes, gravity is called a theory. But in science, "theory" is as high as it gets. A theory is a principle that serves to unite a variety of observations and phenomena under one over-arching explanation, which has been demonstrated by experiment and/or controlled observation, and which has withstood all challenges.
Actually, the scientific community does believe we are driving climate change. It is not presumptuous of us to assume that we are changing the planet--look around. Strip mining in the Appalachians has eliminated entire mountains. In the Pacific Ocean there is a huge garbage patch twice the size of Texas. We have, are, and will continue to change our planet, and denying it is foolish and a waste of time. We should be examining what to do about the damage, not pretending it's not happening.
Could it be for the first time in the history of the planet that we've got 6 billion humans to feed and shelter?
Exactly, except that just about everyone in the climate studies community agree that humans are accelerating the warming trend, and we are driving it faster than what would be normal.
Sure, one good sized volcanic eruption can throw a lot of crap into the air, but those are also natural processes, and ones that nobody has control over, unless we have some James Bond style villain out there who can control liquid hot magma.
Or Dr. Evil from the first Austin Powers!
complete nonsense. human activity produces far more greenhouse gases than volcanoes. it's not even close.
Do you have a link to back of this statement? If you do please share.
How presumptuous of us to assume we are driving the climate
How presumptuous of a butterfly fluttering in Beijing to think it could affect the weather three days later in Seattle!
Um - except that in principle, it can. It's called "the butterfly effect" and its a central feature of chaos theory, which considers in part how very small changes at one place or time can result in very large changes at an another place or later time.
The issue is not the absolute size of the human impact on the climate, it's how that impact combines with and affects other cycles of nature.
For example, nature has a natural cycle of carbom release and absorption. That cycle can keep the amount of carbon in the atmosphere relatively stable for very long periods of time. When those cycles get disrupted, change can occur with dramatic rapidity until some new equilibrium is established.
Suppose you have a large vat partly filled with water. There is in inflow pipe and an outflow pipe. Water is flowing through both pipes at 100 gallons a minute. The level of water stays constant.
Now you come along and start dumping buckets of water into the vat at the rate of one gallon a minute. You may try to claim that what you're doing is unimportant because it is so small in comparison to what's going through the pipes, but the fact is you have disrupted the pattern. The flows in and out are no longer in balance and the tank will begin to fill and will overflow if you go on long enough.
We are now dumping greenhouse gases into the environment faster than the environment can absorb them. The result is those gases are building up and with them the affect on climate. It is quite true that no matter what we do, nature will find some way to adapt, some way to achieve a new equilibrium. The question is if human society will be able to survive in that new world.
How presumptuous of us to assume we are driving the climate, when one good-sized volcanic eruption can emit more greenhouse gas than all human activity in history
Volcanoes also emit carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, which has a warming effect. For about two-thirds of the last 400 million years, geologic evidence suggests CO2 levels and temperatures were considerably higher than present. One theory is that volcanic eruptions from rapid sea floor spreading elevated CO2 concentrations, enhancing the greenhouse effect and raising temperatures. However, the evidence for this theory is not conclusive and there are alternative explanations for historic CO2 levels (NRC, 2005). While volcanoes may have raised pre-historic CO2 levels and temperatures, according to the USGS Volcano Hazards Program, human activities now emit 130 times as much CO2 as volcanoes (whose emissions are relatively modest compared to some earlier times).
Source: EPA.org
This is like the little round-about circus of phony journalists.
Some creep writes a partisan opt-ed in a Murdoch rag or a rightie blogger fawns over torture and Drudge sweeps it up.
Then the MSM, who are still stuck in 1999 and refresh Drudge ever 30 minutes, pick it up as if ANYONE REALLY GIVES A FLYING D!
the people at EPA absolutely do ! My modern diesel pickup now has to be tested every year .
Poor baby
don't mock me, i will laugh with you but they are taking your wallet a little bit at a time calling the testing ( a 15 dollar charge that goes into a general fund any legislator has access to ) a fee, rather than a tax.
I'm happy to pay the testing fees/taxes whatever you want to call them.
I am not happy to pay the testing fees when the tester does not know how to run a test for a diesel and she just asks to run up the motor to the limit and see if it smokes. Fidteen dollars for that ? All I can thinkl of is that they are really checking for untaxed fuel.
I live in a city where they only require vehicle testing once every two years. However, our testing facilities are still run with the same level of stupidity and incompetence as what you have experienced.
Case in point, my wife used to own a Mitsubishi Mirage. The first time she took it in for testing, it was rejected because they did the computerized plug-in test, instead of putting the car on the dynamo and exhaust sensor like they were supposed to. This resulted in an automatic fail because the test indicated that a certain required component was "not ready or present."
So we take the car back to the dealership and ask them what's wrong. They tell us that the car is exempt under state regulations from the plug-in test and needs to be done on the dynamo. (That will be $80 for diagnosis, please.)
OK, we take the car back for testing, and the gatekeeper directs us to the lane for the plug-in test AGAIN, despite telling them what the dealership said. Test fails AGAIN. We tell the tester what the dealership said, he doesn't back down, and, naturally, I start blowing my stack. From across the testing center, another employee runs over, "hold on! wait a minute!" he shouts. Then he shows the tester that the car is included on a list of newer models that are exempt from the plug-in test. Finally, someone who knows what's going on! We wait in line again for the dynamo test and it passes with flying colors.
You think the stupidity and incompetence ends there? OH NOOOOOOO....
Two years later...
My wife takes the car back for testing again. She tries to tell the gatekeeper who directs you to the correct testing lane that the car is on the list of plug-in exempt cars, but it doesn't matter to him, he says he’s required to send her to the plug-in test first, THEN she has to wait in line AGAIN for the dynamo test!!!! UNBELIEVABLE.
Two years later... DITTO.
A year after that, the car is traded in so that some other poor sucker can deal with it.
I’m all for keeping urban air clean and all, but when it becomes a stupid, bureaucratic pain in the @$$ run by incompetent morons, that’s when I get angry.
Drudge is one of the biggest liars out there when it comes to Global Warming. Also lies and throws out all sorts of propaganda about how becuase it snows in Washington when they are having a hearing on Global Warming , therefore Global Warming is a lie. The only liar is Drudge.
Lord Monckton is a pompous popinjay who has, among other things
- claimed the existence of a massive, decade-long, worldwide conspiracy to hide The Truth about global warming, backed by “an internationally-coordinated series of maladroit and malevolent attempts to silence” the nanny-nanny naysayers, adding “after a decade of Socialist government [in the UK] freedom of speech does not figure in our constitution”;
- labeled leading climatologists as people “who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes”;
- insisted that there is no such thing as global warming but it doesn’t matter because it would be a good thing if there was;
- tried to turn disagreements about the severity or timing of serious damage from such warming into disagreements about the idea of warming itself and insisted that any refinement of a prediction is proof of “blatant error” that undermines the prediction itself;
- claimed there is no consensus about global warming but there is a consensus in favor of nuclear power;
- demanded that Olympia Snowe and David Rockefeller "apologize or resign" because they sent a letter to the CEO of Exxon/Mobil calling on the company to stop supporting GW deniers;
- and declared that the UK's Royal Society, one of the most respected science organizations in the world, is “a mere Left-leaning political pressure-group” because it recognizes the dangers of global warming.
The real problem in the immediate matter is that Lord Monckton thinks of himself as someone who should be taken seriously.
LarryE You had me at popinjay. ;-)
Moncton see, Moncton do?
The guy really is an embarassment, almost enough to give pompous fools a bad name...
Having known and worked with scientists and engineers for most of my adult life, the idea that you could organize a giant monolithic conspiracy to cover up a major scientific fact is on a par with organizing a precision drill team of cross-eyed Persian cats.
I really don't see why allowing a former employee for an organization owned by the MRC is somehow chickening out.
Would they let Sean Hannity testify at these hearings?
And to people claiming volcanoes can somhow emit more GG than all humans throughout history should really learn some science.
How many skeptics has Drudge confronted?
I don't know about Drudge, But I've confronted one Sterling Burnett who is a global warming skeptic. He was chagrined that I was aware of his receiving money from big oil. Let's say our corresondance was rather truncated, after that fact was outed.
Good on yah.
Check crooks and liars today. Al Gore gets in a few licks with Ms Blackburn (R-oil) yesterday.
Why wasn't Drudge laughed off the national stage after his role in hyping the backwards B "assault" incident?
This is classic. Dems got all scared because Lord Monkton (science advisor to Margaret Thatcher) knows that global warming hysteria is a farce and Gore a liar. As one Dem congressman said, "if we pitt Gore against Monkton, Monkton will clean Gore's clock. He knows the facts!"
Gore is as dumb as he is boring and you losers hate the fact that your side has never had any truth in your arguments, and certainly no facts. Go on, watch your Stewart and Colbert and feel better about yourself.
BTW, a few other facts you guys should know - Obama poluted the air with over 9000 gallons a feul so he could fly out of Washington and give a speech about Earth Day. Gore? His Mansion uses the same amount of electricity as 22 other houses in the surrounding area.
Idiots.
As one Dem congressman said
Just out of curiosity, who said that? And what's the source?
This came from Lord Monkton himself as he was sitting in on the hearing even though he wasn't allowed to talk. He actually tried to introduce himself to Gore too, but Gore would have none of that and ignored him completely.
In case your wondering, I saw an interview with him on Friday.
This came from Lord Monkton [sic] himself
Ah. So it's an unattributed, anonymous quote from an at best questionable source. Very impressive.
Yes, and when there's a House hearing on the shape of the Earth, there MUST be a Round Earth skeptic present.
Randy