Q&A with Lord Christopher Monckton
news21 Jan 10 @ 07:30am
This is the full draft of Isobel Coleman’s Q&A;interview with global warming sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton who will speak at The J, Noosa Junction, on Saturday, January 30.
Q. Kevin Rudd has openly criticised you for your views. Do you feel any trepidation in coming to Australia?
A. The Prime Minister of Australia intemperately attacked what he called “climate denialists” during an imprudent 45-minute rant on November 6. He mentioned my name six times during this regrettable episode, and in less than complimentary terms. If I had ever suggested to Margaret Thatcher that she should deliver a speech as childishly ad-hominem as that, she would have sternly replied, “Prime Ministers don’t, dear!”
There was not a single scientific or economic argument in the Prime Minister’s speech. It was wall-to-wall political extremism. Two retired scientists, watching the speech on television over a beer, said to each other, “If Kevin Rudd thinks Lord Monckton is worth attacking, we think he’s worth hearing.” They put up their own money to pay for my visit, because they wanted the people of Australia to hear the truth about manmade “global warming”.
The truth is this. There hasn’t been any “global warming” for 15 years. We would not be to blame even if there had been. Even if we were to blame, the cost of curbing CO2 emissions would be many times greater than any benefits that curbing them could possibly bring.
Do I feel any trepidation? No. The last time I looked, Australia was a free country, which means that in the end even the least civilised of Prime Ministers have to behave themselves, whether they like it or not, and allow the truth to be told once in a while.
Mr. Rudd could begin his much-needed programme of personal behavioural reform by paying a visit to Peter Spencer, the farmer whose land the policies of both parties in State and national government have unfairly expropriated without the just compensation for which the Australian Constitution provides.
Mr. Rudd should beg Mr. Spencer’s forgiveness, announce the immediate end of the dodge, duck or dive by which Mr. Spencer and other innocent farmers all over Australia are being told they cannot work their own land because it is being counted towards Australia’s fictitious compliance with the Kyoto Protocol by being designated as a “carbon sink” – and all this in the specious name of Saving The Planet For Our Children And Our Grandchildren in the face of the non-problem of “global warming”.
The correct policy to address a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing, and to address real problems instead. Mr. Rudd, and the new Leader of the Opposition, should both publicly and immediately announce that from now on they and their parties will stop this shoddy cheating and allow Mr. Spencer and all other farmers in a similar position to get on with farming their own land without let or hindrance.
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Q. Have you been to Noosa before?
A. I have not had the pleasure of visiting Noosa before, and I am looking forward to it. My first visit to Australia was more than a decade ago, when I visited Melbourne and Sydney to launch an invention of mine called the Eternity Puzzle, a 209-piece jigsaw with no picture and a prize of £1 million for the first solver. The game was later voted Puzzle of the Year in Australia.
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Q. Noosa has a very political contingent, and a great many environmentalists. It is likely you will receive criticism from both sides. How do you feel about that?
A. I shall do my best to tell the truth as best I can understand it and as clearly and fairly as I can. I am not here to interfere in any way in Australian politics. I have been invited solely to speak about the science and economics of “global warming”, and I shall confine my talks to that subject. To the environmentalists I shall say that it is important not to waste time, money and effort on trying to solve non-problems like “global warming”, when the time, money and effort could and should be better spent on solving real problems, such as deforestation, overfishing, particulate pollution in south-east Asia, and the encroachment of humankind on to the fragile and shrinking habitats of our fellow-creatures.
Telling the truth is often unpopular, and I realize that those who are making money out of the Great Lie that is the “global warming” scam, and those who have too readily believed it because it is socially convenient or politically expedient, may be upset by what I shall say.
But my intention is not to give offence, nor deliberately to attract criticism for the sake of making a sensation. My aim is merely to tell the truth, and to explain how interested listeners can verify the truth for themselves. I usually start my talks by saying, “Do not believe a word I say. Science is not a belief system, but a process of rigorous enquiry and observation and measurement and testing, testing, testing. Everything I say comes from the data or the learned journals of science, mathematics, and economics. If you are interested, check for yourselves.”
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Q. One local has said to me, “The politicians and the sceptics are leading Australians up the wrong path.” What do you say to that?
A. The father of the scientific method, Abu Ali Ibn al-Husain Ibn al-Haytham, a natural philosopher and astronomer in 11th-century Iraq, said this: “The seeker after truth does not fall in with any mere consensus, however broad or however venerable. Instead, he subjects what he has learned from it to his hard-won scientific knowledge, and he checks it. … The road to the truth is long and hard, but that is the road we must follow.”
The road to the truth is never the wrong road.
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Q. You could get a rowdy reception in Noosa. Do you ever fear for your safety?
A. Australia is a democracy. In a democracy, free speech is always allowed, and a speaker who exercises the right of free speech in a responsible manner has nothing to fear for his safety. Heckling, provided that it is within bounds and does not deny the speaker the right to be heard or the audience the right to hear him, is also always allowed. As a trained orator I am well used to dealing with hecklers fairly and, where necessary firmly.
It will be a sad day when the right to engage in the rough and tumble of policy debate is denied. However, I shall not be engaging in partisan politics: as a guest in your country, I shall of course respect your right to choose your own leaders, and to unmake them if you subsequently change your minds.
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Q. If we continue down the Rudd road, what will happen to Australia?
A. If we continue down the road of lies about the climate that both Government and Opposition in Australia are following, then Peter Spencer will die, and the fundamental freedom of Australians, under their Constitution, to own and use their own land and not to have it effectively expropriated without just compensation, will die with him.
Let me make it clear, however, that my criticism is not of Mr. Rudd, or of his opponents, in particular. What we now face, not only in Australia but worldwide, is a conspiracy of the governors against the governed, of the rich against the poor, of the powerful against the powerless, of the strong against the weak, of the big guy against the little guy.
I decline to join that conspiracy, which is using the climate as a Trojan Horse to breach the citadel of our constitutional rights and freedoms, and even to introduce an unelected world government. Sir Maurice Strong, a Canadian UN bureaucrat a quarter of a century ago, was the first to speak openly of his desire to establish a world government. Ban Ki-Moon, the current secretary-general of the UN, has recently joined Jacques Chirac of France, Angela Merkel of Germany, Al Gore of the United States, and many others in demanding the establishment of a world government.
The early drafts of the Copenhagen Treaty, now fortunately abandoned, also contained the first-ever proposals to put a world government into effect. The word “government” actually appeared twice, in this context, at Article 38 of the main Treaty draft. That is the first time such a proposal has ever appeared in a draft actually debated by national governments.
My final point is this. If you believe a world government is necessary to end manmade “global warming”, which I don’t, then surely you will at least agree with me that that world government should be an elected government, and not the unelected, bureaucratic-centralist dictatorship that the fortunately-defeated Treaty draft proposed. Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth – not while I’m around.
noosa-journal.whereilive.com.au |
