Peter Hartcher on Barnaby Joyce’s address to the Press Club:
”Because we represent the alternative government in Australia, that does not mean that we are omnipotent and that our views permeate to become the views of everyone else. We have to provide an outcome that represents the aspirations of the Australian people.”
In other words, we’re doing it because we have to pander to the electorate’s views, even if we think they’ve been gulled by a giant fraud.
And he made plain that he thinks this is exactly what it is.
Speaking to The Age before his speech to the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday, Lord Monckton said he had noted that Mr Abbott was very engaged by climate issues.
Lord Monckton said he told Mr Abbott his $3.2 billion policy to reduce carbon emissions by 5 per cent was unnecessary because carbon affected the atmosphere only one-seventh of what the United Nations said it did.
But Lord Monckton added that Mr Abbott’s policies to encourage tree planting and to help industry save energy would help address ”genuine” environmental problems.
”It is indeed better to have a policy which nods to the issue of climate change for those who still believe, and there are some diehards who still believe, that fixes some of the genuine environment issues that are a lot cheaper than the enormous amounts diverted to this ridiculous climate thing,” Lord Monckton said.
Later Monckton told the National Press Club that human-emitted carbon emissions were not warming the planet, that increased sun activity accounted for recent higher temperatures, and that the draft negotiating text at December UN climate talks had proposed setting up a world government.
It really disturbs me that this fruitcake gets the recognition and kudos afforded by a Nat Press Club lunch. Shouldn’t they just be laughing at him?
Bernard Keane in Crikey highlights the media double standard regarding Joyce. The question is why?
indeed – or even just get the names Karl Rove and Rove McManus mixed up…
In this case though, the media response partly reflects Joyce’s pre-existing lack of credibility, I think. He’s already so far past credible that there is not much to be surprised at when he cocks up again…
I’m sure that’s true, sg, but Keane’s point about the higher standard he should be held to in this role is a compelling one. We deserve better than having his nonsense go under-analysed because he’s seen as a buffoon.
What’s truly extraordinary is the number of people who make this “Sure Monckton is a fruitloop but we can trust him on AGW science” argument – see John Quiggin’s latest post.
Yeah. Who chooses the guests at the Press Club luncheons, and why was Monckton, who (absent, to my knowledge, the anti-Semitism) is off in Lyndon LaRouche territory, getting an invite?
Who gets more kudos, Monckton or Ferret?
Well, it is the National Press Club, a private organisation, whose main functions, I suspect, are to provide a gloss of professionalism for Australia’s media hacks and, through the lunches etc, easy access for said hacks to the newsmakers of the day. Essentially, it’s like a flock of chooks organising a “club” where the farmers can come along and sling them some layer pellets. Gives the chooks a sense of self-worth and keeps the chook farmers happy to know that productivity is assured.
Last comment from me was re #7.
You only need to look at the Board of Directors to realise the direction in which this particular club is heading.
I was reading from that very same hymn book just this afternoon, someone had kindly left it on a vacated train seat. This was the Sydney Telegraph version which covered the Joyce Monckton psalmns from every conceivable perspective. I was much impressed with the editors creativity for, as you know, it is very difficult to effuse over “nothing much there” for any length of time. The sing along section was particular amusing.
This led me to wonder if there wasn’t something far more interesting here. I had come across this article recently
http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2010/01/mountain-mouse-found-to-be-new.html
and I started to think that we may well soon be seeing a similar article titled “Environmental-denialists-found-to-be-new-species”
Curious. If I recall correctly, this is the same press club in which Glenn Milne introduced David Suzuki as someone who wrote a lot about “the mess we’re in and how we got there” some years ago. What happened?
Robbo: I suspect it’s typical journo “balance”, where they think that the requirements of good, neutral reporting can be met by finding person A who says “x is true”, person B who says “x is false”, and quoting them both without bothering to investigate the credibility and representativeness of either A or B.
Robert, I don’t think that Journo’s “find” these sorts of people, the people generally find the Journos with a deluge of “press releases”. These days in marketing people try to attain a status for a guaranteed “hearing”. This is really what Monckton is all about. He has enough of a profile to be assured of “air time”, no matter how whackey his ideas are, and reading the Telegraph he has found a chorus of vacuous minds to chant along with what ever words he chooses to hang together.
Votes, they hope.
Lordey!
@ 14 Yes Robert, it’s balance.
For example, according to the “balance” doctrine, sense has to be “balanced” with nonsense. Hence Monckton.
Hang on, Mercurious, whoo’ve they had on the “sense” side recently?
The last one I can remember was Sen Milne some time last year.
But why doesn’t this sense of balance (ahh vertigo) apply, say to David Irving’s namesake?
They draw the line somewhere, these fearless guardians of our rights, so why do they include the likes of Monkton in the acceptable commentator category?
And he only has ‘enough of a profile’ because the media has given him that profile!
DI(nr) @17, Perhaps the “sense” is much weightier than the nonsense, so they feel intuitively that they need a lot more nonsense to provide the “balance”?
This guy is a nativist. Pure and simple.
Talking down the World Bank’s food programmes is dangerous, crazy town politics.
I know ‘can you imagine if?’ analogies are cheap, but can you imagine if Lindsay Tanner as Opposition finance spokesman had started making noises about Hugo Chavez being a misunderstood bloke? That’s basically how crazy Joyce’s rhetoric is.
Anyone from here actually attend Monckton’s public lecture at the NPC yesterday?
Aside from me, that is?
MarkL
canberra
Joyce has made the Liberal Party virtually extinct- it is unquestionable that they are already endangered in the short term…. the other night on Lateline he exposed democracy as a potential joke: how could anyone vote for this person?!!? There will be a protest vote and that is absolutely without a doubt!
They are on the ropes and once you are on your heels and the superior has the advantage of rest it is close to impossible not to soil yourself in trying to get back to square one….
Lol, and cheers!
Lol also at Question time w/ Abetz being told to hang his head in shame!
*** Drink and be merry: we are witnessing the end of an era! ***
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2009/10/they-do-things-differently-at-newscorp.html
Here is ‘balance’ for you.
From the link above.
“Here’s how staff of the Adelaide Advertiser describe things in an internal memo:
“There are many conflicting instructions, blanket bans on certain words and subjects, and a lack of trust in the reporter to choose what to focus on…
Management often dictates an editorial line it wants reporters to take that is in conflict with what our contacts say. Much of a day can be wasted trying to find one person to say what management wants them to say. This is not reporting, it is fabricating news…”
Wow!!
I take back everything I said at 12, HD.
It’s not just newscorp either, let me assure you.
Possibly, Elise @ 19, but I doubt it. However, Red Kezza had a proper scientist on tonight, and (I think) asked exactly the right questions in exactly the right tone. Perhaps the ABC is finally getting its courage back.
Incidentally, adrian @ 18, you raise an interesting question about my namesake. I think they should let the evil fucker into the country (if only so I can throw rotting vegetables at him, for taking my name in vain).
I think the media are having one of their “oh dear looks like we got the wrong template” moments. Recall that Sen. Joyce was supposed to be a “maverick”? This was the archetype chosen at the time of the the good Sens. election. He would be pragmatic, reasoned and a breathe of fresh air. Well turns out he’s more David Duke than John McCain. So those highly paid augers of our public sphere are now just ignoring him and hoping that nobody will tap them on the shoulder and ask for their money back. Pathetic.
Just for the record, Barnaby thinks Monckton is on the fringe:
DI(nr)@ I thought the Oppenheimer interview was good too and that Kerry O’B was very comfortable asking searching but unloaded questions which elicited facts and objectivity rather than sensation that built up the drama of the sceptics v. scientists story.
Interesting though to see that the transcript on the website is headed “IPCC scientists on the defensive as sceptics step up assault” and the intro as on the program is about “Revelations of at least one significant error in the most recent report of the IPCC…..etc”. The slant is still there.
The strength of the IPCC case with people like me with no scientific background is in their obvious integrity, such as we see in Professor Michael Oppenheimer. As mentioned by others on the LP thread about the sociology of anti-science mine is the gut reaction of the majority that the climate has changed and I believe those who say we must do something about it. Of course I can follow the logic of arguments and understand about the weight of evidence as developments pro and con unfold. Still I’m like most people out there who don’t understand the science. We have to Professor Michael Oppenheimer and the flaky self promoter Lord Monkton is crystal clear to me.
Sorry, late night slip. I deleted two whole lines as I submitted. Last sentence should read
“We have to decide for ourselves who to trust and the difference between Professor Michael Oppenheimer and the flaky self promoter Lord Monkton is crystal clear to me.”
I have it on good authority, a member of the UK house of lords, IPPC reviewer, adviser to a British PM and a mathematician, all rolled into one superperson, that there was no ice in the Arctic Ocean when a Chinese fleet visited there back in 1421.
Dinkum.
Trust me, I mean, trust him.
Would he tell fibs?
Whether or not he’d tell porkies is moot, hannah’s dad, but his grasp on reality is so tenuous as to make that irrelevant.
I take it he took Gavin Menzies’ superb piece of speculative fiction to be a history.
Actually, hannah’s dad, he’s not a member of the UK House of Lords. He stood for election to one of the spots reserved for hereditary peers after Labour kicked most of them out, and received precisely 0 votes from his fellow peers.
Yeah I know Mark, all of my descriptors of Monckton are untrue or, at best, exaggerated.
It was my attempt at sarcasm, I must learn how to do sarcasm smilies.
His IPCC review status is something you and I could share, the IPCC enciourages anyone to respond to its reports, his mathematical qualification is minimal and his advisory capacity to Maggie had nothing to do with science.
Yet I have seen all of these things, and others, trotted out as eminent qualifications at various denial sites.
I suppose the serious point I was hinting at is that Kerry gave a scientist a hard time last night, as referred to by Patricia, but if the media really wanted to roast Monckton, and several of his running mates, they would have no shortage of raw material to do him over thoroughly.
Two different standards.
Just to add to the deceit this is an excerpt from Monckton’s letter to two US pollies a few years ago[the one where he defends Exxon] where he describes himself as:
“Finally, you may wonder why it is that a member of the Upper House of the United Kingdom legislature, ….” so Monckton is spreading the story that he is a Lords member.
Last night Kerry brought up the relationship of some scientists to environmental groups yet the ties of those such as Monckton to lobby groups backed by oil companies is soft pedalled.
Monckton’s tour of Canada last year for example was sponsored by a group, Friends of Science, which has [reluctantly] admitted it has been funded by oil interests.
Interesting what?
Actually, hahhah’s dad, Red Kezza asked all the right questions last night. He was probing without being confrontational, and anyone watching the interview would’ve been left with a strong impression of the integrity of the IPCC review process, and the robustness of its conclusions.
@36 – hannah’s dad, I was concerned to note that, since as you say, Monckton lies about being a member of the UK Parliament.
Thats generous I reckon DI[NR].
When you contrast that line of enquiry [and one of Kery's questions about Amazon rain forest was not correct and had to be corrected by the scientist] with the easy ride Barnaby and co get when associating with the likes of Monckton, there is an element of where there is smoke there is fire.
Quite frankly the scientists are raked over the coals over largely confected matters, for example the OO has reluctantly recently published an article that admits Climate Gate was a beat up without admitting their own role in such, but the denialists do worse by far every day almost.
The OO allowed Bellamy to repeat his claims that he was denied TV access because of his anti AGW stance a couple of years ago yet some fairly perfunctory research would have exposed his claims as nonsense.
Double standards.
Yep, guys like Monckton can babble on about ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACIES all they like and get a full media hearing as long as they’re trashing the IPCC and climate scientists.
If the world’s premier Moon Landing Hoax theorist was out here do you think the Press Club would offer him the podium?
Hannah’s dad @35: “his mathematical qualification is minimal and his advisory capacity to Maggie had nothing to do with science.”
There is some kind of strange inverse logic operating in Australia, where people would rather listen to someone with a grand title, than someone who had real knowledge or experience on a subject. Why give Monckton the same platform and deferential treatment as a senior academic with experience in the subject matter?
In my own small way, I saw the same inverse logic operating in the local branch of the Australian Shareholders Association, with regard to peak oil. They were looking for someone to give a summary of the data, and its possible implications for sharemarket investments.
The organisers knew my qualifications, including engineering degrees and a business degree, and my experience from many years in the overseas oil industry (both research and operations). They asked provisionally, and I said happy to oblige. Could I have given them some interesting information and food for thought? Obviously not.
They instead chose to get the local rep of ASPO to do the talk. His background? Lab technician in a non-oil research department of CSIRO, and a greeny bee in his bonnet about bike paths and public transport (marginally useful but not sufficient to meet the scale of the upcoming problem). No background in business or finance or sharemarket investing. Apparently his title as local rep for ASPO, and his suitably vague claim to be a retired CSIRO researcher was more important.
Saved me time in preparing a talk. And the silly old farts in ASA are none the wiser.
Similarly the silly old farts in ASA would rather listen to Lord Monckton, and quoted him at me at a recent meeting, as proof positive that there was no such thing as climate change.
Is this peculiar to Aussies (preferring titles to experience) or simply to the old farts at ASA?
The thing is, hannah’s dad (sorry about the earlier mis-spelling, btw), Kerry gave the bloke time and space to answer. (Unlike certain RN Breakfast announcers I can think of.)
I think even the Amazon Forest thing was good, as that large untruth has been in the news lately, and Oppenheimmer had the opportunity to debunk it thoroughly.
DI(nr) @42: “Kerry gave the bloke time and space to answer.”
Yes, that is exactly what is needed. A bit less of the trite sound-bites, and a bit more thoughtful examination of the issues. Thank heavens for Kerry, and the few like him!
We could do with the ABC running a series of interviews, across the different scientific disciplines, on the wide range of areas where rapid climate change is having a significant impact.
Not just global temperature arguments. The whole range, from wetlands and the impact on frogs and thus up the food chain, to El Nino and the Murray Darling, to bushfire regions and increasing fire risks, to the extending range and season of deadly box jellyfish along the Qld coast, to glacial retreat in different countries, to opening of the Northwest Passage, etc.
Random brain dump there, but hopefully you get the drift. We are too tightly focussed on a couple of aspects of the problem at the moment. We need to look more holistically at the total affect on our global ecosystem, talking to people who actually study the subject matter. Not simply giving sound bites to bug-eyed loonies, as if the audience has only porridge or alzheimers tangles between their ears.
I can believe that.
This relates to something that’s been seriously bugging me since I read that Crikey piece linked to in the other thread—Monckton styling his visit downunder as a ‘tour of the Commonwealth of Australia’.
There is no way known any human being who doesn’t wear the ‘Australian crown’ is allowed to use protocol like that.
And it doesn’t matter if he reckons he isn’t breaching officialdom, merely stating fact, as there is no such geographic entity as the Commonwealth of Australia. We don’t live in that land, Monckton isn’t holidaying in it.
I wonder if the pratt went along to the denialist conference in Washington DC with Fielding as a ‘visitor to the Republic of the United States of America’?
DN [nr]
Jeez I’m getting old, didn’t even notice the spelling mistake!
Elise
About 15 or so years ago shortly after we came to live on the Murray we had a blue-green algae outbreak.
Nasty one.
Anyway someone interviewed some scientist about it on TV probably ABC, causes and impact sort of thing.
The interviewer asked the science fella why there had been no prior warning about this outbreak.
The fella reached down to the floor behind his chair [this was in a studio], pulled out a satchel, reached in and grabbed thick piles of reports, lots of them, and started dropping them on the desk one by one “This one says we’ll have water quality problems like this, its the 19## report from XYZ, this one from the Dept of whoever says the same thing, this one is by such and such 2 years ago, he concludes ….”
And so on.
I think he anticipated the question.
Hannah’s dad @45, “The interviewer asked the science fella why there had been no prior warning about this outbreak….I think he anticipated the question.”
I reckon we could guess at the sense of despair and frustration with which he presented those reports.
“I told you so…” has such an empty, frustrating feel to it.
It is no wonder some of the scientists are reacting as if they feel under siege, and as if they are losing the media war. Media performances are not their strength.
Performances are, however, the preferred arena for people like Monckton, as he indeed said himself. All he needs is for the media to give him oxygen. I bet even if he knew he was talking absolute bull, he would still do it, because he likes all the attention.
Mike Carlton’s column (SMH) refers to him as Lord Discount which is the best so far after Lord Planckton.
I like it Anthony, but Miscount Monckton may be even more apt, given his claims to mathematical expertise …
No Account Monckton may also have some claims, given his lordship exists in his own mind …
Is sincerely hope Carlton’s pronouncing it Dye-count. Dunno why exactly, but it appeals to my sense of humanguage.
I am feeling particularly agrieved having found out from Lord Plankton, Witchin Minchin, US Rethuglians and their fellow travellers, that I (being prediposed to the odd bit of navel gazing) am part of a huge communist world conspiracy to dominate and murder shockjocks in their beds) (It does have a certain je nes ces’t quois)
I must complain most vociferously that I have yet to see any of the acoutrements of world domination that I am obviously entitled to – first class flights, nubian slaves, slavering media, righteous blessings, Swiss bank accounts, vintage champagne and very bad sports coats.
Perhaps Lord P can set me right.
Don’t forget you’re probably also a feminazi, Fascinated.
51# DI(nr)
Quite so old chap.
Mike Carlton had this to say about the relationship between the leaping lord and the truth in the National Times The cartoon at the start says it all.
Thanks John D for the link. It was refreshing.
Tim (Deltoid) Lambert to “debate” the mad Monckton next Friday.
Agree John D, cartoon fits the character well and good to see that there are still some ‘real’ journalist, as in being au fait in digging dirt and stacking it in neat piles. May I introduce to you the right honorable Lord Pinocchio, expert in telling fibs and pulling wool over willing heads.
mind you Mr Carlton did surmise about Julie Bishops school being Cranbrook – was St Peter’s Collegiate Girls Adelaide Some facts do need to be checked
Given his propensity for propaganda I’m tempted to refer to Discount Monckton as “Lord Haw-Haw”.
Re Tim Lambert debating Monckton (Zarquon @ 55) this has a good chance of ending badly. In debating Ben McNeil on Sunrise Monckton got in his two big points. Firstly, that climate sensitivity is only a quarter to a seventh of what the IPCC claims. Secondly that in terms of risk management you have to be careful that the cure is not worse than the disease and growing biofuels rather than food kills millions.
McNeil was left scrambling.
Along the way Monckton claimed to have written a peer reviewed article on climate sensitivity, which he hasn’t.
The full audio of the Bribane Institute debate is here. I listened to Monckton’s and Barry Brook’s introductions, some of the questions and the wrap-up comments. After Monckton’s initial spiel the audience would be disinclined to listen to any climate scientist ever.
He’s very dangerous. And why was Brook’s microphone turned down so low?
Yes – it makes no sense to debate Monckton. Any politician, not born yesterday, knows to never give the enemy a platform; or put yourself on equal billing.
Monckton is an old journo – very much in the mold of Andrew Bolt.
A climate scientist would never debate Bolt. Nor should one debate Monckton.
Science can not be presented in a hall debate. That’s what all those dry journals are for. Monckton knows what he’s doing, and the debate format is on his terms and he will win the audience over through sheer performance which has been nicely honed over many years.
I listened to Barry Brook’s in Brian’s link@59. He used words such as uncertainty, probability, models, projections, “balance of opinion” etc
Monckton used words like “cannot possibly”, fraud, disgrace, “completely impossible” etc.
Brooks spoke moderately and thus sounded diffident. He was polite to the opposition and so sounded deferential. Monckton spoke in polished tones that rang with authority.
It’s like putting Yo Yo Ma onto Australian Idol and wondering why the audience votes for Guy Sebastien.
Monckton is certainly highly skilled at playing an audience, and he’ll have an audience plus a compere in Alan Jones who is highly sympathetic to him. Also he’ll say whatever it takes to win a point, even if it’s misleading or a lie.
Maybe Lambert should call in sick and leave them to it.
Absolutely, Brian. To hear Readfearn, completely unprepared, and stumbling badly in that debate was to hear someone losing the argument at a million miles an hour. And it is not his argument to lose.
This thread is veering towards exasperation with the average voter.
Must be galling to many readers here at LP that the unwashed electorate at large still get the vote ,can drive their chosen vehicles and live in houses of their own choosing.
I mean really – the last few comments imply they are too stupid to understand common language and who would bother making the effort to debate anything concerning them?
Selfish bastards! Meat eating ,MySchool website reading,southcross tattoo sporting, mainstream media consuming bogans and trogolydtes everyone of them.
Why won’t they just shut up and let the educated leaders of this doomed society change everything so that things will stay the same if they are lucky?
You have to wonder….
I agree with WBB and have said so over at Lambert’s blog … Of course, if he is to engage in this sideshow, he should “debate” in the style of sound-byte driven doorstops, designed to sledge and provoke Monckton by attacking his reputation.
For example:
The key thing for Tim to keep in mind are the audiences.
1. Monckton — Tim needs to annoy him enough to want to talk at you rather than pitch at the audience. If you can bait him as a schyster and get him to defend himself he will waste time that could be used spreading his nonsense.
2. The live audience: Tim’s not going to change any minds. hardly anyone will go who hasn’t made up their mind and most of those who do will be incorrigible morons and also unhinged. They are there to fawn at Monckton. He needs to make Monckton the bad guy so that …
3. the main audience, the press, can’t say Monckton got a rousing reception, which they will clearly want to do.
Monckton will probably expect this, so it won’t be easy but if Tim is to put him off, he has to sledge him and make him abandon Plan A — lying about the science. And he has to get the audience thinking about why they should trust this man with their grandkids’ future.
@64 Yes, well, Murph, I guess it’s rather galling to the born-to-rule set that the unwashed electorate keeps stubbornly voting ALP as well, but, you know, suck it up.
Fran, i wouldn’t use the terms “incorrigible morons and also unhinged.” I know personally a heap of people who think Plimer, Carter, Monckton etc are on the side of the angels. One of Monckton’s ‘strengths’ is that he has enough technospeak and the claim to understand the language of maths to pose as a scientific insider.
A person with a lay understanding is not a moron if they can’t untangle the scientific issues.
Way to miss the point Mercurious but as grasping the meaning of language is a speciality of the educated ones the riddle just gets more and more curious.
I haven’t suggested the born to rule set are the problem- that phantom loiters in the dark recesses of your mind.
Debate and explanation have to be entered into and continued despite the actions of the opposing side.
Having online tizzies about the intellectual inadequacy of the audience makes the points you are making appear brittle and insubstantial.
Weird attitude for a self proclaimed education expert.
@68 oh dear, missed the point did you Murph? You suggested there’s a lot of harrumphing going on here because a bunch of easily-led followers are being easily-led. Yet that’s precisely the sort of harrumphing I hear from the conservative side of politics whenever they lose an election. “We wuz robbed!” they cry. “If only they understood that only we have the answers!”
So, methinks, you are projecting the typical conservative reaction to a loss of power and relevance onto us. Since you’re a self-proclaimed expert at understanding language (BTW, there’s nothing self proclaimed about my own qualifications and expertise.) I trust that point is clear.
If you say so. Niels Bohr was infamously abrupt with the intellectual inadequacy of those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, grasp the deeper meanings of the Copenhagen school of quantum physics (Einstein included). But there was nothing brittle or insubstantial about his interpretation of quantum mechanics.
A sterling attitude of tolerance and understanding for the marketplace of ideas. I take it then you’re itching to sit down and debate with, say, Al Qaeda or Hamas leadership, despite their actions? How about Holocaust deniers? Birthers? How about 9/11 Truthers? There’s a two-thousand post thread somewhere around here that serves as pretty fair testament to our willingness to submit to your self-proclaimed test of obligatory debate. Or is your global declaration of which debates “have to be entered into” a little more selective than that? Perhaps our obligation to debate is restricted only to the debates you want to have? A fine principle, that is.
Brian said:
Nor I, were I out there debating in front of them, but it is very likely that these people will form the majority of the audience.
Clearly not, as the scientific issues are complex and realtively difficult to get at. On the other hand, if they can’t make enough of them to distinguish Monckton from people qualified to comment or discern the flaws in his claim, then really, they ought not to be considering Plimer, Monckton and their ilk as experts on the matter. To do so in such circumstances is moronic.
In any event, for this audience, the scientific issues are likely to be entirely secondary to cultural concerns about taxation, the scope of state-based regulation, angst about remote elites and authenticity etc … They feel very qulaified to make a judgement on those grounds because no insight at all is required into science. Monckton only has to utter some scientistic verbiage with confidence e.g. “this violates the Stefan–Boltzmann law” and the audience can feel chuffed at believing what they like about world communist conspirators, how fat Al Gore is, and carbon-trading’s contribution to it.
Fran, I can feel your frustration about the exploitation of the ignorant and the uneducated by people like Monckton. I can see Brian does too. They don’t really feel qualified to judge these issues, far from it until they meet demagogues like Monckton. He feeds their fears and encourages their prejudice against those they sense may have a better understanding. The challenge, however, for people of your intellect and if you dont mind my including him, Rudd, is how to communicate effectively at their level. When their misinformation and prejudice is further exploited by power hungry politicians like Abbott democracy is in real trouble.
In checking my spelling of demagogue I was reminded again of its meaning: “Demagogy is a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public — typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes.” Now who does that remind me of?
Well written Patricia WA – you are a champion for the little people.
Poor stupid and ignorant types that they are- thank God you are here to help Fran guide them into the future.
Yes murph, and aren’t they lucky that the lovely, lovely, delicious, scrumptious, Lord Monckton has come along to rescue them from the sinister clutches of Patricia and Fran! They nearly got away with their plan for World Government until His Eminence Christopher The Magnificent Fine Sausage Old Chap swept in on his trusty steed Gwendolyn and decapitated the hydra-headed World Government with his rapier wit!
Tally ho!
Mecurius#73
I think Tim Lambert should remind the audience on Friday that not only has Lord M alledgedly sledged the mighty CSIRO and probably our BOM, beer and birds, worse the stars of the Womens Weekly and doctors surgery waiting rooms..HRM ELizabeth and HRH Philip for being part of some nasty world order thingy. How dare he..hes the sort of bloke who pretends to be a jolly fine chap..wink wink..and pinches unsuspecting upstairs maids on the bottom. If he is using the truth like he might the maids, he’s a cad and bouncer… the sort of fellow who would put his shout on a tab and nick off before he paid the bill.
Media Watch sorted Monckton out tonight.
It’s a pity that only about a handful of people would’ve seen it.
The whole Monckton phenomenon, as it has played out on radio, in print, on the telly and here in the blogosphere is sad proof that the cultural cringe is not dead.
Consider – an English chancer with the looks of Basil Brush and the morals of PT Barnum tours the country, spruiking himself and his crazy views in any forum he can poke his face into and how is he treated. Invariably, the presenters announce him as “Lord Christopher Monckton” or refer to his hereditary title – not as plain Christopher Monckton. Here on LP, comentators get stuck into him on the basis that the Viscountcy or Viscountery or whatever the hell it is, wasn’t awarded to some distant ancestor who done brave things, but some not so distant ancestor what was a sharp lawyer.
The result? As shown on Media Watch tonight, the outright lies and slander of this poncy tosser go unchallenged on radio and TV and he gets to swan around the country, winning the adulation of Quadrant’s subscribers, editorial staff and board members unchallenged.
Harumph!
Not quite unchallenged, Gummo, but I take your point.
Tim Lambert has (unwisely, in my view) agreed to a public debate (refereed by the Parrot) with the lying fucker.
Gummo, Monckton has also had a dream run on local ABC radio out in the provinces.
Patricia WA and Fran, what I’m reacting to is the characterisation of people who take a contrarian point of view and are persuaded by the likes of Carter, Plimer and Monckton as “the ignorant and the uneducated” or worse. I attended a lecture by Carter in Rockhampton and got the impression that very few of the audience could be so described. Some had formal academic qualifications of one kind or another and those that didn’t were clearly not unintelligent. A surprising number had actually read a book or two about climate change.
Carter and Monckton are both charismatic communicators and Plimer was quite impressive too the first time I heard him in a long conversation with Margaret Throsby on ABC FM radio at a time when I knew next to nothing about climate change. The demagogue descriptor probably fits Monckton, but that is a value judgement.
Moreover there are still uncertainties associated with the central concept of climate sensitivity, specifically in relation to aerosols and clouds. I don’t want to go into an analysis of the problem here, but Monckton in particular is brilliant in exploiting any perceived chink in the AGW armour.
I’ve been looking for a climate scientist with the communication and debating skills to take on the likes of Monckton in a public arena and haven’t yet seen one who comes close.
But I don’t think that people who accept the anti-AGW POV should be denigrated as such.
I also think Tim L should have declined.
And I thoroughly agree with Brian – it’s neither true, nor remotely helpful to characterise those who might attend such events as universally ignorant. I think fear of change, and all sorts of emotional touch points, which the Moncktons of the world know how to push, sow the seeds of receptivity.
The point implied in my other post, before it got thoroughly derailed, and it’s one I’ve made before, is that very few of us are in a position to judge for ourselves the science. Those who spend a lot of time looking into the literature, and those who understand the style of thinking which underlies it, are still rarely those who have actually been trained in and work in these very specific disciplines.
Further to that, I think that the assumption of superiority and an attitude of condescension is itself part of the problem, in that they validate the elites v. people frame.
That’s right, Mark. Those of us who accept the science do not necessarily have a better understanding of it than those who deny it.
The great challenge of this peril is that the blind must, for once actually, lead the blind. Those who can truly see the truth of this are so few in number.
We don’t understand the science – we are predisposed to believing it. Or not. That’s why we can’t allow it to be a normal democratic numbers game.
It’s certainly the case, wbb, that acceptance or otherwise of the science is not a matter of counting heads. Beyond that, I’m not sure what the implications of your statement are.
And that’s a related point, Brian. It’s not in the nature of the training scientists receive (and indeed, at some level, of the sorts of personality types who first choose then thrive in such careers) to be expert communicators and debaters in the broader public realm.
Note also that Monckton’s schtick is accompanied by a huge appeal to authority and status cues as well (“mathematician”, “member of the Upper House”, “educated at Cambridge”, “policy advisor”, blah blah, even if some of those claims are untrue or distortions of the truth).
Mark, I’ve been reading about James Hansen. Back in the 70s he had to explain some technical graphic in public in a non-threatening environment. His brain just froze and he had to sit down. For years after that he refused all invitations to appear on the media.
Monckton always has insider knowledge which is very hard to question or counter. When the Himalayan glaciers came up Monckton rang up his mate, a prof on some Indian institution for whom the 9,000 plus glaciers were his family. He was able to report that the glaciers are doing just fine. Too bad about those glaciologists who study these things statistically and know otherwise.
Mark & Brian, as threads get entangled this would probably go originally on the ‘cultural politics of anti-science’ discussion but since the subject of “elites” has cropped up here, I’ll add it here:
The ‘World Government’ paranoia of the Moncktons of this world seem like an odd kind of projection to me. Monckton represents the last lingering shreds of the previous world order – colonialism, with its hereditary titles (however tenuous and obscure), peerage and neo-feudal mindset.
I still think that the dying runt of the previous ‘elite’ classes want their World Government back: a time when the sun never set on the Union Jack. It’s a strange topsy-turvy world we inhabit when a jumped-up carnival clown wearing the trappings of the Old Word Order can ignite the paranoia of the disenfranchised former elites into shadow-boxing the New World Order. (BTW, your secret New World Order mission is being sent to you via encrypted Farmville strawberries!)
Brian@78
I’m not going to claim to be a talented communicator (despite doing 8 years of community radio in the 80s and many talks and articles since), but I wouldn’t debate Monckton and would advise any fellow scientist not to so. My downfall, like a lot of other scientists is that I want to be truthful and explain things. Unfortunately, that means more than five second soundbites. One may go to attack a liar and cheat, but then you would need to know a lot about that person (i.e. what they have claimed etc) in order to take them apart. You would also need to be right across the subject matter. The aim is not then to convince the audience via knowledge, it is to destroy the opposition. But with a knowing twinkle in your eye, otherwise you will turn the audience off.
Debates are for rhetoric. I’ve won debates by using arguments I don’t believe and so has any debater, including all politicians.
And your comments on the issue, Mark’s and wbb I agree with too. I meant to catch Mediawatch but missed it.
The quality of debate and information in the MSM has plummeted. I no longer subscribe to newspapers after years of reading through at last one broadsheet of a morning because I no longer trust the information they print. I heard the Insiders on News Radio on Sunday and was disgusted as outright lies were bandied about unchallenged. I condemn all commenters on that show (not just the obvious one) and the host. Fact checking has plummeted as easy access to the intertubes means innuendo, opinion and rumour passes as news and the same memes travel across the newspapers of the world.
Denialism is a disease of a particular segment of western culture; politically conservative individualist hierarchists in cultural theory terms. It happens that this segment is highly represented in boardrooms and over-represented in media ownership. It has become a political force in the English speaking world and the Czech Republic (thankyou Vaclav). I don’t think such denialism on climate change or science generally exists as a political force generally in Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Pacific or much of Europe. Islamic science is also mainstream in this regard (the OPEC countries keep science and politicial opinion separate despite science being a tool of state-led progress). Not so sure about Russia. Nationalistic conservatism is another reason, and we see a little of that in India wrt the Himalayan issue. Arundhati Roy has her finger on that and has been critiquing it for years.
Coming back to the debates, there is a quality we may call truthiness and another that we may call falsity. Neither of these relate to the content of a speaker’s utterances, but its how they come across in relaying highly contested information. There has been a Darwinian sifting of those who deny and those with the highest quotient of truthiness are those who get the public speaking gigs. F’r instance, a few years ago Rob Gell and I in a debate on radio 774 in Melbourne with Bill Kininmonth, persuaded John Faine to drop his mild skepticicms on climate change. Rob, by pushing the advocacy and me by fitting Bill’s points into a wider scientific context. Bill doesn’t speak widely – he mainly writes on the issue.
Unfortunately, a large number of my colleagues project falsity in those environments. Nuance, or talking about uncertainty is not welcome, when TEH TRUTH is the aim. People are seeking absolutes when none exists. Nor is talking down, smirking or similar. However, when it’s explanatory discourse, guided questions etc, my colleagues are in general, very good.
Few people, including most practising scientists, understand the scientific method with any depth. Partly because at its heart it is paradoxical. It is impossible to prove a scientific theory beyond all doubt (but let’s have a debate about reasonable doubt). This is true in both theoretical and practical terms (partly because these theories concern complex systems that have inherent uncertainty). Therefore, scientific proof is an elusive concept and is strictly an oxymoron. While facts do exist, the body of knowledge constructed from these facts is less certain. The scientific method is a cultural construct that aims to be objective as possible, to get as close as it can to a “true” represention as to how the world works. Therefore, science is not special (the beauty of science that motivates many scientists is not so different to the beauty of poetry or of music), it’s just very good at explaining certain things. And using that information to inform crucial policy decisions is better than relying on cherry-picked confirmatory evidence fashioned according to a particular cultural context.
I am really concerned with where the broader debate is going, because as a society we seem to have no concept of how knowledge is structured and applied. I don’t see this in the education revolution being pushed by government. Training someone to do a particular job is not the same as teaching someone how to think. It’s a job for schools and universities, but when universities harbour known liars who misrepresent their knowledge disciplines what hope do we have?
Roger, very interesting comments, as always.
You certainly have talent in communicating in this medium and your contribution to keeping us from spreading misinformation is much appreciated. Plus the extra insights and information you bring from your experience as a working scientist. You also have the capacity to think in areas beyond the more formal disciplines of science, where scientists often make an awful hash of it.
I think emotion plays an unrecognised role in our thinking, even if we claim, and try, to be guided by logic. Things like symmetry, coherence and the pleasure of problem solving motivate us in a way that is similar to aesthetics. Scientific method as a cultural construct is an important insight, so there should be no surprise if values get into the mix in some way. But the strict logical filter and the appreciation of the importance of different kinds of evidence is essential.
Anyway I’m rambling, but on your last paragraph, one of the most hopeful things I’ve come across is the teaching of philosophy in schools, which my younger son had in primary school. Kids were taught about the importance of evidence and listening to others. Apart from some formal logic they learnt how to summarise arguments, and at the end of each session to self-evaluate on how well they did. Most of all they learnt that people’s positions can legitimately differ, but not in an arbitrary way. Any position they held had to be capable of being defended.
The teaching of philosophy in schools has been promoted by Phil Cam from the UNSW and was being promoted strongly here by the Catholic Education Office.
But the cultural press is very strong. I’m not optimistic about the capacity of the education system to make much difference.
I keep wondering whether Monckton knows when he is straying from the truth. He admits that he vastly enjoys the joust of public disputation. I wonder whether the pleasure he gets from this shuts down his frontal lobes and his self-monitoring capacity.
I suspect a reasonably clued in comedian would be the best person to debate Monckton but I think there would be no way that he or his supporters would let that happen.
Good posts Roger and Brian.
I think some philosophy, psychology, critical thinking and simple heuristics are important things for us all to learn.
Agree with dj @86, good thoughtful posts Roger and Brian.
To my mind, the hardest people to debate are those that act super confident and bullshit a lot, with emphatic statements of “certainty”. It impresses the uninformed, no end.
It takes a lot of work to unpick those emphatic statements, and demonstrate that they are false or unsupportable. Especially if you are trying to be scientifically reasonable.
I reckon that the bullartists generally know perfectly well that they are vastly overstating their case in the least, and outright lying at other times. They don’t care.
Their goal is to “win the argument”, by battering their opponent into exasperated silence.
Their target audience isn’t their opponent, but the uninformed bystanders who are looking for certainty and a reinforcement of their preferred position.
They are a form of con-artist. No conscience about their lies. No remorse.
Anyone here remember Erich von Daniken and “Chariots of the Gods”?
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/R/real_lives/daniken.html
It took years for the science community to run that rubbish into the ground. I read a brilliant little paperback at the height of the craziness, where individual scientists with expertise in each of the different fields picked apart each of his bullshit claims. The claims were so far from the truth, that it beggared belief von Daniken expected to get away with them. Very, very satisfying reading! Unfortunately most people didn’t read the counter arguments.
Some years later, von Daniken was indited for serious financial fraud. A con-artist in more ways than one.
Yes, good posts Roger and Brian.
Having (briefly) sparred with Monctkon in Copenhagen myself, I would conclude that it’s the job for the Monbiots – trained public speakers, PR professionals and others with primary degrees in communication, rhetoric (unfortunately not taught here) or something similar. A good understanding of the science is secondary to the authoritative presentation of talking points.
Thanks for the compliments. Roger is very fluent, I struggle for the words and live in fear of making an ass of myself!
Elise, I remember Erich von Däniken. He sold 63 million copies and is still at it, which says something.
dk:au:
Roger said:
I’m reminded of the famous television debate between Nixon and Kennedy. At the time most reckoned Nixon won the actual debate but Kennedy’s relaxed style and youthful optimism won over the audience. Plus Nixon’s heavily made up face melted under the TV lights and his 5 o’clock shadow made him look like a gangster.
A female friend and colleague of mine was often infuriated at meetings when something she said at would be repeated a little later by a male, with deep voice and slow deliberation, whereupon people listened.
So how you say things is more important for persuasion than what you say.
Erich von Däniken had half the world going there for a while. I remember as a child sharpening razor blades inside a paper pyramid. WTF!
Yep, leave the Moncktons for the Monbiots. No scientist should get in the same room with him. If only that it immediately signals to the audience that Monckton is debating science.
wbb, I think you’re confusing von Daniken with Lyall Watson, author of “Supernature”.
Von Daniken still going! I thought he’d been totally discredited. (truly is an age of false prophets.)
Elise
Interesting that you raised von Daniken. A week or so ago, “The Age” reported a speech from Mr Monckton. Towards the end, the reporter claimed that Mr Monckton said he had developed a medical breakthrough with an English colleague, which (if I recall correctly) might be effective against several deadly diseases. He said of this, “I know it sounds barmy.”
Too right it does, m’Lord. I submit that this claim puts him in the zone of Wacky Charlatans, along with inventors of Pepetual Motion, Cold Fusion; von Daniken and Velikovsky; Lysenko and the several fraudsters on the edges of authentic science. In certain fields of science, these guys go for the big names: they set out to demolish Einstein or Newton, Darwin or Curie; they don’t bother with small fry. Possibly they’ve not heard of the less famous scientists. A Charlie Charlatan wouldn’t bother spruiking his Miracle Cure for slight itches of the thumb. No, he Cures Cancer!!
m’Lord, you don’t know climate science and m’Lord you are not a medical scientist. Cease and desist.
- the Old Wombat
“Plus Nixon’s heavily made up face melted under the TV lights”
I’m fairly sure Nixon refused makeup hence his five o’clock shadow and sinister visage.
Patrickb, I’m fairly sure what I said is what I remember from the time, but it was a long time ago. My understanding was that he had a vigorously growing beard so unless he’d shaved within an hour or two of the appearance the black whiskers were going to show through.
Kennedy didn’t win by much, so that could have been the difference right there!
According to this link, Nixon had been ill, but refused makeup which would have made him look less pallid and disguised his five o clock shadow:
http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=kennedy-nixon
Ambigulous @93, totally agree!
My BS detector was beeping at me already, even before learning that Monckton had misrepresented a lot of things about his qualifications, his background in Thatcher’s government, and his false slanderous comments about other people. After that, the red lights were flashing as well.
One has to first suspect BS whenever someone starts using overly emphatic language and saying that they have conclusively measured or proven something which they clearly could not have done. For example, Monckton made emphatic claims about having personally checked the thickness of ice in Antarctica. Since when has he worked on Antarctica in enough detail to prove anything conclusive?
Amazingly, a bit like megalomaniacs, it seems that the worst bullartists don’t know when to quit. If Monckton is ALSO making extravagant false claims about medical science, it will be his undoing. Too many people with a good reason to nail him. Like Hitler, he has openned up a lot of battle fronts.
Barry Brook has a post up on Monckton vs Brook with a link to a 90-minute video which he recommends rather than the audio and which I haven’t watched yet.
Unfortunately he’s included a debate in Adelaide on nukes in the same post, so most of the comments are about that.
The consensus seems to be that if you want to make headway with denialists in these debates you’d need a courtroom style where you can interrogate your opponent.