If there ever was a time when President Obama should be apologizing for American bullying, the Congressional embarrassment and bullying of a British subject Friday, April 24th 2009 would qualify. On that day a House of Representatives Sub Committee on Energy and the Environment, chaired by Henry Waxman of California, had scheduled a hearing on global warming with a “celebrity” who was Al Gore.
The Republicans decided to ask a “celebrity” of their own, Sir Christopher Monckton. Monckton is a member of the House of Lords in England, and former science advisor to Margaret Thatcher, and a top tier global warming expert. A celebrity in his own right, Monckton had flown from England to be on the panel.
Upon arrival in the US, Monckton was told that Congressional Democrats did not want him on the panel with Al Gore. In Monckton’s words “The House Democrats don’t want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face. They are cowards.” A GOP House source said that the Democrats on the Committee said “absolutely not” to allow Monckton to appear during the Gore hearing - See http://www.climatedepot.com/
The ferocious Democratic opposition to the appearance of Monckton suggests that the Democrats themselves knew of the scientific weaknesses of Mr. Gore’s hypothesis, knew that the manmade global warming hypothesis was unproven, knew that Monckton was extremely knowledgeable of that very science, and that he had the communications skills (known from prior debates) to win such a head to head debate. The one thing that the non-scientist Gore and others like him do so well, is avoid direct contact with such knowledgeable people.
This type of bullying is not new in American politics and especially with the politics surrounding global warming issues. These were discussed recently at the 2nd International Global Warming Conference in New York City. The Anthropogenic Global Warming lobby (AGW), has been promoting the global warming scare for more than 20 years and have become extremely powerful, wealthy, and nasty. They also have the overwhelming support of the media, who are always on their life-long hunt for another doomsday story.
To a great extent the AGW lobby controls who gets funded and who doesn’t. This involves huge sums of research dollars probably between $3-5 billions annually. In addition this lobby controls who gets published, who doesn’t, who gets the acclaim, and who gets scorned. Even the editorial policies of several major science journals have been corrupted, and they control who gets published or not.
The Congressional treatment of Monckton is shameful on several levels. While our president goes out of his way to bow and scrape and apologize to murderous dictators, Congress now proceeds with the bullying of a first rate scientist from a friendly nation. It is shameful that a great opportunity for a face to face debate and balanced discussion of the real science of global warming was missed This could have taken the discussion much closer to resolution and even finality. The Congress would have been enlightened, as would the media, as would the American public.
Those of us who have met Monckton, discussed his work, studied his analyses, and read his writings know of his command of the evidence of global warming. Many of us are extremely embarrassed by the thoughtless treatment by our government of such a learned man. By contrast, Mr. Gore is not a scientist and seems to have little regard for the importance either of the scientific methods or for actual evidence, data, and measurements. Congress seems to be either unaware or deliberately overlooking this weakness.
Science is based on evidence. Science is not consensus, science is not appealing to authorities, and scientific evidence is not produced by computer models. Consensus and computer models are often used when one doesn’t have evidence.
Many of Monckton writings can be found and read at (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/). In fact one of Monckton’s articles on this website is a discussion of the many errors in Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth” (http://tinyurl.com/36pzfe).
In addition, a London High Court also found numerous errors in Gore’s documentary and ordered “new guidance notes” be included with the documentary, indicating its one-sidedness, before it could be further used in British school classes. See http://tinyurl.com/dcdahz
Most scientists would welcome constructive criticisms and discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of their hypotheses, that’s the way real science works. But Al Gore most certainly does not welcome such criticism. He goes to considerable lengths to avoid them.
For example, Gore has been invited twice to the two annual meetings of the International Conference on Climate Change, both held in New York City. His 6-figure speaker’s fee was also offered. He did not appear either time. This aversion to scientific criticism of his scientific hypothesis speaks reams to serious scientists who have serious unanswered questions. His behavior suggests that he likely has something to hide, such as a very weak and indefensible hypothesis about global warming, and the dearth of actual evidence.
A huge opportunity was missed when this House Committee chose to suppress real evidence and not to support the pursuit of the truth and resolution this scientific issue. Instead the House committee chose to support the heavily promoted myths of man-made global warming. That is a shame.
Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is a nuclear scientist and a science and energy resource for Hawaii Reporter and a science analyst for the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, is retired and now lives in Eastern Washington. He has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. He has also taught chemistry and energy at the University level. His interest in the communications of science has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. He can be reached via email at mailto:mike@foxreport.org