Leading climate-change skeptic visits Flathead

An international celebrity in the world of climate-change skepticism, Lord Christopher Monckton paid a visit the Flathead Valley Tuesday night as part of a speaking tour in Montana.

The presentation, held at the Outlaw Convention Center in Kalispell and sponsored by Northwest Liberty News and Concerned Citizens of Northwest Montana, drew about 150 attendees. During his hour-long talk, the British mathematician denounced the measures urged by climate scientists and world leaders as part of a conspiracy designed to subject citizens of countries around the world to a system of global governance and control.

Monckton has gained renown in conservative circles after working alongside former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with whom he co-founded the Centre for Policy Studies in 1974. Since then, the House of Lords member has emerged as a leading skeptic of climate change and a proponent of Great Britain’s exit from the European Union.

One of his main targets is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations-backed organization of scientists that publishes annual reports on the impacts and future predictions of climate change.

He accused the organization of using language “designed to confuse, obfuscate and obscure — and what I’m going to do is try to blow some of the fog away.”

Monckton recognizes the “greenhouse effect” of heat-trapping gases in the environment, as well as a warming trend occurring throughout the planet, but attributes the latter to natural processes instead of man-made emissions.

In explaining a theory he has recently developed, Monckton ran through a series of equations that he said demonstrate a fundamental error that has resulted in climate models miscalculating carbon dioxide’s effect on atmospheric temperature.

“The bottom line of what all this complicated mathematics means is there is not going to be [significant climate change] for at least a few thousand years,” he told the audience.

Earlier in the day Monckton had toured Glacier National Park, and responded to a question from an audience member by stating that the park’s glaciers — often cited as one of the most visible signs of a changing climate — have been disappearing since 1850, while human influence on the global environment would not have begun until 1950.

Scientific literature examining the park’s glaciers have shown that their retreat began at the end of the “Little Ice Age,” a global cooling period that ended in the mid-19th century. However, scientists studying the ongoing changes in the park’s glacial ice say that the glaciers began retreating more rapidly alongside increasing annual average temperatures recorded in the park during the 20th century.

A classical architect by training, Monckton studied mathematics and focuses his research on climate change and economics.

Monckton is also the chief policy adviser to the Science and Public Policy Institute and is a board member of the International Climate Science Coalition, both of which are organizations dedicated to criticizing mainstream climate science.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.