Wednesday, April 14, 2010

The Monkton Puzzle - Freedom and Climate

Laird Monkton has been making a good living from promoting the denial of climate change. He is often booked as a speaker by denial-fests and free-market loops worldwide. So what is his appeal to the small but vocal group of people that come to see him? Simple; freedom. Monkton promotes climate change as a communist plot and part of a nefarious Fu-Manchu like scheme of global government. He casts himself as the freedom fighter - using his non-science education in Latin to unravel the complex science of global warming. He fights against government intrusion and for the little guy.

But it was not always so. Back the in 80s when AIDS first appeared, Monkton - then inside the corridors of power - was happy to use fear as a weapon. He promoted the solution to AIDS; global mass quarantine;

"there is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month ... all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently." This would involve isolating between 1.5 and 3 million people in the United States ("not altogether impossible") and another 30,000 people in the UK ("not insuperably difficult").


Wow - imagine the global legal powers you'd need to enforce a mass program of testing and quarantine? You'd need global treaties dis-empowering each individual person on the planet and subordinating them to an enforced programme of medical testing. You'd need to build loads of internment camps worldwide (of the kind conspiracy theorists love talking about) and the like. Imagine the cost of this? It would be an astronomical cost, I would guess dwarfing the cost of mitigating climate change.

Not only that - I can't see how it would ever work. You'd need 100% accuracy in the testing to contain it. Human error would ensure that would not happen if nothing else. People would resist as internment is the consequences of getting caught out... It would be a total disaster.

So only a few years ago, our brave freedom fighter was proposing an unworkable global testing and quarantine system for AIDS and now we're supposed to see him as a freedom fighter against global treaties of climate change.

Give me a break. He's a snake-oil selling knob-head making a fortune from scientifically illiterate, idealogical blinded punters and promoting the interests of far-right free-market ideology.

He's not a freedom fighter, he's an enemy of reason.

5 comments:

Ben said...

Reminds me that Channel 4 programme, 'The Fucking Fulfords'. Lots of UK aristocrats can't afford to maintain their mansions and will do anything to rake in a bit of cash.

Anonymous said...

More bilge from a brain dead blogger.
Had Monckton's advice to isolate AIDS carriers been heeded, millions of lives would have been saved. No, instead you choose to vilify the man. I have to assume you have your own reasons for keeping the infected at large in the population. No bias then?

anarchist said...

Why thank you Anon. Always a pleasure.

I do have my own reasons for keeping the 'infected at large' - it's part of the communist (or is it fascist? I forget) plot to take over the world.

But you need to read what I wrote; Monckton's advice was impossible to achieve in the real world. It simply would not have *ever* worked. Not a chance. Ever.

So yes I vilify the guy who pushed and unworkable solution to AIDS now pushes an illogical response to climate change.

He was an idiot then and is an idiot now.

Thanks for stopping by!

frflyer said...

Mockton was behind attempts to have the court ban Al Gore's movie in British schools, unless "The Great Global Warming Swindle" was also shown.. Gore won the case. The movie could be shown, as long as a few uncertainties about impacts were noted. The judge saw no reason to show junk science like "The Great Global Warming Swindle" to school children.

But deniers go around spouting off about how a judge in England condemned "An Inconvenient Truth".
And like all the other myths, it became yet another "proof" that AGW is invalid, which is added to their littany of religously believed arguments.

Here's a video showing Monckton in action, in what the author of the article calls Beyond Parody.

http://hot-topic.co.nz/monckton-goes-bp-in-bonn/

Debunking Lord Monckton King of the Teabaggers - live with Peter Sinclair - video

http://www.desmogblog.com/debunking-lord-monckton-king-teabaggers-live-peter-sinclair


Monckton is a crock (part two)- video

Part two of Climate Crock maker Peter Sinclair’s demolition of the potty peer.

http://hot-topic.co.nz/monckton-is-a-crock-part-two/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+co%2FRbRF+%28Hot+Topic%29

Richard Mercer said...

And here's the judge's conclusion. "Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate" and "substantially founded upon scientific research and fact."