The Monckton Files: The Monckton Challenge

Al Gore has lately been in Gibraltar giving the usual climate change speeches, and so, naturally, Lord Christopher Monckton has been renewing his constant debate challenges, telling Gore to accept the challenge or get out of Gibraltar, and so on.  The Gibraltar Chronicle has published a number of fawning articles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) publicizing Monckton’s challenges over the past few weeks, but their latest editorial (“Chronicle Refuses to be Bullied by Monckton PR Man,” Oct. 20, 2012) seems to indicate that the honeymoon is over.  I just sent the editors the following letter.

Dear Chronicle Editors,

Lately, you have published a number of articles depicting Christopher Monckton as a “science expert,” who was “recently appointed an Expert Reviewer for the IPCC’s 2013 Fifth Assessment Report on Climate Change.” In fact, Monckton has no degrees in any science, and has never published a single peer-reviewed scientific paper on any topic. To become an IPCC reviewer, furthermore, one need only send in a request to the IPCC and agree not to publicly discuss the report before publication. All of you could just as easily become “Expert Reviewers,” in other words.

Your latest article about Monckton (“Chronicle Refuses to be Bullied by Monckton PR Man,” Oct. 20, 2012) seems to indicate that you may finally be getting an inkling of the kind of man you are dealing with. Perhaps you are now in the right frame of mind to do me a small favor. You have repeatedly publicized Monckton’s challenges to Al Gore, but you may not know that a few years ago His Lordship’s handler, Bob Ferguson, offered to pay me $5,000 (U.S.) to debate Monckton. I declined, but offered to debate for free if we could do an online, written debate, in which both of us would have time to check the other’s sources. At first, Ferguson told me he thought it was a reasonable idea, but later flatly refused. I would like to renew this challenge to Lord Monckton. Would the Gibraltar Chronicle be willing to 1) publicly deliver this challenge to Monckton, 2) host such a debate on its website, and 3) publicize the event?

Sincerely,

Barry Bickmore

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