Many readers of this site have been following the controversy caused when Prof. John Abraham of the University of St. Thomas posted a lengthy video critique of a speech delivered by CFACT Advisor, Lord Christopher Monckton last October in St. Paul Minnesota.

Here is Lord Monckton’s freshly issued, detailed written response to Prof. Abraham in PDF form.

When we watched Prof. Abraham’s video we were mainly struck by Prof. Abraham’s making much of Lord Monckton not always labeling his graphs with their source.  This was not a valid critique.  Lord Monckton was doing a power point presentation in which time or type size would not have made source labels legible to his audience.   Lord Monckton has always been completely willing, indeed eager to provide background information to his viewers and readers.  The graphs in question were mainly those most commonly used in the warming debate and were largely taken from the IPCC fourth assessment report.  They were familiar to those who follow the debate closely and we were surprised that they were not equally familiar to Prof. Abraham.  Former Vice President Al Gore often did not include source information when showing graphs during An Inconvenient Truth (not even when on a scissor lift) and unlike Lord Monckton hides from critics, avoids interviews and will not participate in open discussion.

Abraham’s other tactic is to go back to the IPCC’s sources and obtain emails from them stating their disagreement with Lord Monckton’s conclusions.  Lord Monckton faithfully presented the most commonlhy used graphs and makes his own interpretations relying on his discussions with climate scientists.  This data must be free for all to assess if sound science is to take place.  What did Abraham expect to get when he asked the warming folks for their interpretation and did not bother to contact anyone critical of their assessments including Lord Monckton?  Simply stating the conclusions of warming proponents as received wisdom no longer cuts it.  Too much propaganda has been exposed, too many scandals have rocked their foundations for anyone to take the warming argument on faith or authority again.

Lord Monckton raises essential questions that need to be raised.  His points should be fully debated.  Doubling down on the warming argument without substantive thought will not suffice.  Sorry Professor, time to move past worshiping your warming heroes and give your analytical training a go.  Do you really think the warming computer models will hold up?