Monckton in Nexus

Christopher Monckton was talking about how he was going to get his silly Telegraph article published in a journal and now he has.

It’s been published in Nexus magazine, right between articles on UFOs and 9/11 conspiracy theories. The conspiracy theory folk seem to think that “An Inconvenient Truth” is part of the plan by the UN to take over the world.

Monckton’s is not the only article in that issue of Nexus that mentions Global Warming. There’s also the interview on Time-travel portals and weather wars:

Chemtrails were developed by Edward Teller and are basically the seeding of thousands of tons of microparticles of aluminum on the upper atmosphere to try to increase the albedo of the planet, the reflectivity of the planet, because of global warming. Now, gold microparticles, real gold, were used once in a similar situation on another planet, but I guess they had lots of gold, and we used aluminum instead. Global warming is partly because of the greenhouse effect, and that certainly makes things worse, but most of it is because of increased solar activity. Solar activity is the real problem.

Gold microparticles were used to cool some other planet. This is actually the least crazy passage in the interview. Anyway, looks like Global Warming isn’t going to be a problem because:

The Air Force will own the weather within two years.

Excellent.

Hat tip: Ken Miles.

Comments

#1 llewelly
January 1, 2007

Wow. That interview with ‘interview with ‘Henry Deacon’, a Livermore Physicist’ is first class. As good as Chrichton’s State of Fear. It’s a been a wild ride, these last ten years or so, watching the strange twists and turns this debate has taken as it has careened farther and farther from sense. Now it’s finally tripped on a rabbit hole (sorry Eli) and fallen through a portal into another dimension. All we need now is for some nut to proclaim climate science is the result of millennia of faked history, and global warming is caused by the projectile vomiting of Jupiter.
#2 QrazyQat
January 1, 2007

The Air Force can’t own the weather; I own the weather!
#3 Glen Raphael
January 1, 2007

Never mind all that, I want to know what’s up with “The Secret UFO Agenda”!
#4 duggie
January 1, 2007

By Steven M. Greer, MD. With its arsenal of reverse-engineered craft and electromagnetic psy-ops weapons, the global shadow government has been faking alien abduction scenarios and may still be planning to stage an alien invasion of Earth.
#5 duggie
January 1, 2007

ignore that. i thought you had just seen it on the cover (but it’s not on the cover!)
#6 moptop
January 1, 2007

I see you guys have found firmer ground. Name calling and the like. No actual factual assertions re climate science to discuss. You all seem much happier on this kind of thread.
#7 Eli Rabett
January 1, 2007

Hmm, moptop wants climate games.
#8 Bob Maginnis
January 1, 2007

Monckton seems a little unclear what a watt is:

THE THIRD ASSESSMENT REPORT of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN 2001)
does not refer to the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. Yet this equation is central to answering the key
question in the discussion of climate change: how great will be the temperature response to radiantenergy
forcings such as elevated greenhouse-gas concentrations? The equation, derived experimentally by Stefan
in 1875 and subsequently confirmed theoretically by Boltzmann, gives the total energy flux E integrated over all
frequencies or wavelengths as a function of emissivity and temperature:
T
E = εσT4
where E is radiant energy in watts per square metre per second (wm-2.s-1: hereafter “wm-2″);……..

Maybe he meant joules per square meter per second.
#9 Brendan Humphreys
January 1, 2007

If the Air Force want to own the weather, they’ll have to buy it from the current owners: The British Secret Service. You need no more proof of ownership than the unseasonably inclement weather in Sydney, which in all likelihood will save the POMs from a crushing 5-0 Ashes drubbing.
#10 Chris O'Neill
January 2, 2007

“No actual factual assertions re climate science to discuss.”

That pretty well sums up Monckton and the crackpot Nexus magazine.
#11 Tim Lambert
January 2, 2007

Over at Climate Audit they are [denying that Monckton was published in Nexus](http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=892#comment-75903):

>That online magazine still only links Monckton’s Telegraph article. The article doesn’t exist on the Nexus server. It’s clear Monckton himself didn’t publish in Nexus itself.

If anyone cares: Nexus published a cut-down version of the on-line article at the Telegraph and gave the URL for the full version.

Nexus previously published David Wojick “The UN IPCC’s Artful Bias on Climate Change” (vol 9 no 6, 2002).
#12 jb
January 2, 2007

“I see you guys have found firmer ground. Name calling and the like. No actual factual assertions re climate science to discuss. You all seem much happier on this kind of thread.”

Actually, there is a common fact at the core of most of the above posts: Nexus is not a peer-reviewed scientific journal (or anything even remotely resembling one).

If Monckton wants to be taken seriously on a scientific subject, he should get published in a scientific journal.

Otherwise, he deserves to be ignored.
#13 JB
January 2, 2007

Livermore physicist interviewed fro Nexus article of time portals says:

“the portals do stay in specific locations, kind of anchored to this planet. That does happen that way. Why they don’t get left behind or just kind of float off somewhere, I have no idea. Maybe they’re gravitationally anchored in some way.

Your guess is as good as mine.”

Somehow, I doubt that my guess is as “good” as his — or even anywhere close to as good.

Specualtion doesn’t get any better (or wilder) than his.

If this guy is for real — and really working for Livermore Lab — we are in much deeper doo-doo than I thought.

His ruminations make Bush’s “thinking” on Iraq look Einsteinian by comparison.

Where do they find these guys?

Oops, I forgot, we don’t find them, they find us:

“I believe I was a walk-in around eighth grade. I have memories of coming from another planet” — Livermore physicist

Hmm, coming from another planet seems like the kind of thing whose time one would remember better than “around eighth grade”. Then again, perhaps he doesn’t want us to find out who he is, by sifting through the entire population and determining those people who have no history before eighth grade.
#14 mark
January 2, 2007

Maybe that Livermore physicist is…the Intelligent Designer!
#15 QrazyQat
January 2, 2007

No actual factual assertions re climate science to discuss.

Okay, here’s one: just as ID betrays its lack of scientific basis by having its major, supposedly qualified and scientific, proponent’s writings being found only in the pages of non-science publications, so too AGW. If the proponents of these supposedly scientific ideas have a actual valid scientific idea they should get their stuff in some reasonably scientific publication. Preferably one that has some connection to the field of study.

As an example, I critique a fringe theory — the “aquatic ape” idea — and have been doing this for what most folks would probably figure was far too long. Its proponents have lately tried to get their writings into “scientific” pubs, but do so by writing for pay for pub non-peer reviewed pubs, or obscure journals far from the subject (“Nutrition and Health” is the current popular victim). This is not the sort of thing one does if one has a good valid idea. But it’s far better than putting your piece in a pub that touts the wackos like Nexus does. When your “scientificness” is outdone by “aquatic ape” aficionados your position is in deep deep trouble.
#16 JB
January 2, 2007

Mark said: “Maybe that Livermore physicist is…the Intelligent Designer!”

As a Livermore physicist he may be a designer, all right (of nuclear weapons, God help us all), but afer reading his wacky statements about time loops, aliens and this that and the other, I’d really have to say that he’s the “ID” without the “I” — or perhaps the UID (“Unintelligent Designer”). That guy is an absolute fruitloop.

That’s not to say that there is not some kernel of truth to some of the physics he mentions. It’s just that he has put his own wild twist on most of it. Non-locality is a good example. Most physicists accept this as part of quantum theory, but that does not mean one can exploit it to communicate (ie, send and receive information) at faster than light speed. In fact, most believe just the opposite because it would violate Einstein’s theory of Relativity, which has survived every test to date.
#17 John Humphreys
January 2, 2007

I asked Monckton and he says that the Nexus link was not his idea, but he doesn’t want to make a fuss because it will only bring attention to the magazine, which contains “disproportionate quantities of raw nonsense”.
#18 Ken Miles
January 2, 2007

Over at Climate Audit they are denying that Monckton was published in Nexus:

I first saw the article in the paper version, and then went looking for an online version. It’s probably still in the stores if anyone wants to check it out.
#19 Ken Miles
January 2, 2007

I asked Monckton and he says that the Nexus link was not his idea, but he doesn’t want to make a fuss because it will only bring attention to the magazine, which contains “disproportionate quantities of raw nonsense”.

So who gave them permission to print it? Isn’t he the copywrite owner? I’m assuming that they didn’t steal it.
#20 Neil White
January 2, 2007

Yes, the hard copy version (Vol 14, no 1, Dec 2006 – Jan 2007) of the magazine has been available at newsagents in Australia for a few weeks. I’ve seen it in two locations and picked up a copy at Angus and Robertson in Hobart this morning. The Monckton article “Apocalypse Cancelled…” starts on page 43. The first two paragraphs are a sort-of introduction, with “Monckton of Brenchley” at the end of this intro. The first sentence refers to his Sunday Telegraph articles of the 5th and 12th of November, 2006.

The article is clearly attributed to Monckton and there is an editor’s note at the end with the URL of the Sunday Telegraph version.

Either someone has being playing fast and loose with copyright (and a few other things?), or Monckton knowingly allowed this to be published in this magazine.

The stuff about the Chinese Imperial Navy sailing right round the Arctic in 1421 and not finding any ice anywhere is there. There is also a comment about the polar bears surviving the ice-free arctic. I’m sure they went into a time-travel portal (see p63) and emerged again at a time when the ice had come back
Or maybe they got abducted by aliens (see p53) and put back when the ice had returned!
#21 Far Away
January 3, 2007

Well they got somethings right:

THE CRIMINAL HISTORY OF THE PAPACY-Part 1
By Tony Bushby. Far from being pious followers of Jesus Christ, as the Catholic Church would have us believe, a great many of the popes performed acts of corruption, cruelty, debauchery, genocide, greed, terror and warfare. This edition focuses on some papal scandals of the ninth to 13th centuries.
#22 Nexus 6
January 3, 2007

Monckton probably just thought he was publishing on my blog and got a bit mixed up with all the interweb tube thingies.
#23 Ian Gould
January 3, 2007

I agree with Moptop, why aren’t we having a serious discussion about the real scientific merits of Monckton’s article;chemtrails; the USAF’s weather control plans and time portals?
#24 JB
January 3, 2007

Yes, let’s discuss “Chemtrails” (aka FairyDust)

I’d say the idea of pumping huge amounts of aluminum dust into the atmosphere (chemtrails) to deal with global warming ranks right up there with nuclear-explosion-pumped x-ray laser beams to shoot down ballistic missiles (another idea Teller “developed”).

But he was the “father of the H-bomb”, right?

First, Teller may have been tenacious in insisting on pursuing the H-bomb progrom but it was someone else (Stan Ulam) who made the breakthrough that allowed it to become a reality. Without Ulam’s critical input, Teller’s design would not have worked.

Second, Teller seems to have had no appreciation for the “fallout” from his ideas. Perhaps the aluminum dust would reflect enough sunlight to cool the earth (even that is not certain, since originally shiny aluminum eventually oxidizes and becomes gray), but what would the other effects be from pumping all that aluminum chaff into the atmosphere? If I had to guess, I’d have to say, “probably not good”.
#25 JB
January 4, 2007

“The [US] Air Force can’t own the weather.”

Actually, in one sense, they already do.

They possess the capability (tens of thousands of nuclear warheads) to modify (intensify/dissipate, etc) and possibly even create storms. They also have the capability to do cloud seeding and other more traditional weather modification.

They might be able to significantly modify not just the current localized weather patterns but possibly also the climate. For example, if they nuked the south American rain forest or some other large forested area, the resulting fires would put a very large amount of soot into the atmosphere that would almost certainly have an effect on short term weather patterns in the area if not climate (possibly over several years).

Now, the issue of whether the US Air Force can “control” the weather is something else entirely.

“Owning” and “controlling” are two quite different things. With a large bomb like the Air Force has, I might demolish my house if I chose to do so, but that does not mean it will be a controlled demolition. I might bring down half (or even all) the neighborhood in the process.

Then again, I suppose you might say that’s one way of “controlling” neighbors you don’t like. It worked in Iraq, right? (or maybe that’s not such a good example. never mind.)