Mr. Bluster meets Deadpan Dan

UPDATE:  By popular request the tale of Brave Sir Robin

Some time ago as these things go, Mr. Bluster, aka Christopher Monckton, accepted Tony Watt's offer to hold his coat for a written exchange with Peter Hadfield, known previously as potholer 54 who had published a number of videos questioning Monckton's claims about this and that, climate being among the this and also the that.

The exchange, the videos and the resulting challenges are illustrative of the two styles of British debate.  Monckton being an advocate of the big bluster,

 Various You-Tube videos by a former “science writer” who uses a speleological pseudonym “potholer54″ sneeringly deliver a series of petty smears about artfully-distorted and often inconsequential aspects of my talks on climate change. Here, briefly, I shall answer some of his silly allegations. I noted them down rather hastily, since I am disinclined to waste much time on him, so the sentences in quote-marks may not be word for word what he said, but I hope that they fairly convey his meaning.

 and Hadfield the toneless recitation which flays by small cuts

Mr. Monckton doesn’t claim to be an expert, and neither do I. All I can do is to check and verify his claims. So the question is whether Mr. Monckton has reported the sources he cites accurately in order to reach his conclusions. I have made it very easy for you to check by playing clips of Mr. Monckton making these assertions in my videos, then showing images of the documentary evidence he cites. Since this response is text I will write out Mr. Monckton’s assertions verbatim and quote the documentary sources verbatim (with references in the body of the text.)  References to the relevant video (linked at the bottom) and the time on the video where they are shown, will be shown in square brackets.

 As a game this is rock paper scissor, the goal of the blusterer is to bury the opponents under an avalanche of verbage and then anger them at which point a win is declared and the fans cheer, but if the bait is not taken then the blusterer is left twisting in the wind.  Monckton, of course, is not so much an embroiderer of the truth as an eliminator of context who ruthlessly edits necessary detail although he has been known to tell a few progies.  His is the oral platform, the written response being Kryptonite.

Although playing on a home field, Monckton clearly knew that he had a weak hand so he broke off the exchange.  Hadfield wants to play a bit more and sent an open letter to the Viscount, but Eli suspects that Scrotum advised against a positive response

Despite promising Anthony Watts that you would respond when you returned from Australia mid-February, you have not done so, and now you have written to tell me that you are, in effect, running away. Sorry, I don’t know how else to phrase your abrupt retreat from our debate as soon as I showed evidence that supports my allegations and starkly contradicts your claims.

I am referring to your e-mail to me dated March 22nd: I am on a very busy tour and will be still more busy when I return to the UK, so I do not know when I shall have further time to respond. Many people like to engage in debates on inconsequentialities and, while I try to accommodate them, other priorities must sometimes come first.

Let me address the first excuse first. I understand you are currently on a busy tour, but you promised Anthony Watts you would respond when you returned from your last tour, and you did not. Meanwhile I note that you have had plenty of time to respond to a university newsletter that criticized you, and you spent two hours talking on skype to a small classroom of students. I fail to see why these are “priorities”, while my 57,000 subscribers and the hundreds of thousands of subscribers to wattsupwiththat are not deserving of an answer from you concerning clear evidence that you seriously misled your audiences over a period of several years. The people watching this debate have watched you vacate your chair, and are still expecting to see you to re-appear from backstage at any moment with some incisive rebuttal after checking my evidence. I am sure they will be as shocked as I am to hear the squealing of car tyres as you make good your escape.

This death match has many who would be willing to watch, but Watts has figured out that this is a no win for him and his

 While I can’t hear what Hadfield is saying (he sounds like a British mumble to me) they seem totally infatuated with their manhunt, so much for Hadfield’s repeated claims of being “dispassionate and logical”. Thanks for posting this. When he starts colluding with that hateful “greenman”, all semblance of rational debate is destroyed.

This video then cements my decision not to provide any further space to Hadfield here. – Anthony

 Peter Sinclair, his pen name "greenman" having been taken in vain, has tubs of popcorn going stale

Monckton and Watts Cut and Run from Debate. Blame “hateful” Climate Crocks.

March 27, 2012

I normally ignore the inside baseball back-and-forth that occupies too many people’s time on the blog-o-sphere, but this is just too hilarious.

Barry Bickmore is also amused by the squeal of tires as Chris pulls out

Apparently, Monckton had promised to answer Hadfield’s criticism, but he has now responded to Hadfield’s requests by saying that he all of a sudden has far too much other stuff to do, and so he can’t possibly be expected to address such “inconsequentialities” as whether he misrepresented his sources to make all the major points in his public lectures.  This is quite amusing to Monckton watchers like myself, because for years His Lordship has been touting the fact that Al Gore refuses to debate him.  Al Gore would likely refuse to debate Jessica Simpson or the guy who played Screech on Saved by the Bell, too, but the fact is that Monckton has very publicly criticized certain points in Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and many, many people repeat those criticisms.  In my opinion, most of the criticisms are absurd, but I don’t think Gore would be remiss in assigning a staffer to do some kind of written response.  I’m all for ignoring fringe figures, but when fringe figures are testifying before the U.S. Congress as “expert” witnesses, maybe it’s time to take notice.

Eli? Eli is a fuzzy bunny