Christopher Monckton is the third Viscount of Benchley, a hereditary title in the United Kingdom. Contrary to Monckton's claims, he is not a member of the House of Lords in the Parliament of Britain.
Monckton is not a scientist. According to The Guardian's George Monbiot, the Viscount of Brenchley has a degree in classics and a diploma in journalism. Nevertheless, the Heartland Institute lists him as an expert with their organization, where they publish his posts on climate change. He is also a frequent speaker at the Institute's annual International Conference on Climate Change.
Additionally, Monckton is the Chief Policy Adviser at the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), a climate change skeptic organization. Finally, he is listed as a "scientist" in Senator Inhofe's report claiming more than 1,000 scientists disputed there's a scientific consensus on climate change.
Never camera shy, the Viscount is one of the most publicized and recognized climate deniers on the planet. Here's a breakdown of his most notable deeds:
- Multiple references to advocates of climate action as "Nazis."
At the United Nations 2009 Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Monckton exploded on a group of young activists which stormed his stage during a speech, calling them "Hitler Youth" and "Nazis." Later, during the conference he told the activists they were "killing millions by starvation in the third world," and that "until you start caring, I will call you the Hitler Youth."
At a 2011 conference held by the conservative think tank American Freedom Alliance, Monckton displayed a swastika next to a quote from Australia's climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut which said the mainstream science is right about climate change. Monckton declared this was a "fascist point of view." Australia's Prime Minister, Julia Gillard called Monckton's remarks "very offensive and grossly unacceptable." The Viscount later apologized and called himself "catastrophically stupid" for having made the comparison.
- False claims to receiving the Nobel Peace Laureate in 2007 for his work on climate change. Until recently, his bio on the SPPI website stated:
"His contribution to the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 - the correction of a table inserted by IPCC bureaucrats that had overstated tenfold the observed contribution of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise - earned him the status of Nobel Peace Laureate. His Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment, was presented to him by the Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, New York, USA."
Three years after making the claim, Monckton conceded that it was "a joke" and never supposed to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, it was not removed from his bio until 2012.
- False claims to writing articles for peer-reviewed science journals. Monckton did have an article published in the American Physical Society's newsletter. The APS made it clear, however, that it neither endorsed the article's thesis that the IPCC's conclusion that climate change is largely a human phenomenon and that the article had not undergone any scientific peer review, as that is not policy for their newsletters.
