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| Science & Technology |
| Al Gore Challenged To "The Second Great Debate" |
| 2007-03-19 |
| PERTH, Scotland -- In a formal invitation sent to former Vice-President Al Gore's Tennessee address and released to the public, Lord Monckton has thrown down the gauntlet to challenge Gore to what he terms "the Second Great Debate," an internationally televised, head-to-head, nation-unto-nation confrontation on the question, "That our effect on climate is not dangerous." Monckton, a former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said, "A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide." Monckton and Gore have once before clashed head to head on the science, politics, and religion of global warming in the usually-decorous pages of the London Sunday Telegraph last November. Monckton calls on the former Vice President to "step up to the plate and defend his advocacy of policies that could do grave harm to the welfare of the world's poor. If Mr. Gore really believes global warming is the defining issue of our time, the greatest threat human civilization has ever faced, then he should welcome the opportunity to raise the profile of the issue before a worldwide audience of billions by defining and defending his claims against a serious, science-based challenge." The arena of the glittering "Second Great Debate" will be the elegant, Victorian-Gothic Library of the Oxford Museum of Natural History, which was the setting for the "Great Debate" between the natural scientist T. H. Huxley and Bishop "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce on the theory of evolution, following the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. Lord Monckton says he chose this historic venue "not only because the magnificent, Gothic architecture will be a visually-stunning setting for the debate but also because I hope that in this lofty atmosphere the caution and scepticism of true science will once again prevail, this time over the shibboleths and nostrums of the false, new religion of climate alarmism." Lord Monckton's resounding challenge to Al Gore reads as follows -- Wow. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #11 Cancer, #10? |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-03-19 23:51 |
| #10 Sorry I am not far right and I believe in The Big "C" . :) |
| Posted by: djohn66 2007-03-19 22:53 |
| #9 If The good Viscount Monckton will cream him. Here's just one example of his work: "Climate chaos? Don't believe it" I'd pay good |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-03-19 20:20 |
| #8 The far right has large "C" creationism. The far left has GW. Luddism is so........ .............bipartisan. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-03-19 17:42 |
| #7 Could it really be a sign of hope for the human race that GW hokum went from global juggernaut to global joke in such short order? Yeah, ain't it weird. It's now so cool to be contra-heating. People are funny. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-03-19 17:33 |
| #6 Checkmate vs checkmate in two moves. Heh. I like it. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2007-03-19 16:50 |
| #5 You all may not understand. Debating at Oxford is a full contact sport. They still study debates that happened there over a hundred years ago. If Gore declines, it will be like backing out of a duel, but will be called "intellectual cowardice", and will ruin the credibility of scientists who back Gore. The same if he loses. It is really a lion's den for him. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-03-19 16:31 |
| #4 tw, I don't hold much hope for the Congressional hearings to accomplish anything. The Goracle will posture and rant; I can't see CongressCritters actually asking him any hard questions. I would look forward to the Second Great Debate, except that I would expect that Gore will somehow get out of it. He could claim that Lord Monckton is just out for publicity, or that he is in the pay of the oil companies, or whatever. |
| Posted by: Rambler 2007-03-19 15:46 |
| #3 Could it really be a sign of hope for the human race that GW hokum went from global juggernaut to global joke in such short order? |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2007-03-19 14:46 |
| #2 The former Presidential candidate has also been called to testify in front of two Congressional committees Wednesday, according to Drudge: Rep. John Dingell's [D-MI] Energy & Commerce Committee in the morning and Sen. Barbara Boxer's [D-CA] Environment & Public Works Committee in the afternoon. And, not only is Rep. Dingell skeptical about global warming, but he's also invited Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, Adjunct Professor, Copenhagen Business School, to appear at the hearing. Lomborg is author of the book 'The Skeptical Environmentalist.' The Oscars may well be the high point of the poor man's life. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-03-19 14:15 |
| #1 This is amazing. This is the equivalent of Gore being challenged to a duel. And in the perfect British protocol for such a challenge. If Gore turns him down, he will be ruined. This is the acid test of credibility, and if he loses, his theories will be treated like Creationism. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-03-19 14:03 |