WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Lord Monckton, Viscount of
Brenchley, has sent an open letter to Senators Rockefeller (D-WV) and Snowe
(R-Maine) in response to their recent open letter telling the CEO of
ExxonMobil to cease funding climate-skeptic scientists.
(http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20061212_monckton.pdf).
Lord Monckton, former policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, writes: "You defy every tenet of democracy when you invite
ExxonMobil to deny itself the right to provide information to 'senior
elected and appointed government officials' who disagree with your
opinion."
In what The Charleston (WV) Daily Mail has called "an intemperate
attempt to squelch debate with a hint of political consequences," Senators
Rockefeller and Snowe released an open letter dated October 30 to
ExxonMobil CEO, Rex Tillerson, insisting he end Exxon's funding of a
"climate change denial campaign." The Senators labeled scientists with whom
they disagree as "deniers," a term usually directed at "Holocaust deniers."
Some voices on the political left have called for the arrest and
prosecution of skeptical scientists. The British Foreign Secretary has said
skeptics should be treated like advocates of Islamic terror and must be
denied access to the media.
Responds Lord Monckton, "Sceptics and those who have the courage to
support them are actually helpful in getting the science right. They do
not, as you improperly suggest, 'obfuscate' the issue: they assist in
clarifying it by challenging weaknesses in the 'consensus' argument and
they compel necessary corrections ... "
Lord Monckton's Churchillian reproof continues, "You acknowledge the
effectiveness of the climate sceptics. In so doing, you pay a compliment to
the courage of those free-thinking scientists who continue to research
climate change independently despite the likelihood of refusal of
publication in journals that have taken preconceived positions; the hate
mail and vilification from ignorant environmentalists; and the threat of
loss of tenure in institutions of learning which no longer make any
pretence to uphold or cherish academic freedom."
Of Britain's Royal Society, a State-funded scientific body which, like
the Senators, has publicly leaned on ExxonMobil, Lord Monckton said, "The
Society's long-standing funding by taxpayers does not ensure any greater
purity of motive or rigour of thought than industrial funding of scientists
who dare to question whether 'climate change' will do any harm."
To the Senators' comparison of ExxonMobil's funding of climate sceptics
with tobacco-industry funding of research denying the link between smoking
and lung cancer, Lord Monckton counters, "Your comparison of Exxon's
funding of sceptical scientists and groups with the former antics of the
tobacco industry is unjustifiable and unworthy of any credible elected
representatives. Either withdraw that monstrous comparison forthwith, or
resign so as not to pollute the office you hold."
Concludes Lord Monckton, "I challenge you to withdraw or resign because
your letter is the latest in what appears to be an
internationally-coordinated series of maladroit and malevolent attempts to
silence the voices of scientists and others who have sound grounds, rooted
firmly in the peer- reviewed scientific literature, to question what you
would have us believe is the unanimous agreement of scientists worldwide
that global warming will lead to what you excitedly but unjustifiably call
'disastrous' and 'calamitous' consequences."
SOURCE Center for Science and Public Policy
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