(Photo: Mike Wilkinson)

The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change will draw 500 global-warming skeptics to the Marriott Marquis on March 2, where they’ll hear from Lord Christopher Monckton, the third viscount of Brenchley, a former Thatcher adviser and a leading proponent of the anti–Al Gore gospel. He spoke to Peter Hyman from his estate in the Scottish Highlands.

So the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the World Meteorological Organization, and the National Academy of Sciences are all wrong?
Having worked at a senior level in government, I have learned not to believe intergovernmental organizations or taxpayer-funded quangos merely because they are big and have important-sounding initials.

So you honestly believe human behavior has had no impact on the health of the planet?
My team’s calculations, supported by a growing stream of peer-reviewed studies, suggest that the human contribution to warming is uncertain and probably very limited. There are many environmental problems. Climate is not one of them. The correct policy response to a nonproblem is to have the courage to do nothing.

Have you seen An Inconvenient Truth?
Gore’s sci-fi comedy horror movie is nonsense from start to finish.

How’s your film, Apocalypse? No!, doing?
My film is in postproduction. And seeking scientific credibility at the hands of the Academy or the Nobel Prize Committee is stretching the argumentum ad verecundiam way too far.

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Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Peter Hyman
• Table of Contents: Mar 3, 2008 issue of New York | Subscribe!