Lord Monckton: I Challenge Climate Fascists With $500,000 Bet

Lord Monckton has penned a piece challenging Australian chemist and climate alarmist, Maurice Trewhella, to a bet on the future extent of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

Writing in World Net Daily, Monckton disputes Trewhella’s assertion that the ice sheets will “melt away in the next decade or so”. This is because, according to Trewhella, they are acting as “giant dampers” on the globe’s “hidden heat” going into the oceans.

The bet, Monckton explains, is as follows:

“Subject to contract, I’m offering to pay Maurie $100,000 if the mean area of the combined Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets averaged over the year 2024 shall be less than 90 percent of the mean area of the two ice sheets averaged over the year 2014, provided that Maurie agrees to pay me $100,000 if the mean area of ice on the two land masses in 2024 shall be 90 percent or more of the mean area in 2014.”

As he notes, these are extremely generous conditions given the catastrophic predictions initially made. Trewhella walks away with the money if there is just a 10 percent drop in the combined ice area, never mind a complete disappearance.

Monckton does not stop there, however. He is also willing to offer the same bet to four other alarmists, taking the grand total of potential winnings to $500,000. He has a few people in mind for this: “some of the various climate-fascist billionaires. Steyer? Gates? Branson? Anyone?”

Trewhella, if he accepts the bet, will be on a hiding to nothing if he thinks “the science” backs him up on this. Following an all-too-familiar pattern now, alarmist loudmouths remain persistently ignorant of what the IPCC report actually says. The IPCC’s AR5, in table 12.4, clearly states that collapse of the West Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets is exceptionally unlikely.

Unfortunately, as Australian climate blogger Jo Nova notes, none of these committed believers are likely to take up the challenge. Referring to her own previous efforts to draw alarmists into a bet with real money down, she says:

“Alas, people who believe the climate science is 100 percent settled seem to like betting other people’s money, but not their own.”