Hey hey it’s the Monckies!

Yes, Crikey‘s new regular competition for the dumbest contribution to the climate change debate of the month is named after Lord Monckton, failed ‘unsolvable’ puzzle designer, false claimant to a Lords seat, thyroid-crazed paranoid (‘EU Nazis stole my brain’), and climate change sceptic.

Let’s be clear about this however. The Monckies will be awarded to entrants from all corners of the climate change discussion — the IPCC’s glacier error for example, would make a worthy Monckie nominee.

Today’s Monckie goes to…Lanai Vasek and Matthew Franklin of  The Oz, for their front page splash in reaction to Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong’s opening address to the National Coastal Climate Change forum in Adelaide last night:

“Not only are our assets and environments at risk, many of our sandy beaches could erode away or recede up to hundreds of metres over the coming century. It is possible that with climate change, and without large and expensive nourishment programs, Bondi Beach, Sunshine Coast and Bells Beach may no longer be the beaches we know today.”

The Oz went straight to an expert for the story entitled ‘Wong wipeout doesn’t wash with locals’:

wong

That’s Lee Boman at Sydney’s Bondi Beach yesterday. According to the caption, he’s been swimming at the beach for 30 years and sees no signs of change.

Phew! That’s a relief. Ask him if it looks like rain.

The Oz also interviewed renowned climate change sceptic, James Cook University geologist Bob Carter. “Pointing to historical rates of sea level rise of an average 1.6mm per year globally over the past 100 years Mr Carter said it was reasonable to expect a total rise of 16cm in a century,” report Matthew Franklin and Lenai Vasek.

The broadsheet neglected to inform its readers that Dr Carter’s figures don’t square with those of the vast majority of scientists working in the field of sea level rises. Take, for example, Dr John Church, Principle Research Scientist in CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, who says: “Globally, sea level has been rising through the 20th century. After a long period of relatively stable sea level, the rate of rise increased from the 19th to the 20th century, accelerated further during the 20th century and since the early 1990s has been rising at about 3.3 mm/yr, almost twice the average for the 20th century.”

Please note the award goes to The Oz and not Mr Boman, whose views on climate change are unknown.

What will Monckie of the month win? What else?

glasses

Daydream believers, form a queue.