Summary: <br> <a href="https://twitter.com/john_mcguirk" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">John McGuirk</a> is the founder and editor of <a href="https://gript.ie/" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">Gript</a>. John referred to the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/consumer/most-irish-homes-need-to-be-retrofitted-by-2050-to-reduce-emissions-1.3366866" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">cost of building passive homeshere</a>. In our discussion I mentioned <a href="https://bit.ly/348tqRR" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">an article falsely claiming</a> that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">hacked emails</a> from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia showed scientists ‘plotting to manipulate data, … suppress evidence … and boycott … divergent researchers”.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> I also mentioned <a href="http://bit.ly/2BLOxNW" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">an adulatory article celebrating the election win</a> of the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/02/15/poland-official-homophobia-threatens-human-rights" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">homophobic</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44627129" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">anti-semitic</a> Polish PiS party, and <a href="http://bit.ly/2WeUv3j" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">an article on Gript falsely claiming that</a> a video error by ABC News was a ‘hoax‘, <a href="http://bit.ly/343dNva" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">and another falsely claiming that British Extinction Rebellion protestors were being paid</a>, and suggesting without evidence that Irish Extinction Rebellion were also being paid.<br> <br> <br> <br> *****<br> <br> <br> <br> There was one thing that we discussed that I have to comment<br> on. On the Gript website there is a video interview under the headline “<a href="http://bit.ly/32UTfoo" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">Pay more<br> taxes to change the weather” – the world’s most expensive religion</a>”<br> with a man called Christopher Monckton, Gript presents him as an expert in<br> climate change and he makes various claims about himself.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> His first claim is that he is a member of the House of Lords. This is a straightforward lie, and he’s been telling it for years. He even wrote to US senators making the claim and got himself invited to a talk to a congressional committee in the US with him saying that he was bringing fraternal greetings from the mother of parliaments, although he got short shrift when he appeared before the committee.<br> <br> <br> <br> *****<br> <br> <br> <br> Monckton is not and never was a member of the House of<br> Lords, or any other parliament. The closest he came was when he ran in 2011 for<br> the Scottish Parliament as a UKIP candidate. He got one per cent of the vote.<br> <br> <br> <br> His false claims to be a member of the House of Lords<br> annoyed the Clerk of the UK Parliament enough <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2011/july/letter-to-viscount-monckton/" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer">to<br> publish a letter to him</a> which said “My<br> predecessor, wrote to you [twice] in 2010, asking that you cease claiming to be<br> a Member of the House of Lords, either directly or by implication. It has been<br> drawn to my attention that you continue to make such claims.”<br> <br> <br> <br> And it ended “I am<br> publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes<br> to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official<br> confirmation that you are not.”<br> <br> <br> <br> This is not the first fantastic claim that Monckton made. He<br> was quoted in 2010 announcing he has discovered a single treatment that cures<br> multiple sclerosis, the flu, the common cold and AIDS. Which is lucky, because<br> in the 1990s he advocated for all HIV positive people to be locked up in<br> internment camps. He also subscribes to a whole host of other crazy right-wing<br> conspiracy theories including about Barak Obama’s birth certificate.<br> <br> <br> <br> Monckton has also claimed to be a Nobel Prize winner,
