Climate sceptic Lord to visit
A British lord says climate change claims are just hot air, people who disagree with him are Nazis and he was censored during his last visit to New Zealand - but he's coming back.
Climate change sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton is returning for a nationwide tour beginning on April Fool's Day (April 1) in Northland. The four Northland venues are a winery, a kumara shed, a library and a pub.
The hereditary British peer, a former journalist, business consultant and policy adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, will be talking about whether global warming is only hot air or a worrying, man-made phenomenon.
The naysayer visited Whangarei in 2011 during a hastily arranged tag-on to an Australian speaking tour. Lord Monckton said New Zealand groups had tried to censor his views during that whistle-stop, short-notice visit, and "were terrified" by his eloquence and firm grasp of climate science.
A planned public debate had not gone ahead because the science fraternity gave Lord Monckton the cold shoulder during his New Zealand visit. He said it happened all around the world.
"I don't demand that anyone should agree with me, or should listen, but that they should demand that I shouldn't be heard, that seems a bit too much like what used to go on in Germany before World War II."
Esther Henderson, co-founder of the Climate Realists (NZ) network, said Lord Monckton's April tour follows repeated requests to have him return.
Ms Henderson said Lord Monckton had done extensive research over many years on both sides of the climate debate.
Lord Monckton will speak at Ascension Wine Estate, Matakana, April 1 (6pm); The Kumara Box, Pouto Rd, Dargaville, April 2 (6pm); May Bain Room, Whangarei Library, April 3 (3pm) and Dickens Inn, Cameron St, Whangarei (6pm).
