Yesterday, we posted this AFP video report on what passes for science education at Liberty University, so I guess it is not a surprise that when Liberty U Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. promised students a special guest for convocation, it turned out to be infamous climate change-denier Christopher Monckton.
You really have to admire Liberty's interpretation of the visit.
First, read this Lynchburg News and Advance article entitled "Global-warming skeptic speaks at Liberty University":
British climate-change skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton took on the United Nations, Al Gore and the mainstream media during a talk at Liberty University’s student convocation Wednesday, in which he questioned the science behind climate-change research and called for an end to the “global warming panic" ... Monckton praised the late Rev. Jerry Falwell for his outspoken criticism of global warming and mocked Al Gore’s documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth,” calling it a “mawkish, science fiction, comedy horror movie.”
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Jerry Falwell Jr. said inviting Monckton to speak at Liberty was a way to expose students to both sides of the climate-change debate.
“A lot of our students come from public schools where the truth of global warming and the science of global warming is not always known,“ Falwell said after convocation.
Christians have a calling by God to protect the environment, Falwell added, and therefore should have a complete view of the global-warming debate.
“Many Christian young people are susceptible to the claims of the vast majority of environmentalists today who use pseudo-science to promote political agendas in the name of protecting the environment when their real goals are destroying freedom and destroying the economies of the western world,” he said later by e-mail. “Lord Monckton illustrated for our students in great detail how the hard left is doing just that around the world.”
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Monckton is transparent about his lack of a science background.
“I have no scientific credentials whatsoever except a rather profitable knowledge of mathematics,” he said, adding that mathematics is the language of science.
Monckton said the “global warming panic” was responsible for countless deaths from starvation in Third World countries when Western nations shifted their priorities from growing food to growing biofuels.
“This is an outrage and a scandal that everyone at this university should oppose,” Monckton said.
Now compare that to this Liberty University article that provides a rather different account of the visit in a piece entitled "British royalty speaks on climate change":
On Wednesday, Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr., promised students an unusual convocation and that is what they got. Lord Christopher Monckton, the first member of British royalty to speak at convocation, presented issues with the current climate change scare driven by prominent figures within the scientific and political communities.
Monckton, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, is chief policy advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute. He has held various prestigious titles — businessman, policy advisor, newspaper editor, writer, classical architect and puzzle inventor.
Monckton served as an advisor to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit and is a renowned advocate of Euro skepticism.
After first hearing Monckton on the Neal Boortz radio program a couple of years ago, Falwell said he knew he had to have him come and share with the students.
“He was so brilliant, so articulate and he was so politically incorrect on the issue of climate change,” Falwell said.
In introducing Monckton on Wednesday, Falwell encouraged students to consider the issues surrounding this false fear of climate change.
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Students found the presentation both eye-opening and entertaining, as it called them to once again challenge majority opinion, media content and so-called scientific facts.
Monckton ended his appearance with a quote from former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, “‘The university should be a place of light, of liberty and of learning,’ and you are a place of light and of liberty and of learning.” He then participated in a question-and-answer session with students regarding global climate change.
