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Andrew Montford

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Andrew Montford
NationalityBritish
EducationBSc (chemistry), CA[1]
Alma materUniversity of St Andrews[1]
Occupation(s)Writer and editor
Known forClimate-change scepticism
Notable workThe Hockey Stick Illusion (2010)
WebsiteBishop Hill

Andrew William Montford is a British writer and editor who is the owner of the Bishop Hill blog.[2] He is the author of The Hockey Stick Illusion (2010).[3]

Early life

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Montford graduated from the University of St Andrews with a degree in chemistry,[1] then became a chartered accountant.[4] In 2004 he worked with the foundation of Anglosphere, which provides editing services to publishers and other business. His focus at the company is to develop their approach to the publication of scientific literature.[5]

Public career

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Bishop Hill

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Montford founded the Bishop Hill blog on 21 November 2006. At first the blog focused on British politics,[6] but its focus changed and in 2010 Montford described it as one of the main websites for global warming sceptics in the United Kingdom.[7]

Matt Ridley writes in The Spectator that Montford became interested in climate change in 2005 after reading a post by blogger Tim Worstall, who was in turn writing about the work of Stephen McIntyre, the editor of the blog Climate Audit.[8] Prior to the publication of Montford's book The Hockey Stick Illusion, his discussions of objections to the Hockey stick graph had been featured in his blog, in particular his summaries of posts from Climate Audit which he called "Caspar and the Jesus Paper".[8]

Bishop Hill has come to public attention several times. In November 2009, The Daily Telegraph blogger James Delingpole credited Bishop Hill with reporting the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs funding of the Climate Outreach and Information Network charity in the amount of £700,000 over two years.[9] Also in February 2010, Philip Campbell, the editor-in-chief of Nature, resigned from Sir Muir Russell's Independent Climate Change Email Review after Bishop Hill and Channel 4 News drew attention to an interview Campbell had given in 2009 to China Radio International, in which he said there was no evidence the scientists had engaged in a coverup.[10][11]

The Hockey Stick Illusion

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Main article: The Hockey Stick Illusion

Montford's The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science was published in January 2010 by Stacey International. Montford gave a brief outline of the history of the "hockey stick graph" of global temperatures for the last 1000 years, and argued that more recent research had failed to validate the original studies which appeared in Nature. He commented on the peer review process and Stephen McIntyre's efforts to obtain the data behind the graph. The last few chapters discussed the then-current Climatic Research Unit email controversy ("Climategate"). The book received a number of positive reviews from those who shared his opinions, including those of Matt Ridley in Prospect and Christopher Booker in The Daily Telegraph.[12] Alastair McIntosh, writing in the Scottish Review of Books, strongly criticised the book.[13]

Media appearances

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Montford has been interviewed a number of times about the Climategate controversy. Britain's Channel 4 asked him in March 2010 to look at some of the questions Phil Jones might be asked during the parliamentary inquiry into the controversy.[14] Montford wrote in Times Higher Education that the email conversations at the heart of Climategate "suggest a campaign to nobble journals, marginalise climate-change sceptics and withhold data from other researchers."[15]

He was interviewed in April 2010 by Dennis Prager, an American radio talk show host,[16] and during the same month participated in a live web-debate hosted by The Times; the debate also featured Times environment editor Ben Webster and Bob Ward of the London School of Economics's Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Montford alleged in the debate that the investigations into the leaking of the e-mails were compromised by "highly questionable memberships." He also questioned the appointment of Lord Oxburgh to the panel, writing that Oxburgh has a "direct financial interest in the outcome of his inquiry."[17]

Also in April 2010, in an interview with Bruce Robbins in The Courier, Montford said, "I believe that CO2, other things being equal, will make the planet warmer. The six million dollar question is how much warmer. I'm less of a sceptic than people think. My gut feeling is still sceptical but I don't believe it's beyond the realms of possibility that the AGW hypothesis might be correct. It's more the case that we don't know and I haven't seen anything credible to persuade me there's a problem."[18]

Climatic Research Unit emails controversy

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In July 2010, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a British climate change think tank,[19] hired Montford to lead an inquiry into the three British investigations into the Climatic Research Unit email controversy[20]

Montford's report, The Climategate Inquiries, was published in September 2010.[21] Fred Pearce writes in The Guardian that the three inquiries Montford looked into were all badly flawed, and that Montford's report dissects their systemic failures. He writes that the report, "for all its sharp—and in many cases justified—rejoinders to the official inquiries ... is likely to be ignored in some quarters for its brazen hypocrisy." Pearce argues that one of the criticisms of the three inquiries was that no climate sceptics were on the inquiry teams, and now the critics themselves have produced a review of the reviews that included no one not already supportive of the sceptical position. But, Pearce added, Montford "has landed some good blows here."[22]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c
    • Memorandum submitted by Andrew Montford, The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Science and Technology Committee, Session 2009–10, www.publications.parliament.uk, accessed 7 May 2010;
    • Andrew W. Montford Archived 7 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Anglosphere, accessed 7 May 2010;
    • Montford, Andrew. The Hockey Stick Illusion. Stacey International, 2010, back cover.
  2. ^ Webster, Ben. Lord Oxburgh, the climate science peer, ‘has a conflict of interest’", The Times, 23 March 2010.
  3. ^ Booker, Christopher. "A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC", The Daily Telegraph, 27 February 2010.
  4. ^ The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland Archived 17 December 2005 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 7 May 2010
  5. ^ "Andrew W Montford". Anglosphere. p. 1. Archived from the original on 7 October 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
  6. ^ Dale, Iain (2007). Iain Dale's Guide to Political Blogging in the UK. Harriman House Publishing. p. 269. ISBN 978-1-905641-62-8.
  7. ^ House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. "Memorandum submitted by Andrew Montford", The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Session 2009–2010, www.publications.parliament.uk, retrieved 6 May 2010.
  8. ^ a b Ridley, Matt (3 February 2010). "The global warming guerrillas". The Spectator. Retrieved 13 October 2016.
  9. ^ Delingpole, James. "Climategate: how they all squirmed", The Daily Telegraph blog, 29 November 2009.
  10. ^ Batty, David and Adam, David. "Climate emails review panellist quits after his impartiality questioned", The Guardian, 12 February 2010.
  11. ^ Clarke, Tom. "'Climate-gate' review member resigns", Channel 4 News, 11 February 2010.
  12. ^ Ridley, Matt. The case against the hockey stick, Prospect, 20 March 2010; Gilder, George. George Gilder Hails "The Hockey Stick Illusion" on the Science Scandal of Global Warming Archived 21 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Discovery News, 25 February 2010; Booker, Christopher. A perfect storm is brewing for the IPCC, The Daily Telegraph, 3 April 2010.
  13. ^ McIntosh, Alastair (2010). "Reviews – The Hockey Stick Illusion". Scottish Review of Books. 6 (3).
  14. ^ Questions for Climategate boss facing MPs, Channel 4, 1 March 2010.
  15. ^ Montford, Andrew. "Heated discussions", Times Higher Education, 1 May 2010.
  16. ^ Dennis talks to AW Montford, Dennisprager.com, 22 April 2010, accessed 7 May 2010
  17. ^ "Live debate: can we trust the outcome of the climategate inquiry?". The Times Online. 14 April 2010. Retrieved 15 April 2010.[dead link‍]
  18. ^ Robbins, Bruce (2 April 2010). "Bishop Hill: the blogger putting climate science to test". The Courier. Archived from the original on 12 August 2011. Retrieved 25 May 2010.
  19. ^ Caroline Davies; Suzanne Goldenberg (24 November 2009). "The voices of climate change sceptics". The Guardian. London/Manchester. Retrieved 22 January 2010.
  20. ^ Foster, Peter, "Peter Foster: Checking the hockey team Archived 13 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine", National Post, 9 July 2010. "The third British investigation into the Climategate scandal – led by former civil servant Sir Muir Russell – amounts, at best, to a greywash. [...] The U.K.-based Global Warming Policy Foundation, an influential skeptical institution, has now appointed Mr. Montford to run an inquiry into the three British inquiries. There will be no whitewash here, "
  21. ^ 'Climategate' inquiries were 'highly defective', report for sceptic thinktank rules", The Guardian, 14 September 2010.
  22. ^ Pearce, Fred. "Montford lands some solid blows in review of 'climategate' inquiries", The Guardian, 14 September 2010.
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