Bishop Hill Brendan Montague
Feb 18, 2013 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other FOI I had an email from Don Keiller the other day. He had been contacted by a “freelance journalist”, Brendan Montague, who wanted to know about his connections with GWPF and what he knew about their funding sources. Don seems to have sent him on his way fairly quickly, advising him that his time would be better spent looking at WWF and Greenpeace.
Strangely, Montague's name has come up in conversation a few times in recent weeks, although in fact I've known of him since 2010. Near the first anniversary of Climategate, I got an email from him, again claiming to be a freelance journalist, and saying he wanted to interview me about a story about the anniversary for the Sunday Times.
I picked him up a the station and took him back to my home, gave him lunch, and we chewed the fat over Climategate. It was all very amicable. Afterwards, there were a series of emails asking for new angles, but no story ever appeared. I remember feeling sorry for the poor chap, having funded a trip up to Edinburgh out of his own pocket for no benefit.
We now know that Montague is not exactly a freelance journalist. Although he seems to write something once a year, his main role is actually the "CEO" of Request Initiative, which is kind of an FOI bureau for green organisations. Montague seems to have been doing quite well at convincing people that he is useful - someone has been paying him to spend the last couple of years sniffing around anybody and everybody in the sceptic movement. There have been a series of unsuccessful FOI requests to universities for the emails of people associated with GWPF and even a dirt-digging trip to Benny Peiser's sister in Germany. Many readers will remember his attempts to get details of GWPF donors from the Charities Commission, an occasion on which he claimed, hilariously, to be paying for his legal team out of his own pocket. The fact that his brief also worked for Greenpeace led some to draw conclusions about exactly who was bankrolling all these speculative, conspiracy-fuelled wild-goose chases. Whoever they are they appear to have deep pockets and to be relatively unconcerned about whether Montague achieved anything.
Anyway, I think the message is that there are some pretty unscrupulous people out there, so be careful who you talk to.
Reader Comments (73)
Hmmm... the Green Stasi?
Simple - ask any freelance journalist for examples of their work and their latest published piece.
Michael
You're far too nice, Andrew. The enemy is ruthless, ideological and well-funded.
I wouldn't speak to anyone who claims to be a journalist/activist (of any political colour) without informing them that it will all be recorded.
Bish: Did you ever contact the Sunday Times to see if they had commissioned an article from him? Presumably anyone can say they are writing an article for any paper (freelance) without there being any truth to the claim.
[BH adds: No. It was a year or more before I realised what had been happening, so I never followed it up]
This is interesting.
Brendan Montague approached the UEA wanting to interview people about Climategate as he was writing a new book, in his own words the 'definitive' book on climate gate.
I had a meeting with him on Friday (at which the university press officer sat in). All very amicable but rather got the impression there was another angle to his work. He started out by stating that you can trace the seeds of scepticism back to Friedrich Hayek and classical liberalism.
From our conversation I was led to believe he has also met/interviewed Steve McIntyre, Jim Hansen, Mike Mann, Gavin Schmidt amongst others. He seemed to have some knowledge but then also had big gaps in his understanding about the nature of scepticism. The usual tropes came out with questions such as 'so you deny the climate is changing?'.
Overall I was left very much dissatisfied with our meeting and rather wish I hadn't given up my time. I felt he had a hidden agenda and this blinded him to deep analysis of key questions. For example 'gate keeping' of the peer reviewed literature came up in an almost farcical way. He asked why was it that an oil company hadn't funded a major scientist to do a reanalysis of the hockey stick and then got it published in Nature or Science? I suggested that there were several analyses out there that had shown the hockey stick methodology to be full of fundamental errors. His stance was yes maybe, but none in Nature. I mentioned gate keeping and his response to demonstrate that gatekeeping didn't occur was to tell me that even Phil Jones had papers rejected by Nature.
Ho hum! Well as i said I wish I hadn't entertained any such meeting with Montague.
It's simple, it's projection. That blinds to the nature of skepticism. I mean, how can a narrative gain such power without the usual necessities?
======================
George Soros is funding him.
Whatever you say
Say nothing
When your talking to you know who!
Some lines popular in Northern Ireland during the 'troubles'
Including travelling, overnight & legal expenses etc that must come to about 100K a year. If he worked for a living before 2010 that comes to about 1/3rd of a million. And that is only 1 guy who appears to have produced nothing of value to his masters, indeed almost nothing publishable, in the period.
A very interesting comment from Paul Dennis.
Paul, can we assume you are the Mr. Paul Dennis who is Head of Stable Isotope and Noble Gas Geochemistry Laboratories at UEA? If so readers of Bishop Hill should be very interested in your bio!
"My research interests lie in the application of natural stable isotope chemistry to environmental and palaeoclimate studies. I am also very active in instrument design, developing new, high sensitivity isotope ratio mass spectrometers (IRMS)in order to analyse small samples with a high degree of precision, measure 'isotopic clusters', noble gas isotope ratios and the natural variation of oxygen in the atmosphere.
In my laboratory we use stable isotope geochemistry to help us understand aspects of past and present climate and environment change. The isotopic composition of fossil rainwater trapped in stalactites and stalagmites collected from caves helps us to unravel details of the climate in western Europe over the past 11,000 years. An analysis of magnetic dust and the isotopic composition of tiny marine creatures known as foraminifera in deep sea marine cores gives us clues to the processes that occur at the end of an ice age 130 thousand years ago when the climate changed rapidly from a cold glacial to a warm interglacial world. Even further back in geological time, some 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period. There is speculation as to the cause of the extinction: meteorite impact or volcanic activity with the huge eruption of the Deccan Traps in India. An analysis of dinosaur egg shells, collected from sediments that intermingle with the Deccan Trap volcanic lavas has helped us to understand the climate and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the time the dinosaurs became extinct.
Currently I am working on new isotope techniques for measuring palaeotemperatures using isotopic clusters or isotopologues and developing a high sensitivity noble gas mass spectrometer for in-situ cosmogenic isotope studies (tritium and neon)as a dating tool for groundwaters and landscape evolution studies.
Not many will have better qualifications to discuss climate change.
(Apologies if not)!
Derrick, I imagine most of us are familiar with Paul's bio (yes, he is that guy) and immensely grateful to him for participating here :)
AIUI, measurement of the contribution of fossil fuels to atmospheric carbon is based on isotopic analysis, which points to the likely source.
So yes, a most important contribution in terms of attribution of where the CO2 is coming from.
Interesting.... Brendan Montague's group Request Initiative is in need of close scrutiny.
Although their avowed purpose is to promote successful FOI requests for environmental causes, they of course have no interest in seeing climate scientists responsive to FOI requests they don't support.
It turns out that a legal proceeding by Request Initiative somehow had access to a small clique of climate activists to provide attack quotes against GWPF. The now familiar Stephan Lewandowsky was onboard with Brendan Montague by Jan. 2012 if not earlier. Places Lew's "psychological research" in an interesting light does it not:
Lewandowsky aligns with attack on Global Warming Policy Foundation in UK
From info earlier on the same page, it is evident that Lewandowsky is one of a fairly small clique of activists somehow solicited by Request Initiative for supportive comments in their legal brief.
The familiar names which appear are: James Hansen, Naomi Oreskes, Clive Hamilton, John Abraham, and Stephan Lewandowsky!
Brendan Montague appears not to check his "facts". It seems the Independent was embarrassed by this article - see the footnote.
Kind of like a better-funded Anna Haynes
Robin,
The corrections in that footnote are funny (well maybe not to the people being misrepresented). The Independent admits that they published an article which "speculated" -- what are they, a gossip tabloid?
RG, I get a 503 error on that link. ??
This is very cynical (i know) but you might like to have your home swept for bugs.
Alls fair in love and climate activism.
Request Initiative is being backed by UnLtd, a self-styled "leading provider of support to social entrepreneurs in the UK". According to UnLtd's latest financial accounts (link: http://unltd.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Final-signed-UnLtd.pdf), they receive funding from Deustche Bank, which is controlled by the Warburg family (who funded the nazis at one time and also, Paul Warburg established the US Federal Reserve System established in 1913).
As we all know, Deutsche Bank has most recently been caught up in carbon credit trading scandals: (http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2232113/deutsche-bank-staff-jailed-in-carbon-trading-fraud-crackdown). Why doesn't Montague research this instead of making uninformed accusations against skeptics?
Note that George Soros has very close ties with the Warburg family, often using Deutsche Bank to carry out large financial transactions for his hedge fund. The point is, Soros is heavily invested in green technology companies, especially in South America. If the global warming scare fails, he will lose billions. Enter muppets like Montague to do his and Deutsche bank's bidding.
Note also that since 2009, Soros has been happily milking US taxpayers via Obama's economic stimulus program, where huge grants and bailouts were given to companies under his control, especially in the green technology and insurance sectors. Most recently, his hedge fund made $1.2 billion betting against the Japanese yen (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/feb/15/george-soros-bet-against-yen). A very dangerous and greedy man, who hides behind the facade of being a "liberal philantropist":(http://www.earstohear.net/soros.html). If Dr Evil had a father, Soros would be it.
Note that George Soros is also the source of Michael "Hokey Shtick" Mann's legal defense fund, via Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and GAP’s Environmental program (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/24/fighting-the-mann/#comment-1041764).
Final note: I realise that "shtick" is a word of Yiddish origin meaning "piece" or "bits". In the case of Mann and Montague, "shtick" might as well be a portmanteau that means "shit on a stick" propaganda.
He attended the Heartland Institute meeting last May in Chicago. He seems to have made quite an impression on Lucia, see her tongue-in-cheek review of the meeting.
Request Initiative is being backed by UnLtd, a self-styled "leading provider of support to social entrepreneurs in the UK". According to UnLtd's latest financial accounts (link: http://unltd.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Final-signed-UnLtd.pdf), they receive funding from Deustche Bank, which is controlled by the Warburg family (who funded the nazis at one time and also, Paul Warburg established the US Federal Reserve System established in 1913).
As we all know, Deutsche Bank has most recently been caught up in carbon credit trading scandals: (http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2232113/deutsche-bank-staff-jailed-in-carbon-trading-fraud-crackdown). Why doesn't Montague research this instead of making uninformed accusations against skeptics?
Note that George Soros has very close ties with the Warburg family, often using Deutsche Bank to carry out large financial transactions for his hedge fund. The point is, Soros is heavily invested in green technology companies, especially in South America. If the global warming scare fails, he will lose billions. Enter muppets like Montague to do his and Deutsche bank's bidding.
Note also that since 2009, Soros has been happily milking US taxpayers via Obama's economic stimulus program, where huge grants and bailouts were given to companies under his control, especially in the green technology and insurance sectors. Most recently, his hedge fund made $1.2 billion betting against the Japanese yen (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/feb/15/george-soros-bet-against-yen). A very dangerous and greedy man, who hides behind the facade of being a "liberal philantropist":(http://www.earstohear.net/soros.html). If Dr Evil had a father, Soros would be it.
Note that George Soros is also the source of Michael "Hokey Shtick" Mann's legal defense fund, via Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and GAP’s Environmental program (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/24/fighting-the-mann/#comment-1041764).
Final note: I realise that "shtick" is a word of Yiddish origin meaning "piece" or "bits". In the case of Mann and Montague, "shtick" might as well be a portmanteau that means "shit on a stick" propaganda.
Hmmm...I mored concerned about the people I am forced to listen to...
Ah... yet another "Not for Profit" company filing no accounts.
They bleat on about transparency - but they are *NOT* keen on it when applied to themselves...
Really guys - and I know you will be reading this - WTF? this is foot shot territory.
Prominent investigative journos in there ... independent, unbiased and fair minded reportage - surely not running errands for a sugar daddy somewhere?
jferguson - here's the link again:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/climate-change-sceptic-think-tank-shuts-down-2300529.html
Of course this warning will be interpreted as a conspiracy of silence...
Interestingly, Request Initiative C.I.C is what is described as "Community Interest Company".
This type of company has their own set of regulations they must follow in order to qualify as a CIC.
Paragraph 3 of the regulations states:
Another name to look out for is Lucas Hari Amin
http://www.amazon.co.uk/without-Lawyer-Logan-Handbooks-ebook/dp/B00993RM7S
They've written a book on FOIA and work together.
And his pals will take his data, go to *their* pals at some agency, contrive a lawsuit, go to a friendly court and get a judge to sign off on a pre-arranged order that will have the tax payers paying for this friendly shake down.
This might be useful:
Amazon.
The journalist as the star in the movie about his own life. Or if you like, a low-budget Aldi version of Greg Palast.
What always gets me about these so-called radicals is their eagerness to align with the powers of the Establishment.
If I was a radical, the fact that the state media, the cross-party government line and the words of all the major industrial and financial powers support the AGW storyline would get my radical hackles up. Even 'big oil' who is supposed to be bankrolling deniers, are all, to a man, toeing the AGW line.
Does this not feel even a little bit strange, fishy, suspicious to people who are (to quote) "among a handful of professionally trained journalists on the radical left: all he needs is a revolution" Does this not feel bad to you radicals that you are on the same side as royalty, sycophantic state-sponsored media, corrupt privately-owneed media, the class system and the military-industrial complex?
Would a real radical side with The System?
One person's radical is another's insane government. I even think politics attracts radicals. The rest of us tend to just get on with life.
I have never yet had cause to heed the words of Max Clifford, but if I was ever asked for an interview by a journalist from a media outlet I was unsure about, the words "Copy Approval" would be in my mind.
According to the 'Journalisted' website
http://journalisted.com/brendan-montague#tab-contact
his contact e-mail is
brendan.montague@sunday-times.co.uk
Is it normal for a 'freelance' to have an e-mail address which seems to show him as a member of staff of a respected and widely known newspaper?
I once did a freelance contract for the MoD but I would be grossly misrepresenting my status if I claimed an e-mail of Latimer.Alder@mod.war
Or is the world of journalism different from real life?
Brendan's book has no Amazon reviews and his blog doesn't seem to exist anymore, so perhaps he found a better gig with the shady funding of "Request Initiative".... Funny how easily "edgy" radicals of the left align with CAGW propaganda to demand endless political and economic powers....
From the post currently on their front page , you can get some idea of what they are up to, which is precisely what Peter Gleick was up to. They want to uncover who the large donors to skeptic organizations are and expose them in the left-wing and, if possible, mainstream media. The idea is to choke off funding so only the warmist message dominates in discussion of climate change. In the example above they are going after the major donor to Lord Lawson's think tank.
In other words, they are using a form of legal extortion and ridicule to curtail debate and the free flow of information. This is the opposite of what skeptics are using FOI legislation. They are trying to get access to the data, code and related communications that underlie scientific work and the policy based on it.
I think he is probably a bit of a scheisster. According to his precis on the RI site; "He has published in The Times, The Observer, The Guardian, The Independent, the New Statesman and dozens of other publications. " I don't subscribe to the Times online, but I've checked the Observer, Guardian, Independent and New Statesman site and could only find 4 articles attributed to him (one about climate change (Independent), one about himself (Guardian) and two on football (New Statesman)). Hardly a great tally for a "muck-racking investigative journalist".
TBYJ:
It's the Willie Sutton dodge. They do it because "that's where the money is."
re 4:02 PM Latimer Alder:
that's a very interesting find. I can see how he would find a sunday-times email address useful. I wonder what the Sunday Times thinks about that or if they even know? Does he uses another email address when corresponding with them?
Perhaps you should send him an email and inform him his career . . . I'm searching for a word here. . path is being discussed at Bishop Hill and invite him to discuss the particulars.
theduke
The page could just be out of date.
Yes, your grace, that occurred to me after. Wonder if he still uses it, however, as a lever as it were. You know how those investigative "journalists" are.
This is a "journalist" with all the biases, as evidenced in this piece , which is a classic in the annals of guilt by association.
I remember a couple of things about Montague from the last time he surfaced here.
Before he launched his "public interest" career as the new George Orwell (or poor man's Julian Assange - take your pick) he was a story tout for the News of the World.
When he tried to flog the NOW a bit of sexual tittle-tattle his girlfriend told him about a "celebrity chef" (not exactly Woodward & Bernstein is it?) - they ran the story without paying him.
Deprived of his £30k and suffused with righteous indignation - he decided to take the moral high ground, accused the NOW of hacking his voicemail and joined the ranks of the "phone hacking victims".
His version of the story is here -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/26/news-of-the-world-phone-hacking
However even CIF readers aren't that stupid.
Some of their comments -
.......... and funniest of all, a CIF commenter apparently found an example of Brendans' early work (from his blue period presumably) :-
And he's the sort of person the saintly saviours of the planet are using to do their dirty work and keep the loot flowing.
Words (almost) fail me.
Feb 18, 2013 at 5:29 PM | theduke:
The amusing thing about that article was the footnote - see my post at 12:11 PM today.
Montague is a "piece of work"
When he contacted me.I asked him what "slant" he intended on any story and whether it would be balanced.
His answer was sufficiently evasive to immediately raise my suspicions.
I then proceeded to ask him questions along the lines of whether he though hurricanes had increased or decreased in frequency and intensity in recent years etc. etc.
I finished off by suggesting that if he really wanted a "balanced" story he should look to the funding of WWF/Greenpeace etc.
I get the distinct impression he left me less than happy.
A little background check confirmed my misgivings and I reported the matter to GWPF and Andrew.
Looks like there is much more dirt to dig on Montague, his organisation and how it is funded.
The more I learn of Montague the more he seems to be to journalism what Martin Lack is to climate blogging..possessor of a huge self-conceit but few (any?) achievements on which to base it..
If Request Initiative is really funded, indirectly, by George Soros - I wonder if George has ever seen this old Times piece - written by Brendan before he became a "tribune of the left" -
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/shocker-soros-funded-fake-iraq-body-count#.USJs2-j7dJN
Robin Guenier, yes, I saw your comment and read the footnote earlier. One suspects the editors of the Independent are the type who laugh leeringly when they read that kind of agitprop and rush it into print, but even they got caught this time and were forced to print clarifications/corrections.
In comparing the Independent piece to the one on the BEST press release he co-wrote with Hannah Devlin for The Times, the difference in tone is striking. It appeared to me that the The Times piece was roughly 400 words long, and, if I might speculate, as brevity is clearly not an element of Montague's style, it suggests that it had to be heavily edited by the adults at The Times. No descriptions like ". . . a major force of climate denial" allowed. It was, however, triumphalist in tone, and celebrated what might be called Phil Jones' "exoneration" by BEST.
And here's the future George Orwell writing in the Indy's "Young Britain" feature in 1997
.......... all together now.........Aaaaaaah.
He was a bit rude about Swampy though - will he have to face Greenpeace de-programming?
I'm reminded of something 'Pointman' wrote on his blog some time ago ...
'Brendan' looks like a failed 'journalist' (Salopian Feb 18, 2013 at 4:48 PM ) re-born into the wacky world of 'find the man in the swivel chair and a white cat Brendan'. Here's a 'bag 'o' cash' to help you in your quest. He crops up all over the place on his 'journalist salary'. Zero, if I were paying him. Working diligently to unwind the global conspiracy against 'climate science'.
He's Lewpaper ... simple projection. Had to laugh at the Amazon ... "Could this lone writer possibly be the next George Orwell or is he just an eccentric tilting at windmills? Brendan is among a handful of professionally trained journalists on the radical left: all he needs is a revolution."
Yup.I guess, like most of his ilk, he would be dead within minutes of the revolution starting.
Paul Dennis's 'recent sighting' status report suggests that Brendan has moved on from trying to expose the names of GWPF's supporters. There seemed to be a flurry of activity on this some time ago - almost as if someone on high issued 'orders' because GWPF had been too successful (=damaging) in getting publicity.
So it seems the current project entails going round interviewing 'known names' re Climategate doing research for his, as Dennis relates, 'definitive' book on climategate.
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