While tens of thousands of NGO's, environmental activists, government officials and journalists have descended on the climate talks in Copenhagen, a small but vocal number of energy industry lobbyists and climate change deniers are staging events to put forward their point of view.
At one such event held by Americans For Prosperity, a right-wing group with funding ties to Exxon-Mobil and oil interests.
At their event in Copenhagen, a group of clean energy activists disrupted their meeting. In attendance was Lord Christopher Monckton, one of the most visible and outspoken voices against climate change science, who proceeded to call the protesters "Hitler Youth."
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So who is Lord Christopher Mockton? "Mother Jones" describes him as a "self-described former special adviser to Margaret Thatcher on matters ranging from hydrogeology to epidemiology [who] has more recently devoted himself to climatology." The book "Climate Cover Up" notes, however, that he has no background in science whatsoever, and he's studied only classics and journalism. He shows up at events to make his global warming-denying case at the behest of groups funded by dirty energy interests such as Friends of America and The Heartland Institute.
Despite the fact that he no scientific training, he's been called upon twice by Republicans in Congress to testify before subcommittees as a climate "expert" -- you can read his statement to the Ways and Means Committee here.
Global warming is not the first topic that Monckton has taken extreme positions on. He created an uproar in his 1987 article for The American Spectator when he wrote, "There is only one way to stop AIDS. That is to screen the entire population regularly and to quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month ... all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently." This would have included 1.5-3 million Americans at the time.
As a vocal leader of the climate change-denying movement, he is currently in Copenhagen calling young environmentally-minded people who are advocating for clean energy jobs, "Hitler Youth." Watch this video where he further talks to clean energy advocates and refuses to shake hands with a young man he calls "Hitler Youth" who's grandparents fled Europe to escape the Nazis.