Click here to view the full-page ad that ran in The New York Times and Washington Times prior to the conference.

Hundreds of conferences take place each year on “global warming,” the popular name given to the theory that human activities are causing a potentially catastrophic warming of the Earth’s climate. Most of these conferences are lavishly financed by government agencies or liberal foundations. All of them predict doom and gloom unless mankind takes drastic actions to change its energy use.

But is it true? Is there another side to this important story?

Unanswered Questions

Advocacy groups and most environment reporters claim “the scientific debate is over” and only a “fringe” of scientists or policy experts do not believe global warming is a crisis. But framing the debate in terms of “believing” in global warming is incorrect. Claims that global warming is man-made and will be a crisis are complex arguments that depend on how many other questions are answered. For example:

• What does the Earth’s climate history tell us about the possible causes of the Modern Warming?

• How reliable are data showing the size and distribution of the Modern Warming?

• How much of the Modern Warming is natural and how much is man-made?

Until the debate over global warming was politicized in the 1990s, the scientific “consensus” was that the Modern Warming is moderate and natural. Books and recent literature reviews suggest this is still the consensus, even though it contradicts the alarmists’ views.

Other questions concern the reliability of predictions of future warming:

• How reliable are computer models that attempt to replicate the complex processes of the Earth’s climate?

• How reliable are forecasts of climate 10 years or 100 years in the future?

• How accurate are forecasts of human emissions 10 years or 100 years from now?

If most scientists don’t believe forecasts of future climate are reliable, the entire case for immediate action to “stop global warming” collapses like a house of cards. Yet survey data clearly show most scientists do not believe computer models are able to accurately predict future climate conditions.

Still more unanswered questions concern the consequences of moderate warming, whether adaptation rather than emissions mitigation is the best response to climate change, and whether it is even possible to reduce human emissions enough to affect the climate.

Obviously these are not small or trivial questions. Depending on the answers to even a few of these questions, the entire scientific or economic case for taking action to “stop global warming” collapses.

A Gathering of “Skeptics”

Distinguished scholars from the U.S. and around the world have addressed these questions seriously and without institutional bias. Their findings suggest the Modern Warming is moderate and partly or even mostly a natural recovery from the Little Ice Age; that the consequences of moderate warming are positive for humanity and wildlife; that predictions of future warming are wildly unreliable; that the costs of trying to “stop global warming” exceed hypothetical benefits by a factor of 10 or more; and more.

Often, these scholars have been ignored, and often even censored and demonized. They have been labeled “skeptics” and even “global warming deniers,” a mean-spirited attempt to lump them together with Holocaust deniers. The truth of the matter is that these scholars dissent from a false “consensus” put forward by a small but politically powerful clique of government scientists and political allies.

Actual surveys of climate scientists and recent reviews of the scholarly literature both show the so-called “skeptics” may actually be in the majority of the climate science community. They do not lack scholarly credentials or scientific integrity, but a platform from which they can be heard. Their voices have been drowned out by publicity built upon the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an entity with an agenda to build support for the theory of man-made catastrophic global warming.

The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change is intended to start the process of providing these brave scholars with a competing platform.

About The Heartland Institute

The Heartland Institute, principal sponsor of the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, is a national nonprofit research and education organization based in Chicago. Founded in 1984, its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.

Heartland has been involved in the debate over global warming since 1994, when members of its staff wrote a book titled Eco-Sanity: A Common-Sense Guide to Environmentalism. In the years since then, Heartland has commissioned and published several policy studies on the science and economics of climate change. Heartland also publishes Environment & Climate News, a monthly public policy newspaper sent to approximately 72,000 readers, including more than 40,000 scientists and every state and national elected official in the U.S.

More than 100 academics and professional economists participate in Heartland’s peer review process, and nearly 100 experts on the staffs of other think tanks serve as contributing editors of Heartland’s publications. Approximately 400 state elected officials serve on Heartland’s Board of Legislative Advisors, providing feedback and guidance to Heartland’s staff. A 16-member Board of Directors oversees a staff of 37. The organization’s annual budget exceeds $5 million.

Funding for The Heartland Institute comes from charitable contributions from approximately 2,700 individual, foundation, and corporate donors. Funds from corporations represented less than 20 percent of Heartland’s annual budget in 2007, and no corporation gave more than 4 percent of Heartland’s budget that year. No contributions from any energy corporations are being used to support this conference.

For more information about The Heartland Institute, go to www.heartland.org or call 312/377-4000.