The complete program for the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, including cosponsor information and brief biographies of all speakers, can be downloaded in Adobe's PDF format here.
[Parts of this essay appeared in the January/February 2009 issue of The Heartlander, the bimonthly newsletter of The Heartland Institute.]
Putting an End to Global Warming Alarmism
Global warming is the most important environmental issue of our time. If those who are sounding the alarm about a possible climate catastrophe are right, then governments must raise energy costs directly, with taxes, or indirectly, with mandates and subsidies, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year in wealth or economic activity will be sucked up and redistributed by governments.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions even modestly is estimated to cost the average household in the U.S. approximately $3,372 per year and would destroy 2.4 million jobs. Electricity prices would double, and manufacturers would move their factories to places such as China and India that have cheaper energy and fewer environmental regulations.
If global warming is indeed a crisis, billions of dollars taken from taxpayers will flow into the coffers of radical environmental groups, giving them the resources and stature to implement other parts of their anti-technology, anti-business agenda. None of that money will go to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This explains the paradox that even though the scientific community is deeply divided over the causes and consequences of global warming, every single environmental advocacy group in the U.S. (and probably the world) believes it is a crisis.
Global Warming is Not a Crisis
But global warming is not, in fact, a crisis. Here’s how we know this:
- Since 2007, more than 31,072 American scientists, including 9,021 with Ph.Ds, have signed the a petition which says, in part, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate.”
- A 2003 international survey of climate scientists (with 530 responding) found only 9.4 percent “strongly agreed” and 25.3 percent “agreed” with the statement “climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes.” Some 10.2 percent “strongly disagreed.”
- A 2006 survey of scientists in the U.S. found 41 percent disagreed that the planet’s recent warmth “can be, in large part, attributed to human activity,” and 71 percent disagreed that recent hurricane activity is significantly attributable to human activity.
- A recent review of 1,117 abstracts of scientific journal articles on “global climate change” found only 13 (1 percent) explicitly endorse the “consensus view” while 34 reject or cast doubt on the view that human activity has been the main driver of warming over the past 50 years.
The mainstream of the scientific community, in other words, does not believe global warming is a crisis.
But Politicians Want to Act
Unfortunately, politicians respond to the loudest and best-funded interest groups, not to the voices of scientists or the average Joe. So they are in a tizzy about “doing something” to “stop global warming.” President-elect Barack Obama, for example, recently proclaimed:
Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.
There is not a single statement in this brief passage that is true. Lord Christopher Monckton, a British climate skeptic, in a paper published by the American Thinker on November 26, disputes point-by-point each of Obama’s claims about sea levels, coastlines, drought, famine, and storms. None of his points is original: the rebuttals have appeared many times in the scientific literature and even occasionally in the mainstream media. One of the most persuasive compilations of this literature is S. Fred Singer’s Nature, Not Human Action, Rules the Climate, which The Heartland Institute published earlier this year.
Politicians should realize that the public doesn’t want global warming legislation. Last June, when the 500-page Climate Security Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate, even Democrats fled from the massive costs and bureaucracy it would have entailed. As environmentalists Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger reported at the time, “Democratic leaders finally killed the debate to avert an embarrassing defeat, but by then they had handed Republicans a powerful political club. Republicans have been bludgeoning Democrats with it ever since.”
2009 International Conference on Climate Change
On March 8-10, 2009, The Heartland Institute and scores of allied organizations will host the second International Conference on Climate Change, asking whether global warming “was ever really a crisis.” As we did in March 2008, we will bring together hundreds of scientists, economists, and policy experts to explore areas overlooked or even deliberately hidden by the alarmists who dominate the public debate concerning climate change.
Some of the specific questions that will be asked by speakers at this conference include:
- How do present temperatures compare to the Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years ago?
- What is the track record for forecasts made by computer models? By the IPCC?
- How long will the Earth’s recent cooling trend last?
- What are the current effects of climate change on, and the future outlook for, the polar regions?
- How much of the warming during the 20th century was natural and how much was man-made?
- Does the rejection by the U.S. Senate of “cap and trade” legislation mean political action is unlikely in the future?
- Does India’s and China’s refusal to cap or reduce their emissions spell the end of international agreements on climate change?
- Does new evidence reveal greater negative feedbacks from rising CO2 levels than models assume?
- Who profits from global warming alarmism?
About The Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute, principal sponsor of the 2009 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 $7million.
Funding for The Heartland Institute comes from charitable contributions from approximately 2,700 individual, foundation, and corporate donors. Funds from corporations represented less than 16 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 http://www.heartland.org/index.html or call 312/377-4000.
Click here for the full proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change -- including audio and video for more than 100 speakers.
