Ed Hiserodt

February 2, 2009

The New American has joined as a cosponsor of the Second
International Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland
Institute of Chicago. It will be held March 8-10 at the Marriott
Marquis in New York City. While the mainstream media continues to
parrot the claim of Al Gore and the UN’s IPCC that “the science is
settled” regarding global warming, the expected 1,000 attendees from
across the globe are living, visual proof that such a claim is merely
an excuse to avoid debate.

The keynote speakers for the three-day conference are:

• Arthur Robinson, Ph.D.  Professor of Chemistry at the Oregon
Institute of Science and Medicine.  Among many other duties, Dr.
Robinson directs the “Petition Project” that has obtained the
signatures of more than 31,000 scientists, including over 9,000 with
Ph.D.s, explicitly opposing the hypothesis of “human-caused global
warming.”

• Lawrence Solomon.  Canadian author, environmentalist, and columnist for the National Post.
Mr. Solomon interviewed many of the world’s most prominent scientists
who oppose global warming alarmism.  This evolved into his best selling
book, The Deniers.

• Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology at MIT. One of the
world’s most respected atmospheric physicists, Dr. Linzen’s specialties
are in climate, planetary waves, planetary atmospheres, and
hydrodynamic instability.  He is an outspoken critic of catastrophic
projections of global warming from anthropogenic sources.

• Lord Christopher Monckton. Third Viscount of Brenchley and adviser to
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Lord Monckton produced the
informative and entertaining DVD Apocalypse, No!  that was reviewed and
highly recommended in the November 24, 2008 issue of The New American (“Liberty From Global-warming Alarmism“).
An amateur mathematician, the Viscount found major errors in the IPCC
data that were “overlooked” by 2,000 IPCC “scientists“ and government
officials.

• Willie Soon, Ph.D. An astronomer at Mount Wilson Observatory and a
physicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center. Astrophysicist Dr. Soon is author of Maunder Minimum: And the Variable Sun-Earth Connection
and is a chief de-bunker of the myths of increased hurricane activity
and polar bear population declines associated with global warming.
(Polar bears numbers are increasing, not decreasing.)

Among the 30 other panelists/speakers are John Coleman, founder of the
Weather Channel, and Dr. S. Fred Singer, founder of the Science and
Environmental Policy Project and editor of the Nongovernmental
International Panel on Climate Change initiative.

This conference is being held at a critical time in the history of our
country. All “scientific advisers” to the Obama administration are
global-warming alarmists. A lack of even a single skeptic causes one to
suspect this may have been a litmus test for presidential
appointments.  Both Democrats Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi — who have a
stranglehold on Senate and House action — are ardent global warmers.
We can look for legislation pushed by them that would paralyze our
economy in the name of “saving the planet.”

On the bright side, the American electorate is increasingly skeptical of alarmists claims, with a January Rasmussen Poll showing that 51 percent of U.S. voters do not
believe that global warming is caused by human activity (most of this
group believe that long-term planetary trends are responsible),
compared to 41 percent who blame global warming on human activity (the
remainder are unsure). This large-scale disbelief is a real threat to
global-warming alarmists, whose messages have become more and more
shrill and calamitous in an attempt to sell their product.

One of the topics to be discussed at the 2009 conference is the future
of “cap and Trade” legislation. “Cap” means the government will put a
maximum on the amount of “greenhouse gas emissions” that the economy as
a whole will be allowed to produce. Then individuals and businesses
will be given their quotas — demanded by the environmental radicals to
be 30 percent less that what we are now producing.  How is your
business going to fair when its electricity and natural gas allotments
are whacked by 30 percent?  And where are you going to cut 30 percent
out of your home electrical usage?  How will your life be changed when
you won’t be able to make a third of the usual trips in your private
automobile?

And all because of a theory of global warming that is patently and
provably false, but has been foisted on a public by a mainstream media
using the Goebbels method of indoctrination:  “If you tell a lie big
enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe in
it.”  Most of us remember that part of the quotation, but we need to
re-familiarize ourselves with the rest of it:

The lie can be maintained only for such
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic,
and/or military consequences of the lie.  It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent,
for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension,
the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

For more information about the conference, see the Heartland Institute’s webpage on the subject.