Posted by Dee Norris
Mark your calendars.
The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change returns to New York City on March 8th, 2009.
The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change will serve as a platform for scientists and policy analysts from around the world who question the theory of man-made climate change. This year’s theme, “Global Warming Crisis: Cancelled,” calls attention to new research findings that contradict the conclusions of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
Last year’s conference was reported to be a great success and you can access the audio and video recordings of presentations made at the 2008 conference Web site.
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.
This year promises double the attendance as in 2008 and the esteemed Anthony Watts is a confirmed speaker.
I plan on attending. Do you?
Confirmed Speakers
| Name | Affiliation |
| Dennis Avery | Hudson Institute |
| Joseph Bast | The Heartland Institute |
| Robert Bradley | Institute for Energy Research |
| Bob Carter | James Cook University (Australia) |
| Frank Clemente | Penn State University |
| John Coleman | KUSI-TV – San Diego |
| Joseph D’Aleo | International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project |
| David Douglass | University of Rochester |
| Myron Ebell | Competitive Enterprise Institute |
| Michelle Foss | University of Texas – Center for Energy Economics |
| Fred Goldberg | Royal School of Technology (Sweden) |
| Laurence Gould | University of Hartford |
| William Gray | Colorado State University |
| Chris Horner | Competitive Enterprise Institute |
| Craig Idso | Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change |
| David Legates | University of Delaware |
| Jay Lehr | The Heartland Institute |
| Marlo Lewis | Competitive Enterprise Institute |
| Richard Lindzen | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Ross McKitrick | University of Guelph |
| Christopher Monckton | Science and Public Policy Institute |
| Jim O’Brien | Florida State University |
| Tim Patterson | Carleton University |
| Benny Peiser | Liverpool John Moores University (United Kingdom) |
| Paul Reiter | Institut Pasteur (France) |
| Arthur Robinson | Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine |
| Joel Schwartz | American Enterprise Institute |
| S. Fred Singer | Science and Environmental Policy Project |
| Fred Smith | Competitive Enterprise Institute |
| Willie Soon | Science and Public Policy Project |
| Roy Spencer | University of Alabama at Huntsville |
| James M. Taylor | The Heartland Institute |
| Anthony Watts | Surfacestations.org |
Perhaps we can get Al Gore to speak so we are assured of cold weather.
Just an afterthought: As many of you know, Anthony does not receive funding for his work at www.surfacestations.org or here at WUWT. The funds to attend this conference will most likely come out of his pocket. Look to your right and you will see at little yellow Donate button under the SHAMELESS PLUG heading. WUWT gets over 10,000 views a day and if just 0.5% of this traffic contributes ten dollars apiece, we can entirely fund Anthony’s conference expenses. How about it? Do we walk the walk or just talk?
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As shown in the accounts of the Soros Foundation, the total budget of the parent organisation of the parent organisation of the parent organisation of the GAP project which is alleged to have bribed Jim Hansen was the $720K he his alleged to have received. Please explain.
Personally I am pleased that Dr Hansen does not waste his time correcting every smear against him that appears in the conservative media, now that would be a waste of taxpayers’ money.
Applying your standard of logic Hansen is accusing the IBD of lying and they have not sued him, therefore Hansen’s version is corect. QED. He did indeed win the 7th Heinz award for the Environment category and here is the citation:
Dr. James Hansen receives the Heinz Award in the Environment for his exemplary leadership in the critical and often-contentious debate over the threat of global climate change. The theory that industrial pollution continues to create an atmospheric “greenhouse effect” or warming has pitted scientist against scientist and politician against politician. In the eye of the storm that swirls around this issue is Dr. Hansen. He calmly pursues his research while scrupulously maintaining his scientific credibility and modifying his views as new data and techniques have become available, all the while acting as a messenger from the esoteric world of computer climate models to the public and policymakers alike.
I think Lief’s very much misunderstood comment regarding Heartland best reflects the real problem here.
Lief pointed out how sad it was that science is being used in the service of politics. In some cases, questionable and out-right pseudo-science it being accepted an established and proven research simply because it supports a political position.
No, Dee, he didn’t. If he had, there would have been no backlash whatsoever. What he did was to smear both Heartland and the upcoming conference, saying it was “a bit sad that they can fool well-meaning people to do their bidding.” So, according to Leif those who attend the conference have simply been duped. They are fools to even attend, as the whole thing is just a sham.
Bruce Cobb (06:28:53) :
Well, he has a point. Heartland is a political creature and while the conference is all we have, there is a risk that questionable science will be readily accepted in the name of politics.
Lest we become as distorted at the AGW believers and risk letting a cooling cycle be used to accomplish the same objectives of increasing global statism, we need to be vigilante to keep the quality of the science high.
I agree with Leif’s biggest point philosophically has been that we need to avoid adopting iffy theories simply because they fit our expectations. This is the same behavior of many of the AGW supporters – Cherry Picking.
A good skeptic has to doubt/examine all the data, especially the material that appears to support their own opinions.
“Skeptic – Not just a label, its a way of life.”
Dee Norris (06:40:18) :
Well, he has a point. Heartland is a political creature and while the conference is all we have, there is a risk that questionable science will be readily accepted in the name of politics.
A case in point is
http://www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork08/PowerPoint/Monday/archibald.ppt
This is truly a bizarre claim. So, what implications would your statement, if true, have for using science to inform public policy? Do you want to say that what we should do is just ignore the scientific community and listen to amateurs? (I imagine what you will say is that one has to go with the real data. However, this is a cop-out because then the question becomes who judges what data is “real”? Clearly, you do not want it to be the scientific community, e.g., the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences or the analogous bodies in the 12 other G8+5 nations, AAAS, the councils of the AGU, the APS, or the AMS, the editors of Science and Nature, etc., etc. because these bodies have all come to conclusions at odds with yours.)
Of course, your claim is not true…It is in fact ridiculous. Even assuming your examples are truly examples of a scientific consensus being wrong (and history of science tends to be widely distorted in these sorts of claims), you know of these examples precisely because they are cases where the scientific view underwent a strong change, i.e., a paradigm shift. For every one of these people who challenged the scientific consensus successfully, there are probably 1000 who did so unsuccessfully who you haven’t heard about. A few examples include cold fusion, intelligent design, and some lunatic who mass-mailed his “theory of everything” to physics department faculty and grad students while I was a grad student.
I thought there was no debate…
Dee Norris: Well, he has a point. Heartland is a political creature and while the conference is all we have, there is a risk that questionable science will be readily accepted in the name of politics.
Again, Dee, you are misrepresenting what he said. He said nothing about being concerned about that supposed risk. He simply smeared Heartland, and implied that attendees were fools who were simply being used. We all know what he said. All you are doing is putting your own spin on it. Leif deserved every bit of criticism he got, and more.
@Bruce Cobb (11:55:23) :
If you scroll up about 4 days to this comment, Leif clarified his previous remarks:
I got the impression that many people ignored/missed his clarification by the continued criticism of the original remark. I apologize for not referencing it in my earlier comment.
Leif: A case in point is
http://www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork08/PowerPoint/Monday/archibald.ppt
Quick, someone notify Heartland. Only Leif-approved science should be offered, none other.
Bruce Cobb (12:31:56) :
Monday/archibald.ppt
Quick, someone notify Heartland. Only Leif-approved science should be offered, none other.
That paper was not science by any measure, as simple as that.
@ur momisugly Leif Svalgaard (12:54:31) :
Archibald’s presentation was aimed at policy makers, not scientists. The conference is for scientists and policy makers. It is unfair to judge it as one would judge a presentation as the annual Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference at NASA/Houston or some other science conference.
I didn’t find it particularly compelling at a policy presentation either. There was no hook to grab the viewer and keep their interest. I would have moved the CO2 material upfront and then used a clean slide with a single question:
If not Carbon Dioxide, then what?
Followed by a overview of alternate causes of the late 20th Warm Period.
Dee Norris (13:45:50) :
Archibald’s presentation was aimed at policy makers, not scientists.
All the more reason to be good science. Any scientist seeing the paper would instantly see it is bunk, but the policy makers cannot, so for them it is mandatory that the science be as good as we can make it.
Bruce Cobb (12:31:56) :
Quick, someone notify Heartland. Only Leif-approved science should be offered, none other.
I don’t think Heartland give a hoot, as long as the paper serves their purpose.
Joel Shore, as usual, misrepresents the situation.
It’s a shame this type of propaganda has to be constantly corrected, but the fact of the matter is that the long-term consensus is that the climate naturally fluctuates, and is currently well within its normal parameters. The climate has been significantly warmer, and much, much colder in the past irrespective of carbon dioxide levels.
Recently, however, the [repeatedly falsified] hypothesis of catastrophic runaway global warming has been put forth, challenging the consensus held for well over a century.
As stated, the runaway global warming hypothesis is false. Furthermore, the peer review process regarding climate studies within the scientific establishment has been thoroughly corrupted, as is made crystal clear by the Wegman Report to Congress and by Prof. Richard Lindzen, each of whom is feared and loathed by those feeding at the public trough and their partisan supporters.
Climate alarmism is now a rent-seeking industry, in which a very limited number of researchers mutually scratch each others’ backs by rubber stamping each others’ papers in the peer review process.
This is done in order to achieve ever greater financial grants. NASA, for example, will receive more than $10 million more next year over last year’s budget, to study why their climate models are all failures. About $5 billion taxpayer dollars are currently budgeted annually for “climate” studies and research — and that number keeps climbing.
The next time a globaloney propagandist tries to blur the line between true consensus and Al Gore’s version of “consensus” [‘the science is settled’], read the Wegman Report, and Dr. Lindzen’s recent paper. Those individuals are internationally respected scientists, and deserve to be listened to more than all the political scientists pushing the failed global warming hypothesis.
As a wise man once said, “Follow the money.”
Leif Svalgaard (14:14:20) :
“Any scientist seeing the paper would instantly see it is bunk, but the policy makers cannot, so for them it is mandatory that the science be as good as we can make it.”
Well said!
If I might also add though that we need not just good science but good communicators to make the science straightforward so that others can understand it.
I found this site in February (08) – a haven from the AGW mainstream media. I also quickly realised it was much less extreme than many ‘skeptic sites’ and it has been great to see scientific issues discussed. I have learned a lot, particularly in the last few weeks, spending far too much time reading comments and argument threads. I’d been looking for definitive arguments, causes, things to throw at AGW but I’ve had my own epiphany.
1. It is not CO2 (I knew that); it is not the sun; it is not even warming (now); it is complicated. It is impossible to prove what it is – we have theories at best.
2. I had become so frustrated with AGW that I was starting look for causative factors (to debunk AGW, or proove cooling) without taking a balanced view. I was in danger of being drawn into the ‘cult of skeptic extremism’.
3. It will take years to change anything (but that won’t stop me enjoying the weather reports in the meantime!)
So thank you for your good science and idealism. I will enjoy continuing to learn about the sun and climate but you have reminded me to think like a scientist first and foremost.
And by the fact that the Hockey Stick goes unchallenged by supposedly unbiased scientists, even though serious flaws have been exposed. In fact, multiple studies using the same flawed data and methodologies all passed the vaunted “peer review”. But once passed, such things seem written in stone, regardless of the flaws, or outright fraud.
Re Ric Werme (05:22:54), Frank. Lansner (03:43:48) and MartinGAtkins (00:50:41) thread on Alex Lockwood’s presentation (Seeding doubt: how sceptics use new media to delay action on climate change). This is scary, and I’ve met this attitude many times in the UK.
There is some research modeling how extreme opinions spread, which I found interesting (insofar as I understand it).
http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/9/1/11.html
(McKeown and Sheehy (2006) Mass Media and Polarisation Processes in the Bounded Confidence Model of Opinion Dynamics. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation vol. 9, no. 1)
This is heavy going, but if I’ve understood it correctly they have modelled though simulated interactions how opinions can become polarised or reach concensus. Two types of interations: social and mass media, which can be extremist – “since the invention of the Gutenberg press it has become possible to convey opinion in a more efficient and one sided manner.”
Thi final conclusion is interesting:
“The model implies that extreme and divided societies […] are likely to be found in circumstances in which individuals show little willingness to communicate outside of the point of view favoured by the community […] and where there are strong attempts by the broadcast media to convince people to move towards extreme positions.”
I extrapolate several things from this, suggesting AGW believers/skeptics as an example of a divided community. The current conference scenario, including the discussion about the Heartland one above keeps the division. Mainstream media and many blogs are extreme. Websites such as this that encourage debate are are seen as a threat because they are more likely to inform and aid concensus. Keep up the good work Anthony.
@John Philip:
I have embargoed your recent comment on this thread for review by Anthony who is traveling today.
However, I want to take the time to explain why I embargoed it. I have received no specific guidance from Anthony in regard to you. The opinions expressed below are solely my own.
One of the great strengths of WUWT is that Anthony welcomes all points of view for discussion. WUWT’s strength lays in that the conversations, debates, arguments are civil and generally free of personal attacks toward one another.
In your recent comment, the points you made about the background of the person in question are important and should be discussed, but the little dig at the end of the post was unnecessary.
Contrarian positions from knowledgeable people such as yourself are especially needed and welcome at WUWT. Knowledge only expands when challenged, debated and discussed. Without opinions like yours, WUWT risks becoming another insular group of people who blindly accept the anti-AGW position. WUWT’s readers deserve to read both sides of the debate and I encourage you to continue to defend AGW.
So then why do so many people have difficulty with your comments?
Along with your knowledge, your comments usually have a great deal of totally unnecessary self-righteous, smug and generally antagonistic asides whose sole purpose appears to be to inflame the conversation.
As Anthony pointed out to Counters when he was banned, this is his house and such behavior is unwelcome. He has recently warned you about this sort of behavior. Therefore I am leaving your recent post for him to review.
Should you eventually get banned (and that is solely Anthony’s decision in which I am not making any recommendations), understand it will NOT be because of your arguments in support of AGW – those are welcome, but because of the condescending manner in which you thrust them upon the readers here.
The choices seem to be: Fight, or flight to Galt’s Gulch.
I’ll stick around and duke it out. Back to back with Eddie Willers. They can’t have it. If they want it, they have to go through me, first. But my side may win out.
“boots-boots-boots-boots-movin’ up an’ down again,
An’ there’s no discharge in the war!”
Monckton claims that spotting a typo in an IPCC summary report endows him with the status of Nobel Peace Laureate,
Monckton is already so endowed merely by being an official IPCC reviewer. That he alone spotted the “typo” (nothing much–just a massive spurious increase in sea level) is the reason he actually has earned his piece of the prize.
Ayn Rand,,,,Great,,,(or Big..???)….evanjones…well put
Evan
In point of fact, to earn the status of IPCC Expert Reviewer all one has to do is submit a review comment and agree to abide by the Terms and Conditions of the IPCC. The comment does not have to be accepted. You or I could become an IPCC Expert Reviewer.
And the Viscount was not the only, nor even the first person to spot the error, others did so with rather less fuss. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/the-ipcc-fourth-assessment-summary-for-policy-makers/#comment-24730
cheers
John Philip (02:51:12) I guess this means I shouldn’t be snotty to you either. I’ll try to keep that in mind.
===============================================
RE FOREIGN ATTENDANCE AT THE 2009 CONFERENCE
Dee
Why not set up a separate fund for donations to enable people that can contribute to the conference but can’t afford to attend. I would be willing to donate provided we could find someone to audit the cash and so on.
This message could be spread through all the interested sites to get the widest response.
Regards
Paul