American astronaut Dr. Jack Schmitt—the last living man to walk on the moon—is the latest scientist to be added to the roster of more than 70 skeptics who will confront the subject of global warming at the second annual International Conference on Climate Change in New York City March 8-10, 2009.
The conference expects to draw 1,000 attendees including private-sector business people, state and federal legislators and officials, policy analysts, media, and students.
Schmitt, who earned a Ph.D. from Harvard in geology, is the twelfth person to walk on the Moon; as of 2008, of the nine living moonwalkers, he and his crewmate Eugene Cernan were the last two to walk there.
“As a geologist, I love Earth observations,” Schmitt says. “But, it is ridiculous to tie this objective to a ‘consensus’ that humans are causing global warming when human experience, geologic data and history, and current cooling can argue otherwise. ‘Consensus,’ as many have said, merely represents the absence of definitive science. You know as well as I, the ‘global warming scare’ is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes, and decision making …”
Schmitt will be among more than 70 scientists, economists, public officials, legal experts, and climate specialists calling attention to new research that contradicts claims that Earth’s moderate warming during the twentieth century primarily was man-made and has reached crisis proportions.
Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute, producer of the event along with more than 30 co-sponsors, explained, “At the first conference last March, we proved that the skeptics in the debate over global warming constitute the center or mainstream of the scientific community while alarmists are on the fringe.
“Now in the past nine months, the science has grown even more convincing that global warming is not a crisis. Also suggesting this ‘crisis’ is over are opinion polls in the U.S. and around the globe and political events, including the decisive defeat of ‘cap-and-trade’ legislation in the U.S. Senate last spring. The crisis has been cancelled by sound science and common sense.”
Headliners among the 70-plus presenters will be:
* William Gray, Colorado State University, leading researcher into tropical weather patterns.
* Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the world’s leading experts in dynamic meteorology, especially planetary waves.
* Stephen McIntyre, primary author of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to the analysis and discussion of climate data. He is a devastating critic of the temperature record of the past 1,000 years, particularly the work of Michael E. Mann, creator of the infamous “hockey stick” graph. That graph—thoroughly discredited in scientific circles—supposedly proved that mankind is responsible for a sharp increase in earth temperatures.
* Arthur Robinson, curator of a global warming petition signed by more than 32,000 American scientists, including more than 10,000 with doctorate degrees, rejecting the alarmist assertion that global warming has put the Earth in crisis and is caused primarily by mankind.
* Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
* Roy Spencer, University of Alabama at Huntsville, principal research scientist and team leader on NASA’s Aqua satellite.
A partial list of confirmed speakers appears below.
Dan Miller, executive vice president of The Heartland Institute, a 25-year-old national nonpartisan think-tank based in Chicago, said, “All of the event’s expenses will be covered by admission fees and individual and foundation donors to Heartland. No corporate dollars earmarked for the event were solicited or accepted.”
Partial list of confirmed speakers at the
Second International Conference on Climate Change
Syun Akasofu
University of Alaska Fairbanks
J. Scott Armstrong
University of Pennsylvania
Dennis Avery
Hudson Institute
Joseph L. Bast
The Heartland Institute
Robert Bradley
Institute for Energy Research
Yaron Brook
Ayn Rand Institute
Bob Carter
James Cook University (Australia)
Frank Clemente
Penn State University
John Coleman
KUSI-TV, San Diego
William Cotton
Colorado State University
Joe D’Aleo
International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project
David Douglass
University of Rochester
Terry Dunleavy
International Climate Science Coalition
Myron Ebell
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Christopher Essex
University of Western Ontario
Robert Ferguson
Science and Public Policy Institute
Michelle Foss
University of Texas, Center for Energy Economics
William Gray
Colorado State University
Fred Goldberg
Royal School of Technology (Sweden)
Laurence Gould
University of Hartford
Kesten Green
Monash University
Chris Horner
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Howard Hayden
University of Connecticut
Craig Idso
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
Sam Kazman
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Richard Kenn
University of Colorado
William Kininmonth
Former head of the Australian National Climate Center
David Legates
University of Delaware
Jay Lehr
The Heartland Institute
Marlo Lewis
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Richard Lindzen
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Keith Lockitch
Ayn Rand Institute
Craig Loehle
National Council for Air and Stream Improvement
Anthony Lupo
University of Missouri
Steve McIntyre
University of Toronto
Ross McKitrick
University of Guelph (Canada)
Patrick Michaels
University of Virginia
Christopher Monckton
Science and Public Policy Institute
Kevin Murphy
University of Chicago
Joanne Nova
Author, The Skeptics Handbook
Jim O’Brien
Florida State University
Tim Patterson
Carleton University (Canada)
Benny Peiser
Liverpool John Moores University (United Kingdom)
Paul Reiter
Pasteur Institute (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
Lawrence Solomon
National Post (Canada)
Willie Soon
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Roy Spencer
University of Alabama in Huntsville
George Taylor
Oregon State University
James M. Taylor
The Heartland Institute
Brian Valentine
U.S. Department of Energy
Jan Veizer
University of Ottawa (Canada)
Anthony Watts
SurfaceStations.org
