Heartland Institute Ships Climate at a Glance Book to Thousands of Teachers Across America

Published February 2, 2023

Book intended to be “supplemental” to standard curricula and counter alarmist narrative with facts on the climate that reflect current data and research

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (February 2, 2022) – The Heartland Institute’s new book, Climate at a Glance for Teachers and Students: Facts on 30 Prominent Climate Topics, will be arriving in schools across the United States this week, giving more than 8,000 middle- and high-school science teachers the latest data and research on the climate.

The 80-page book covers 30 climate topics often discussed in science classes, as well as among the general public and media, and provides the data to show the earth is not experiencing a climate crisis. The book is designed to be easily utilized by teachers to integrate into their lesson plans with its breakdown into five sections: (1) The Atmosphere and Land, (2) The Sea and Ice, (3) Temperatures and Extreme Weather, (4) Humans and Animals, and (5) Scientific and Policy Controversies.

The data in the book – with footnotes in each chapter citing the sources – was compiled by authors Anthony Watts, senior fellow for environmental policy at The Heartland Institute who has worked as an on-air meteorologist since 1978; and James Taylor, president of The Heartland Institute who has been studying and communicating about climate and energy policy for Heartland for more than 20 years. The book was edited by H. Sterling Burnett, director of The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center for Climate and Environmental Policy and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

Download a free digital copy of the book here. All three climate experts will be presenting at The Heartland Institute’s 15th International Conference on Climate Change in Orlando, Florida, Feb 23-25. 

For more information about this book distribution, or to interview the authors, please contact Vice President and Director of Communications Jim Lakely at [email protected] or call/text 312-731-9364.

“Teachers and students need a concise, scientifically compelling summary of the most frequently discussed climate change topics,” said Heartland Institute President James Taylor. “Climate at a Glance for Teachers and Students provides exactly that. Moreover, the summaries are the perfect format and length to be daily lessons or homework assignments.”

“The goal of this book is to present facts that are normally ignored or outright distorted by pundits and the mainstream media,” said Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Anthony Watts. “Realizing that the book would be attacked from the beginning, because it is counter to the ongoing climate narrative, every topic is factually referenced to government science agencies such as NOAA, and NASA, as well as peer-reviewed science publications. People reading these facts for the first time are likely to be shocked to discover that what they’ve been told was true, simply isn’t.”

“Concerning climate change, too many science classes have become laboratories of indoctrination, teaching students what to think about this important topic, rather than how to think about it and reason through it based on facts and using the scientific method,” said H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute. “With this book, we are circumventing the normal channels of communication with students and teachers, which have been foreclosed to free debate about climate, and going directly to the source.

“Providing teachers with a concise, easily accessible, fact filled book about key climate topics – eschewing all rancor, ad hominem, and politics. Anyone who wants to understand the true state of climate science, based in government data and peer reviewed literature, rather than headlines and quickly thrown together white papers, should read Climate at a Glance,” he said.

Among the facts in this book that counter common and false alarmist narratives about the climate:

Crop Production, p. 6: As the climate modestly warms, global crop yields have set new records almost every year. That is due, in part, to longer growing seasons and greater concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

Floods, p. 10: The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports it has “low confidence” in climate change is impacting flooding. The annual cost of flood damage in the United States (per GDP) has declined significantly over the last nearly 120 years.

Snowpack, p. 12: Average North American snowpack extent is virtually the same as it was in the late 1960s, when U.S. satellite measurements began. There has been only a modest decline in Eurasian snowpack in recent years.

Coral Reefs, p. 24: Corals thrive in warm water, not cold water, and recent warming has allowed corals to expand their range. The primary causes of coral bleaching are not “global warming,” but sediment and agricultural chemical run offs.

Ocean Acidification, p. 32: Ocean water is not overly acidic with the pH of surface ocean waters falling by merely 0.1 pH units since 1850 and is still well above the neutral pH number of 7.

Sea-Level Rise, p. 36: Global sea levels have risen more than 400 feet since the beginning of the current interglacial period, as it does between ice ages. NASA satellite instruments, with readings dating back to 1993, show global sea levels rising at a pace of just 1.2 inches per decade with no sign that pace is accelerating.

Hurricanes, p. 41: The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has found no increase in the frequency or severity of hurricanes despite modest warming.

U.S. Heat Waves, p. 49: The all-time high temperature records set in most states occurred in the first half of the 20th century. The heat waves of recent decades have been far less severe and frequent than they were in the 1930s.

U.S. Wildfires, p. 54: Even in the recent worst wildfire seasons, those fires typically burned one-fifth to half as much land as the standard wildfire seasons in the early 20th century.

Climate Refugees, p. 58: Despite much fear-mongering, a majority of the islands from which climate activists predicted would produce “climate refugees” due to sea-level rise have actually seen their landmass increase in recent decades. The United Nations confirms casualties linked to climate-related natural disasters have declined this century.

Polar Bears, p. 69: Polar bear populations have increased dramatically in recent decades despite claims to the contrary made in the media and among climate activists. Polar bears have thrived in much warmer climates than we are experiencing today.

The Heartland Institute is a national free-market think tank founded in 1984 in Chicago and now located in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The Economist magazine called Heartland “the world’s most prominent think-tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change.”

Heartland has organized 15 International Conferences on Climate Change and published the 3,000-page Climate Change Reconsidered series of volumes by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.

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