The Heartland Institute is hosting its 14th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-14) at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada in October. (Visit the conference website here.)
The theme of the event is “The Great Reset: Climate Realism vs. Climate Socialism.” The program responds to international leaders’ push to exploit the supposed existential threat of climate change to get people to “reimagine capitalism,” in the words of Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. As described in numerous documents and discussions, the aim of those pushing the Great Reset (GR) is to impose socialism worldwide, especially on energy production and use, which is the foundation of the modern world.
The GR has been a long time coming. It is the latest manifestation of the nineteenth-century Progressive Era faith in scientific managers and unaccountable bureaucrats not beholden to democratic election cycles or bound by allegedly outdated laws and the expressed wishes of people. It assumes these great people could, if only given free rein (and reign), manage the world economy more effectively to meet the true needs of the people, so defined by the elites, better than the commoners can do when operating freely in markets and through elections.
As described well in many of the more than 30 GR articles at the Heartland Institute’s Stopping Socialism website, the government response to the coronavirus pandemic was a test case, an opening salvo, in the effort to impose the GR whole cloth. The elites were testing how far they could push people, how much freedom they could seize, before people began to push back. Instead of tracing the disease and isolating those with the illness, as had been done to great effect during past pandemics, the government locked down people who weren’t sick “for the good of all.” As one anti-lockdown activist told Fox News, “Quarantine is when you restrict movement of sick people. Tyranny is when you restrict the movement of healthy people.”
Frighteningly, the vast majority of people demonstrated they would swallow Huxley’s “soma” pill, accepting huge restrictions on their fundamental rights and liberties, as long as the government kept cutting checks that could feed them and keep a roof over their heads. Fear of a disease led people to trade essential liberties for supposed temporary safety or security. Benjamin Franklin warned of this day, but, to paraphrase the folksinger Don McLean, “People didn’t listen then. They’re not listening still. Perhaps they never will.”
If the GR comes to pass, it will be too late for people to do anything about it. Any resistance will be castigated by sheeple on social media and in the mainstream media. Social media will shut down the accounts of any who object and will shut out their voices.
After the GR, “resistance will be futile,” to paraphrase Star Trek‘s Borg.
Most people born after the 1950s, before the elites stopped the teaching of real history in our nation’s schools, have at least a passing familiarity with President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address. Eisenhower’s speech was justifiably famous for his warning about the threat a growing “military-industrial complex” posed to liberty. Less noted then or now, but arguably even more prescient, was his warning about the co-opting of science by government funding and of government by an elite claiming ownership of scientific truth. Eisenhower wrote,
THE PROSPECT of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present—and is gravely to be regarded.
YET, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite
The much-hyped Green New Deal, Biden’s extravagantly wasteful “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan, and the Democrats’ grotesque $3.5 trillion budget bill are domestic down payments on the global GR, exactly what Eisenhower warned about.
That brings us to ICCC-14 and climate change. Politicians, bureaucrats, politically connected profiteers and crony capitalists, luddites, and activist scientists (those wedded more to leftist political causes or their own funding interests than to the scientific method) have repeatedly said climate change “poses an existential threat to human existence,” “threatens the collapse of civilization,” “will be catastrophic for human life,” and other such overblown hype. The GR is their answer to that threat. Only if we give elites all the levers of power, unfettered by inconvenient elections and unhampered by scientific investigations or reflective thought, can we save the Earth from 2 degrees of warming which they claim will bring untold death and disaster to people and the environment.
ICCC-14 is organized to counter those claims, to show that the self-appointed climate emperors truly have no clothes; they do not have the facts on their side. Approximately 50 top experts in climate science, energy economics, and public policy will present their current research on climate change and the likely effects of policies proposed to prevent it.
The conference begins with an opening dinner on Friday October 15 and wraps up with a screening of the movie Climate Hustle 2, followed by a reception with filmmaker Marc Morano and others, on Sunday October 17.
The conference will enable scholars to exchange ideas and research without fear of censure by climate activists and alarmists in the mainstream media, says James Taylor, president of The Heartland Institute.
“ICCC-14 provides a venue for realist scientists to meet with each other, energize each other, lift each other’s spirits, and discuss current and future research,” said Taylor.
Keynote speakers include William Happer, Ph.D., professor emeritus in the Department of Physics at Princeton University and founding board member of the CO2 Coalition; Lord Christopher Monckton, former special advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; and Patrick Moore, Ph.D., a cofounder of Greenpeace who currently serves as a director at the CO2 Coalition and a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute.
Among the other speakers at the conference are climate scientists Neil Frank, Ph.D., Madhav Khandekar, Ph.D., and Willie Soon, Ph.D; economists and statisticians Ross McKitrick, Ph.D., and Benjamin Zycher, Ph.D.; and nonprofit advocates for the poor and minorities E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., and Derrick Hollie.
Attendees will learn that science indicates the GR is unnecessary and economics and history show it is dangerous, almost certain to cause far greater harms than any realistically possible effects of climate change.
Forewarned is forearmed. Anyone who wants to be able to counter false claims about the causes and consequences of climate change and the GR in an informed fashion should attend ICCC-14.
There is less than a week (September 23) for you to contact Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas to receive the discounted rate on the block of rooms Heartland has set aside for the conference. Registration for the event is necessary, but interested parties have more time to do that than to book rooms at the discounted rate. I encourage you not to delay. Do both as soon as you can.
For those unable to attend the event or in need of additional motivation for attending, The Heartland Institute hosted a series of livestream events with ICCC-14 speakers previewing their presentations. The presenters, from most recent to first, were Justin Danhof, executive vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, discussing the threat posed by woke activists and investors working hand-in-hand with government officials to make all investments green and socially responsible; Derrick Hollie, president of Reaching America, discussing how President Joe Biden’s energy policies hurt minorities and the poor; climate scientist Patrick Michaels, Ph.D., discussing the vast gulf between measured climate change and simulated climate model projections; Amy Oliver Cooke, CEO of the John Locke Foundation, on why nuclear power should be included in any discussion of clean energy responses to climate change; Roy Spencer, Ph.D., principal research scientist for the University of Alabama-Huntsville, discussing what the oceans tell us about climate change; meteorologist Anthony Watts presenting data that proves climate change is not causing a climate emergency; author and filmmaker Marc Morano discussing his new book, Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal Is Even Worse Than You Think; and economist and statistician Kevin Dayaratna, Ph.D., on the myriad ways social cost of carbon calculations are flawed.
If these presentation don’t get you and others clamoring for more, I don’t know what can.
There’s one final, simple reason why the Great Reset is an awful idea that will bring catastrophe. Benign, selfless philosopher-kings are and have always been few and far between, if they have ever existed at all outside of fairy tales and philosophical tomes.
When I hear people like Anthony Fauci and James Hansen talk about COVID and climate change, respectively, and their claims to be speaking for “the science” and calls for us to “follow the science,” it sends shivers down my spine. Science should inform our choices, including political choices, but scientists should not dictate our decisions, as Eisenhower noted. No individual scientist or subgroup of scientists has full and complete knowledge or a monopoly on the truth. Nor do scientists have any special insight into what any particular person or society should value or what level of risk and types of tradeoffs people should be willing to accept to obtain or preserve those values.
October is the month when the imaginations of kids and adults that love Halloween turn to “ghoulies and ghosties, And long-leggedy beasties, And things that go bump in the night.” Attending ICCC-14 can help drive a stake through the heart of the most frightening of all of those monsters, laying it to rest for good. No one informed about the truth of climate change will be scared of it, but all may be outraged to find they’ve been lied to for years by scientists and bureaucrats seeking power, not truth.
— H. Sterling Burnett.
SOURCES: President Dwight D. Eisenhower; Stopping Socialism; Climate Change Weekly; Climate Conference
IN THIS ISSUE …
WESTERN FIRES NATURAL, FIREFIGHTING’S CHANGED … DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE DEVELOPING OIL
WESTERN FIRES NATURAL, FIREFIGHTING’S CHANGED
Longtime forest policy analyst Randal O’Toole says geological and meteorological conditions in the Western United States make it a natural “fire plain.” Writing at Liberty and Ecology, O’Toole states there is limited evidence climate change has worsened wildfire trends in the region. Other factors, such as a change in wildfire-fighting strategies, have contributed to recent wildfire seasons being marginally more severe than in the middle to the end of the twentieth century, O’Toole writes.
O’Toole has degrees in forestry and economics and is the author of the book Reforming the Forest Service and the Cato Institute monograph The Perfect Firestorm: Bringing Forest Service Wildfire Costs under Control. Regarding recent wildfire seasons, O’Toole writes,
[W]ildfires in the West aren’t evidence of a lack of funds, forest mismanagement, or climate change. They happen because the West is a fire plain, and, just as a flood plain floods, a fire plain is going to burn. For as long as we’ve kept records, about one-half to one percent of the West burns each year, and nothing we can do is going to stop it. …
You may also have heard that many western states have suffered their largest fires in recorded history in recent years, which is often cited as evidence that climate change is the real problem. In fact, fires have not gotten more severe in recent years; instead, large fires are evidence of a change in firefighting strategies.
Current federal policy deemphasizes directly attacking wildfires where they begin, and less acreage in Western forests is thinned or managed with prescribed burns than is common for Eastern forests. As a result, when wildfires start out west, more acres burn than in the East or than previously burned in the West under more active fire-suppression measures.
Another problem O’Toole identifies: the population living directly in the historic fire plain has boomed in the past 50 years, and many people and communities living in areas at common risk of wildfire often fail to manage the land around their homes well, leaving too little “defensible” space around them.
SOURCE: Liberty and Ecology
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ARE DEVELOPING OIL
Contrary to the wishes of developed nations concerned about climate change, developing countries are increasing oil production at a record pace, Reuters reports.
At a recent Offshore Technology Conference, Brazil, Ghana, Guyana, and Suriname announced ambitious plans to tap domestic oil and gas fields to advance their economic development. Their announcement contrasted with the dominant theme of the conference, which was the transition to “cleaner fuels,” such as hydrogen, and offshore wind development.
Representatives of Ghana, Guyana, and Suriname (which shares an oil and gas field with Ghana), and Brazil (already a major oil player) speaking at the conference said oil and gas would be key to their countries’ respective growth and it would be unfair to deny their countries the use of their resources. They said some of the revenue generated by oil production could be used to fund environmentally friendly development.
Ghana Energy Minister Matthew Opoku Prempeh said his people need and deserve energy now, and calls to cut carbon dioxide emissions would not stand in the way of Ghana developing its resources.
“We have millions of people without electricity in Africa,” said Prempeh. “Energy transition does not mean we’ll see our resources unexploited.”
Three-quarters of Guyana is covered by forests, so any emissions from its oil industry will be absorbed by undeveloped land, Guyana Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told conference attendees.
“We have been called to leave our oil in the ground,” said Jagdeo. “We believe that’s totally unfair.”
SOURCE: Reuters
H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., is the Director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy and the managing editor of Environment & Climate News.
