NEW YORK – Global warming is a natural process, not likely the result of human activities, argued more than 100 internationally prominent environmental scientists in papers presented at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, which concluded here today.
The conference, organized by the Heartland Institute, sought to refute the contention promoted by Al Gore and the U.N. that there is an "established scientific consensus" that human beings are causing the earth to warm catastrophically. The event attracted more than 500 people, including scientists, economists, policy experts and members of the public from around the world.
"The purpose of the conference is to provide a platform for the hundreds of scientists, economists, and policy experts who dissent from the so-called 'consensus' on global warming," said Joseph Bast, president of the Chicago-based Heartland Institute. "This is their chance to speak out."
"Is global warming 'An Inconvenient Truth,' as Vice President Al Gore charges, or a 'Global Warming Swindle?' Harriet Johnson, spokeswoman for the Heartland Institute asked in a statement distributed at the start of the three-day conference.
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"The alarmists in the global warming debate have had their say – over and over again, in every newspaper in the country practically every day and in countless news reports and documentary films," a notice on the Heartland Institute website proclaims. "But they have lost the debate."
Environmental scientist S. Fred Singer kicked off the conference by releasing a report entitled, "Nature, Not Human Activity Rules the Climate," summarizing a three-year international scientific research project conducted by the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or NIPCC, that Singer headed.
"There are many factors that affect the climate," Singer told WND. "What we can now exclude by scientific evidence is the argument that greenhouse gases are an important factor in causing global warming."
Singer and the NIPCC agree that global warming occurred in the 20th century, but disagree human activity is responsible. He argues instead that natural causes are likely to be the dominant cause of the scientifically observed global warming under discussion.
The NIPCC scientists contend the U.N. agenda "is largely hypothetical and not sustained by observations" driven by complex mathematical models.
The computer models, the NIPCC scientists claim, are only valid in a "virtual computer world," but fail to produce reliable real world predictions that can be empirically verified.
"Computer models undoubtedly have their place as a way of projecting possible consequences when one or more variables are changed," the NIPCC scientists wrote in their newly released report. "However, models do not represent reality, yet the IPCC persists in treating them as if they do."
The newly released NIPCC report presents scientific evidence that solar-wind variability is a primary cause of climate change, a better explanation for 20th century warming than greenhouse gas effects.
Moreover, the NIPCC report argues the IPCC's estimates of future human-generated carbon dioxide emissions are too high and the higher concentrations of carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity have been beneficial to plant and animal life.
"Global warming is attributable to natural causes," Singer told WND, "so in that sense global warming is unstoppable, regardless what measures Al Gore or the U.N. want to impose on us with new international governmental regulations."
"Unstoppable Global Warming – Every 1,500 Years" is the title of Singer's New York Times best-selling book, co-authored with Hudson Institute scientist Dennis T. Avery.
Examining geological and historical data, Singer and Avery claim to have established a 1,500 year-cycle that generates warming and cooling of the earth's atmosphere, regardless of the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.
The NIPCC report issued at the New York City conference was written to counter the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, a scientific panel established in 1988 by the U.N. to evaluate the risk of climate change.
The IPCC and Gore and the won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to disseminate their theory about man-made climate change.
The IPCC released a report Nov. 17 in Valencia, Spain, entitled, "Climate Change 2007," arguing "much of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG (greenhouse gas) concentrations."
The U.N. has utilized the IPCC to launch an aggressive agenda, largely supporting the Kyoto Protocol, calling for the establishment of a global response to climate change.
At the core of the U.N. agenda is an array of recommended governmental policies designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, including the creation an international carbon market that imposes economic penalties for non-compliance.
"Al Gore and the U.N. have a fixation with the argument that we cause global warming," Singer said. "Besides that, look at the billions of tax dollars going into various schemes like subsidizing biofuels. We're being charged twice by the global warming alarmists – once in new taxes the U.N. is planning to impose on us and then again as consumers who will ultimately have to bear the cost of these new global taxes."
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