The spokeswoman for President Bush says the United States will continue "to take steps" to deal with global warming, even though a conference in New York assembled hundreds of scientists and experts from Australia, Canada, England, France, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland, Russian, Sweden and the U.S. to warn the "alarmism" over the issue is a greater danger than the natural cycles of heating and cooling on Earth.

"The president's position on climate change is well-known. He's long said that human beings are contributing in some ways to climate change. And that's why we're taking steps to deal with it, and in fact, tomorrow will make a – have remarks at the International Renewable Energy Conference, when he talks about that very issue," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Her response was to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, who asked:

"President Klaus of the Czech Republic, and John Stossel, the co-anchor of ABC's 20-20, are among 98 speakers at the International Conference on Climate Change, Global Warming: Truth or Swindle, which is now going on in New York City. And my question: Does the president welcome or deplore this gathering of so many scientists who have signed a petition that global warming probably is natural and not a crisis?"

(Story continues below)

"I don't think the president has an opinion on the meeting. I haven't talked to him about it. And if people want to gather and express their views, they're obviously very welcome to do so, and New York is as good a place as any," she said.

Joseph Bast, president of the sponsor, The Heartland Institute, told those at the conference, which was promoted with the following YouTube video, that the stakes in the debate "are enormous."

 

"George Will, in an October 'Newsweek' column commenting on Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize, wrote that if nations impose the reductions in energy use that Al Gore and the folks at RealClimate call for, they will cause 'more preventable death and suffering than was caused in the last century by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot combined,'" Bast said.

He said the "consensus" on global warming proclaimed by former Vice President Al Gore and others really exists nowhere but in a publicity campaign, and his goal is to reveal the truth of climate change.

"It is my hope, and the reason The Heartland Institute organized this conference, that public policies that impose enormous costs on millions of people, in the U.S. and also around the world, will not be passed into law before the fake 'consensus' on global warming collapses," he said. "Once passed, taxes and regulations are often hard to repeal. Once lost, freedoms are often very difficult to retrieve."

Questions discussed at the conference included the reliability of data used to document "warming," how much of the changes in climate are natural and how much is the result of human activity, how reliable are computer models used to forecast conditions, and is reducing emissions "the best or only response" to the situation.

He noted only one in four scientists surveyed by the GKSS Institute of Coastal Research in Germany believes "the current state of scientific knowledge is able to provide reasonable predictions of climate variability on time scales of 100 years."

"That's a long ways from 'consensus,'" he said.

"Al Gore, the United Nations, environmental groups, and too often the reporters who cover the climate change debate are the ones who are out of step with the real 'consensus,'" Bast said. "They claim to be certain that global warming is occurring, convinced it is due to human causes, and 100 percent confident we can predict future climates. … Who is on the fringe of scientific consensus? The alarmists or the skeptics?"

He cited a comment from Jim Martin, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, who, according to the Denver Post, said, "You could have a convention of all the scientists who dispute climate change in a relatively small phone booth."

But he noted the conference attendees from the University of Alabama, Arizona State, Carleton, Central Queensland, Delaware, Durham, and Florida State University. Also George Mason, Harvard, The Institute Pasteur in Paris, James Cook, John Moores, Johns Hopkins, and the London School of Economics. Also the University of Mississippi, Monash, Nottingham, Ohio State, Oregon State, Oslo, Ottawa, Rochester, Rockefeller, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. And from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Suffolk University, the University of Virginia, Westminster School of Business (in London), and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Hey Jim Martin," Bast challenged. "Does this look like a phone booth to you?"

He said is the reality of scientific evidence needs to be heard. "The Heartland Institute is in the 'skeptics' camp because we know alarmism is a tool that has been used by opponents of individual freedom and free enterprise since as early as 1798, when Thomas Malthus predicted that food supply would fail to keep up with population growth.

"No scientific theory is true because a majority of scientists say it to be true. Scientific theories are only provisionally true until they are falsified by data that can be better explained by a different theory. And it is by falsifying current theories that scientific knowledge advances, not by consensus," he said.

In a second question, Kinsolving asked about Perino's consistent refusal to comment on the 2008 presidential race.

"In the president's press conference last week, he repeatedly took questions about the presidential primaries. And my question: Given the president's grace in responding to questions about one of the most interesting campaigns in U.S. history, surely his press secretary will be equally gracious in this respect, won't you?

"I think so," Perino said.

"Good. You will," Kinsolving said.

"I'm not going to – you want me to comment on the primaries?" Perino asked.

"I just want to know…" Kinsolving said.

"Will I be gracious?" Perino said.

"…we will be able to ask you questions about the primaries, right?" Kinsolving said.

"You've been asking for many months," she said.

"I know, and been turned down. But the president responded, and so, therefore, I'm sure you'll be as gracious as the president, right?" Kinsolving said.

"I aspire to be," Perino said.

 

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Do you have a tough question you'd like to ask the White House? WND's MR. PRESIDENT! forum is your big chance.

 

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Related story:

Scientists gather to challenge Gore, U.N.

 

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