Townhall | Thomas Sowell | Feb. 28, 2008
It has almost become something of a joke when some “global warming” conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather. But stampedes and hysteria are no joke — and creating stampedes and hysteria has become a major activity of those hyping a global warming “crisis.”
They mobilize like-minded people from a variety of occupations, call them all “scientists” and then claim that “all” the experts agree on a global warming crisis.
Their biggest argument is that there is no argument.
A whole cottage industry has sprung up among people who get grants, government agencies who get appropriations, politicians who get publicity and the perpetually indignant who get something new to be indignant about. It gives teachers something to talk about in school instead of teaching.
Those who bother to check the facts often find that not all those who are called scientists are really scientists and not all of those who are scientists are specialists in climate. But who bothers to check facts these days?
A new and very different conference on global warming will be held in New York City, under the sponsorship of the Heartland Institute, on March 2nd to March 4th — weather permitting.
It is called an “International Conference on Climate Change.” Its subtitle is “Global Warming: Truth or Swindle?” Among those present will be professors of climatology, along with scientists in other fields and people from other professions.
They come from universities in England, Hungary, and Australia, as well as from the United States and Canada, and include among other dignitaries the president of the Czech Republic.
There will be 98 speakers and 400 participants.
The theme of the conference is that “there is no scientific consensus on the causes or likely consequences of global warming.”
Many of the participants in this conference are people who have already expressed skepticism about either the prevailing explanations of current climate change or the dire predictions about future climate change.
These include authors of such books as “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years” by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, and “Shattered Consensus,” edited by Patrick J. Michaels.
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