Dr. Craig Idso, is the founder and chairman of the Center for Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. He addresses concerns about global warming and marine life, including the death of the coral reefs and other underwater ecosystems. Neither increases in temperature nor increases in carbon or both of them together, have had any lasting ill effects on the calcifications and growth in marine organisms. The Center’s work on ocean acidification can be found here. His general advice for politicians: pay attention more to real world observations than theoretical hypotheses.
Cato scholar Pat Michaels gives the audience a great preview of his relatively new book, Climate of Extremes: Global Warming Science They Don’t Want You to Know. Michaels refutes the misstatements of Al Gore, the IPCC scientists, and other global warming alarmism through simple fact-checking. The book, a bit technical at times (as it should be) is one of the best pieces of literature out there refuting climate change extremism. You can get it here.
Bob Carter is next. Professor Carter is a geologist at James Cook University and is widely known for his global warming skepticism. In his 2006 article, “There IS a problem with global warming… it stopped in 1998,” He goes on to say,
The essence of the issue is this. Climate changes naturally all the time, partly in predictable cycles, and partly in unpredictable shorter rhythms and rapid episodic shifts, some of the causes of which remain unknown. We are fortunate that our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 per cent of the last two million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.”
An Australian professor, Carter discusses the wildfires that took place in his homeland which resulted in over 200 deaths, displaced 10,000 people and devastated a great deal of land and wildlife in Australia. He then points to massive floods, hurricanes, tornadoes that have done the same around the world. Needless to say, the alleged culprit of these events is often global warming. Any plan stemming from natural disasters should be a plan not to change temperature but to accommodate those affected and adapt when and where we can. Countries have spent trillions of dollars on Kyoto Protocol treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions since 1997. Notice any change in the temperature?
Dr. John S. Theon follows Carter. Theon, a retired senior NASA atmospheric scientist was once James Hansen’s supervisor. Hansen, remember, is the climate scientists known for global warming fear mongering and is probably the most prominent name in the global warming movement other than Al Gore. Hansen believes CEOs of oil companies should be put on trial for committing high crimes on humanity and nature.
Theon is one of the 650 dissenting scientists named in a U.S. Senate Minority Report released in December 2008. He tells the story of Hansen’s close relationship with Gore and how Gore and Hansen worked together to politicize what should have been a scientific debate. Accused of muzzling Hansen, Dr. Theon confidently says he did so for a good reason. The climate change models used by NASA simply did not know enough to forecast credible predictions of climate change and anthropogenic effects on it.
At the time in 1988 to the early 1990s, the variation in modeling results, from a few degrees of warming to a few degrees of cooling, indicated to Dr. Theon that these models could not be trusted. Though the models have improved, the climate remains extremely complex, and that has led Dr. Theon to the same conclusion that many other climatologists and scientists have arrived at over the past few days: there is no scientific consensus on climate change and implementing an extremely costly policy that may have little or no effect on temperature would be ill-advised and dangerous.