The Other Side of the Warming Debate

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 in New York this past weekend. 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.

"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. "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 Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982. Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism. “The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”

• JJ Commentary: Ice Ages and Global Warming have long been a cycle of nature before humanity had any impact at all. Greenhouse gases do contribute to the warming, but to a minor extent compared to natural factors.