Global Warming: Myths and Facts

 

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Original Air Date
Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 11:00 Am

Western Word Radio Interview With
Chris Horner And James Taylor

SYNOPSIS

In this interview James Taylor of the Heartland Institute and Chris Horner, author of Red Hot Lies and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming, offer scathing commentary on the ‘global warming industry,’ indicting scientists, government leaders, the media, academics and a vast network of  alarmists  and doomsayers, who have falsely led the world into an incorrect assessment of  the risks to the Earth’s atmosphere and eco-system by anthropogenic global warming.

INTRODUCTION

For many years now, we have been buffeted by warnings that the world is about to be overcome by a catastrophe of man’s making. Global warming – that is, carbon dioxide emissions – have caused a heating of the Earth’s atmosphere to the point where life on Earth is threatened. In this edition of Western World Radio, we’re going to ask three questions: Is there warming of the Earth’s surface that is indeed catastrophic? Is there an impending catastrophe that is man made? And are the recommendations for halting the impending catastrophe realistic?

So, today we have with us Chris Horner, author of  Red Hot Lies (Regenery, 2008)  and The Politically Incorrect Guide To Global Warming (Regenery, 2007) and James Taylor, who is the Senior Fellow for the Environment Policy at The Heartland Institute and I’d like to welcome them now. James Taylor, are you there?

James Taylor: Yes, hello.

Avi Davis: Welcome to Western World Radio.  You have been the coordinator of a major international conference addressing global warming and, essentially, denying the alarmists. I’d very much like to hear you answer some of these questions we’ve just opened on this issue. Do you feel there is a warming of the Earth’s atmosphere?

Historical Context

James Taylor: Well, the Earth has warmed moderately since the end of the Little IceAge, approximately 100 years ago. During the 20th Century, that warming was approximately 0.6 degrees Celsius. The two questions that are most relevant to the global warming debate are:

1. How much of this is caused by humans?
   and
2. Is there any reason to believe that this will cause any significant harm in the future?

Regarding the first question, most of the warming in the 20th Century occurred in the first half of the 20th Century before humans were emitting much greenhouse gases. So we can see that for the 20th Century warming at most, perhaps 0.2 degrees Celsius, or about 1/3rd of the warming was attributable to humans. Secondly, whether we’re facing any type of catastrophe. If we look in the historical context over the last 10,000 years, temperatures have been predominantly warmer than they are today. Indeed, for about half that time temperatures were a full 3 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today. So temperatures would have to continue warming at the 20th Century pace for several centuries, for many centuries, before we reach the temperatures that predominated while human civilization first developed. So I would argue that we are not facing any type of a crisis.

Avi Davis: Well, what about the arguments – I’ll recall a piece from the Los Angeles Times that the carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere – even with the application of the Kyoto Protocols, which call for drastic reductions across the board- even with them, we are not likely to see any significant reduction in greenhouse gases. How do you respond to an article like that?

The Real Issue

James Taylor: Well, the greenhouse gas emissions that are occurring, quite frankly, are not cause for any real concern. So whether greenhouse gas emissions decline or not really isn’t an important issue in my estimation. Historically speaking, Europe has had periods where carbon dioxide emissions have been substantially higher than they are today. Indeed, from a historical perspective, atmospheric carbon dioxide is extremely low relative to carbon dioxide concentrations in the past. The real issue isn’t whether we have X amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the real issue is, instead, what do we expect our climate to be as a result? And based upon the very modest warming that occurred during the 20th Century, and the historical record we have where temperatures have been significantly warmer than today for most of the past 10,000 years. Then the argument that really carries the most weight as far as the scientific evidence I’ve seen is that we don’t have a global warming crisis coming upon us anytime in the foreseeable future.

Avi Davis: If that is the case, then how do you account for the enormous brou ha-ha and increase of information that we see all over the world about global warming?

James Taylor: Can you provide some specifics?

Inconvenient Truths

Avi Davis: Well, we just have to look at Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the fact that he was awarded a Nobel Prize for the film.

James Taylor: Sure, Al Gore was awarded a Nobel Prize, not for science, he was awarded a Nobel Prize for Peace. In other words, he had very peaceful intentions with his movie. Scientifically, every significant assertion that Al Gore makes in that movie has been refuted by sound science. For example, Al Gore talks about the glacier atop Mt. Kilimanjaro melting and says this is a sign of global warming. But scientists have known for many years that temperatures at Mt. Kilimanjaro are not warming at all, and the reason why the glacier is receding is because people have cut down the forests at the base of the mountain so the updrafts are dryer and there’s not as much snow fall at the top. Al Gore points to Antarctica and calls it a “canary in the coal mine” for global warming and yet Antarctic temperatures have been cooling for decades and Antarctica is setting records for sea ice extents surrounding the continent. In point after point after point that Al Gore makes, the science refutes what he says. So the mere fact the media, or Al Gore, reports that we’re seeing some type of global warming crisis doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.

Avi Davis: Let’s now bring in Chris Horner, the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Red Hot Lies. Chris are you with us?

Chris Horner: I am.

Avi Davis: Good; welcome. I’d like you now to address the question of where the scientists are. Where are the scientists who rebut the whole concept of global warming – at least what’s being presented by Al Gore and his acolytes – where are their writings and are they being heard?

The Global Warming Movement

Chris Horner: Well, it’s a fascinating question in particular for the following reasons: the global warming alarmists are in lock step and they count that. So far as we can tell, there aren’t that many of them but they are in lock step and they site other scientists having different theories, or different twists on different theories as proof that they’re not a legitimate force to be reckoned with intellectually because they haven’t gotten their stories straight. That’s very illustrative of where they’re coming from.

This is, in fact, a movement – the global warming alarmist movement. The other folks are practicing what has been known for centuries, at least since the church stepped out of science for a while, as science. And unfortunately, this is a bit of a high church of global warming whereby there is doctrine, there is dogma, and only in this context, and in some certain darker context of other times, was taking down a theory viewed as anything but progress. I mean, generally, science says, ‘here is my hypothesis, make your best run at it.’ You’re not only invited to, it’s the definition of science and now, these folks doing just that are considered, and in fact are often called, heretics.

But you’re asking if they’re being heard. I can only work on anecdotal information, but a lot of folks, from simple radio hosts who focus on many issues are saying that they sense a bit of a sea change in that they’re hearing more and more voices of science – and of the left, and unfortunately that does matter here – speak out against the dogma, against anti-scientific approach, against the conclusions and certainly against this nonsense that the science is settled – a truly offensive statement if ever I’ve heard one; but also as put into practice through threats, fraud and deception, as I noted.

Avi Davis: I want to read to you two little snippets from the Wall Street Journal, front page, their Worldwide Section from yesterday and either of you can respond to it. ‘London was hit by the heaviest snow in 20 years. Storms disrupted air and rail traffic across Northern Europe.’ Immediately below it, ‘Hundreds of thousands in Kentucky and Arkansas remain without power and water as week after week of an ice storm.’

These are sort of existential realities of our climates. I want to contrast the heaviest snowfall in London’s history with the fact that Australians seem to be enormously affected by what, they call, the hole in the Ozone. I was back in Australia about two years ago, and was warned that if I went outside without sunscreen that within 2 hours I’d be sunburned; even with a head covering. And so it happened, I went outside, I didn’t have any sunscreen and I got sunburned. How do you respond to that? Contrasting those two climatic conditions.

Weather or Warming?

Chris Horner: I’ll take the first swing. Just as you describe, they’re climatic or I guess geo-physical phenomena. Regarding the weather, it’s now described as just weather. And we even had a hearing in the U.S. Senate last week where Al Gore came, of all people, to testify and Senator John Kerry opened by deriding any so called deniers to make anything out of the fact that Mr. Gore brings severe winter weather with him wherever he goes including Australia last November, I believe. It was just weather. Well, he says one storm or little spray of cold weather doesn’t mean anything, and yet Mr. Gore has been dining out for three years on a movie that cherry-picked individual weather events as individually and collectively meaning everything.

And in fact the entire global warming industry has been pushing hot years, months, weeks, and even days as proof of this theory. It is hysterically hypocritical, and often a double standard, but when it comes to the winter, to the cold, they say cooling is just for the proof of warming. Which just means the recession is for the proof that the economic growth is continuing. Words have no meaning. And whatever they say is so, because they say it’s so. You can tie in the Ozone hole, again, it is like severe weather, something that happened before industrial man. However you wish to tie this together, and some sects do. The fact is, whatever happens – unless it’s good – tends to be pinned on man now.

Only Moderate Warming in the Long Term

James Taylor: And if I can add to what Chris just said . . . We do know from the satellite temperature measurements, we do know from the ground surface temperature measurements, that global temperatures have been cooling much of the past decade. Now there are going to be places where temperature may not be cooling as quickly as other places. There are going to be places where there may be drought, as there always is, regardless of whether we’re in a little Ice Age or we’re in a period of relative warming.
What we do know, of course, is in Australia you’ve had some dry years lately. But in 2004, studying the International Journal of Climatology, they had studied soil moisture throughout the northern hemisphere and throughout Australia and what they concluded was – and here is the finding from the study – quote, ‘The terrestrial surface is both warmer and effectively wetter.’ A good analogy to describe the changes in these places is that the terrestrial surface is literally becoming more like a gardener’s greenhouse. So we have to remember that the Earth is a very dynamic place to be.

The weather can change from place to place, but overall we’re seeing moderate warming in the long-term; a recent trend that is relatively cooling and, by and large, the climate is more conducive to agriculture and to agricultural activity than has been the case before; though the changes have been good, by and large.

Is There a Global Warming Conspiracy?

Avi Davis: Chris, I wanted to talk to you about a major theme of your book Red Hot Lies, which is that there is a global warming establishment or a global warming conspiracy aimed at propagating a particular view and challenging, and destroying the careers of dissenters.

Chris Horner: Okay, there is a global warming establishment and you can pull out all the proof from almost any anecdote that anyone who has even rubbed elbows with this issue has to tell you. I first decided to write this book when I was sitting around a table with scientists from around the world in Vienna, Austria where I mentioned in passing, just making conversation with strangers, but with this issue in common, that I had learned it was Greenpeace taking my trash every Sunday night before the Monday pick-up and various other things – memos camera crews had left lying around with instructions “do not leave this lying around” – just showing the sort of harassment that anybody dares speak out gets in order to, hopefully, shut them up and, if not, smear them.

Well these scientists around the table all had stories saying how “that’s nothing let me tell you about what happened to me.” Tim Ball of Canada, their first climate PhD receives death threats, Tom Sieglestead from the University of Oslo said that he began speaking up as the, I suppose, former Director of Norway’s Museum of Natural History – very prominent there – added some historical perspective to the issue and immediately began experiencing the kind of petty harassment to let him know they know where he lives, like pizzas coming to his house. When he didn’t shut up the wheels on his car fell off, and then they fell off again.

Both times his mechanic said they had been loosened and his young daughter was in the car once. We have many professionals who have come out both in anecdotes to me – they insisted on remaining anonymous – which, after you hear a certain critical mass of scientists or academics telling you they have to remain anonymous, and others speaking out only from the safety of retirement, you start to see a pattern and you know there’s something very wrong. But others who’ve come out publicly saying they were told essentially, ‘you’ve got a nice career track; sure be a shame if something happened to it. I noticed you’ve been speaking out against our gravy train.’ Which is, as you know, the biggest thing since our moon shot program. We spend more as taxpayers on climate related research than we do on AIDS.

So if the fever swamps will not aggressively, while watching paranoid movies like The Constant Gardner, convinced the big pharmaceutical would kill some African babies to get their hands on a much smaller pot of AIDS money. If I’m going to be outrageous, I will ask for intellectual consistency on their part and suggest that maybe all of the folks who are presently making a fortune off of this and hope to make much, much more if they get their way, might also be engaged in a global warming establishment that is, for example, chasing people out of the business if they don’t tow the line. Insuring that skeptical publications don’t make it or, if they do, they don’t make it in more prestigious journals, and so on and so on.
We’ve got a back door to the U.S. National Academy of Scientists which I wrote about, and Richard Lindson of M.I.T. has written about since, that was created in quote, ‘temporary fashion’ and in practice to fill the National Academy with environmental alarmists like John Holdren and Paul Alic, among many others. Because they didn’t feel that the National Academy of Scientists had enough of their type of fellow travelers. And the opprobrium, which is visited upon – again, just mere academics or scientists, research scientists, who dare speak out – is breath-taking if you read this.  Clearly there is a noise machine, and an intimidation machine, and a professional repercussion machine set in place against those who dare dissent.

Does Big Business Benefit from Global Warming?

Avi Davis: You also mention in the book that there’s a lot of money to be made by global warming alarmists. You point out how Al Gore has made a fortune from his podium as a prophet of global warming. Can you talk more about how businesses are profiting from the concept of global warming alarmism?

Chris Horner: The best way to describe it is, it is a fraction of what they hope to gain if they get their way. Again, I’m not a scientist. I’m a lawyer who represents, among others, scientists who came to this issue in, what I thought, was a fairly unconventional way. I left my law firm to join an energy company as Director of Federal Government Relations, that then told me in a job interview that I had my number one priority was to get a global warming treaty.

And my first meeting for this company, which was called Enron, was sitting in for their CEO, a fellow named Ken Lay, and I was seated to the left of the American Gas Association, B.P., Niagara Mohawk Power and other rent-seeking companies -  companies hoping to make money off  governmental policy favors as opposed to direct competition or through innovation.  And on my other side, on my left, were the Union of Concerned Scientists and other pressure groups. And they were all seated around a big table in a fancy New York law firm’s conference room in 1997 trying  to figure out how they can get a global warming treaty; and how they can make sure the U.S. is involved. Well, I asked one of these gentlemen to my right, ‘What are we doing sitting around a table with people who want to put us out of business?’ and he laughed and said, ‘They want to put coal out of business first.’

Okay, I thought, I was new to this rent-seeking game and I sent an email to headquarters : “Houston we have a problem” and it didn’t go over too well, bad things started happening.  I left the company; but B.P., GE and others have picked up the agenda. The business plan is as follows: buy a bunch of companies, as in Al Gore and his Silicon Valley venture capital firm’s case – that will make money only if this new regime is put in place.

Now, Enron had bought the world’s largest windmill company, the world’s largest solar panel company and had set up a trading floor to play bookie swapping ration coupons, wetting their beak at both ends of the transaction. As well as the world’s second largest natural gas pipeline, which is going to make money either way. But now you’ve got other pixie-dust technologies that would never survive without subsidies, mandates and taxes to pay for them. So you’re talking, in order to feed the world’s energy needs – which won’t be met under this regime – billions and billions of dollars and if you get in on the relative cheap – meaning these are companies that won’t do anything but for this agenda, and then begin lobbying for the agenda, well you’re awfully clever aren’t you?

The Kyoto Protocol

Avi Davis: James, I want to bring you in now to discuss politics. The Kyoto Protocol, which was – I guess – back through the 20th Century from 1999 never ratified by the United States, although it was signed by Bill Clinton,. It’s my understanding that Bill Clinton actually advised the incoming president, and Congress, not to ratify the protocol because it would severely affect American industry without any significant improvement in the atmosphere.  However, since that time, of course, the United States has been vilified as the greatest abuser of carbon dioxide emissions and has been called to the carpet for its failures to address global warming. How do you address this?

James Taylor: Well there’s a significant difference between those who walk the walk and those who talk the talk. Now, in Europe and in many other nations where they’ve signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, sure they pen their name to a document, pledging that they would reduce greenhouse gas emissions but during this time period – and let’s take a look at Europe specifically – their greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise. The E.U.’s emissions have been rising fairly steadily since Kyoto was signed. By contrast, the United States – for a variety of reasons – decided not to sign the document yet our greenhouse gas emissions have remained relatively flat.
So, sure, countries that would stand to gain economically in a competitive nature vis-a-vis the United States under Kyoto, can come out and castigate the United States for not signing the document but in terms of who’s actually walking the walk, – what’s happening in the real world -the U.S. has been far more responsible regarding it’s greenhouse gas emissions than has Europe and certainly China, India and other nations who have been calling for the U.S. to take action. We’re taking action by allowing the market place to work, by investing in research and development; and even if we don’t pen our name to a document that pledges to do this or that – if nobody abides by the document that has been signed what good is that document?

Why Kyoto Was Not Ratified

Avi Davis: Chris  Horner , do you have anything you’d like to add to that?

Chris Horner: I don’t know what, if anything, President Clinton advised President Bush but I do know that you are one of the very few people who correctly point out that we did sign it, we signed it on November 12, 1998. And the news stories announcing it are still up on the Internet, but the State Department recently took down it’s announcement which was issued by the U.S. Mission to the United Nations; which is to whom Bill Clinton delegated this at about the deadline in the dead of night. No Rose Garden signing ceremony there because, again, a unanimous Senate had instructed him – pursuant to our Constitution – do not agree to this. Now he does not have to ask the Senate, as president, to ratify a signed treaty. The only permission the Senate needs is that signature. Protocol has it that you ask the Senate to sign once and they don’t spend their time generally unless you do;

But if the Senate was so hot and bothered on really reversing President Bush’s dismissal of this pact, it was purely rhetorical. He said mean things about it, he never unsigned it, he just continued the Clinton/Gore policy of not seeking ratification which is what he should have announced. Instead he announced on May 17, I think, 2001, through Condoleezza Rice, that we didn’t care for it and we weren’t going to pursue it.
Well, suddenly the stories changed and suddenly every newspaper in America kept saying Bush refused to sign Kyoto. And whenever they were challenged they said well then he withdrew from it; except you can’t prove that. It requires an instrument. We did withdraw from the International Criminal Court and I can show you the instrument – it’s on the state department’s website. We just said mean things about Kyoto.  So when Bill Clinton took the oath of office on January 20th 1993, homelessness in America disappeared – at least it disappeared from our newspapers. And you can solve a problem like that real quickly by just installing the right politician in the media’s eyes and the White House.

I think global warming is going to fade fairly rapidly from the list of the media’s greatest threats facing mankind. They have sold lots of copy, they have lots of fannies in the seat cushions to watch TV programs but do they really want to pick up the mantra that Barack Obama is mean because he refuses to sign Kyoto? No. We’ve got a year to figure out what he’s going to do and if he wants to pursue this agenda – if he’s going to do it through a treaty or actually try to get sneaky and do something that doesn’t require, at least in his mind, Senate ratification. So we are seeing a revision of the rhetoric, a revision of the threat, in my mind. I mean you’re seeing a little bit more leak into the coverage that well, okay, maybe its cooling and  some papers are saying that it’s further proof of warming but I detect a shift in the media as well because they’re not sure which way President Obama wants to go on this.

Obama’s Approach to Climate Change Issues

Avi Davis: Well let’s talk a little bit about the Obama Administration because, it seemed to me, quite a central plank in Obama’s campaign for the Presidency.  He does have an environmental czar who’s going to be running policy on this. How much is he going to be influenced or affected by Al Gore and his global warming alarmist claque?

James Taylor: Well, President Obama has certainly surrounded himself with people who pursue an extremist agenda regarding the global warming issue. But President Obama is also an astute politician, and I imagine that he realizes that if he pursues policies very aggressively that will cause economic damage to the American people he will pay a heavy political price. And, make no mistake about it, that the policy of reducing carbon dioxide emissions would indeed take a heavy toll on the economy. Barack Obama, himself, has stated this during a February 2008 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. He admitted that significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions would, necessarily, cause electricity rates to skyrocket. So, we’re going to see an interesting development here as to how much political capital President Obama wants to invest in this issue. And I am optimistic that he will do the right thing and not push it heavily, as Al Gore would want him to.

Chris Horner: I could take a crack at that.  The only tweak I would say is that this isn’t about climate. As you noted in your discussion with James earlier on, no one says, no one, under any scenario or set of assumptions, that the Kyoto Protocol, if perfectly implemented – and if Europe stopped buying indulgences from China and actually reduced emissions; if it stopped moving its baseline number up and up and up to reduce it’s violations; and other cheats that I’ve demonstrated – well, no one says it would detectably impact the climate. The one thing we can be sure about is this isn’t about the climate, okay? If you’ll notice that abortion groups, pro-tax groups, pro-state groups, anti-development groups – they all have global warming staffers, why? This issue and this treaty, series of treaties maybe, is the latest, greatest threat or vehicle for them to achieve a long-held collective – and often collectivist – wish list of policy demands. So I don’t think they’re going to back off this. I think they’re going to figure out how much they can get away with.

Using Existing Authority

And here’s the other thing,: they will use existing authority. Because in America we have a doctrine whereby what the agency does is presumptively okay, the burden of proof is on us to prove it was arbitrary and capricious – and that they have a very wide latitude of agency discretion. In other words, they can stretch existing laws quite far and we’ve already seen that, to some extent. So if they don’t think they can get away with adopting a cap and trade-rationing scheme, they won’t. But they might try to do things through the agencies and blame it on the agencies. The one real difference I have with what James said is, if they decide they have to move forward with something – be it a treaty or domestic rationing legislation – they’ll do it so it doesn’t damage the Democrats. They won’t vote on it in an even year because those are election years here and there’s no way they can risk it. The Democratic Congress fell for the first time in 40 years when they tried an energy tax in 1993 and they remember that lesson quite well. They’ll vote on it in an odd year, and it won’t be set to take effect until after the 2012 re-election campaign. It’s sounds a little too Machiavellian, but talk to any of these folks and that’s the way they’re viewing this.

James Taylor: And I would not disagree with Chris at all on that statement.

Underlying Motivations

Avi Davis: Well, I’m interested in another aspect of this. If this isn’t about about climate at all, but about something else, what is that something else? Is this, perhaps, a movement that sort of fills the vacuum that Communism once filled in the struggle between East and West? Is, in fact, climate change alarmism something aligned with anti-capitalism, anti-industrialism, anti-free trade and, in fact, anti-western civilization? Has it become, as some have alleged, a new form of religion?

Chris Horner: I would argue yes, and I think I made the case in two different books, The Politically Incorrect Guide and Red Hot Lies and remember there’s not a universal motivator. Sure, GE – who got Enron’s windmills, and BP – who got their solar panels, and Al Gore’s Silicon Valley Venture – they’ve got a pretty obvious motivation. And the Greens have set up very lucrative consultancies telling companies that they’ve got a great place, it’d be a shame if an angry green mob showed up outside, maybe you should hire us to consult with you on how to green your business and so on.  There’s enormous global warming industry, but there are also the population zealots.

Then there are the fallen Communists, there are the persistent Communists, there are the global governance types. This is a symphony with many different chairs of hysteria or axes to grind.  And the global governance or anti-capitalist crowd have gravitated to this issue. It’s got a very strong element of anti-capitalism, anti-western, anti-markets – for example, I show in Red Hot Lies – and I served on a panel recently with someone who reaffirmed this out in the open – numerous policy makers in Europe and numerous opinion leaders (columnists and so on) are increasingly saying, ‘You know, this issue – just this one issue- but this issue is too important to be left to democracy.

We need what they’re calling a third way; we need to find some way to just suspend arcane notions of individual liberties and economic freedoms and so on, just for this one issue.’ Which, of course, it’s not one issue – it’s not even about the climate – it’s energy, which means the economy and it means sovereignty and national security. But just for this one issue, they argue. ‘We just need to suspend these notions.’ Well, like I say, this is coming from a place generally other than concern for the climate. And it’s usually the same old suspects just riding a new horse. This is their latest vehicle.

James Taylor: And if I can add to that – it’s interesting that in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore says – this is either a direct quote or pretty close to it – “I used to believe in democracy.” Used to believe – that’s pretty scary. In terms of what the agenda is or whether we’re looking at a significant power grab on behalf of the big government forces. We have at our conference, our international conference on climate change last March in New York, European Union President, Vaclav Klaus.

Last year he was the president of the Czech Republic alone, well now he’s also the President of the European Union as well. He very explicitly made the argument that the Green movement has been hijacked by the old Marxists; by those who want to see a one-world government in which human liberty and freedom is taken away. And that this is their most effective tools their most available vehicle for doing so. I encourage any of your listeners here to try to attend, or at least get a hold of the transcript or the audio from President Klaus’s speech that he’ll be giving this March in our conference in New York because he will be speaking again on this topic. And President Klaus, he grew up under a Marxist government. He knows first hand what it’s like to have freedom ripped away by Marxist, by people that would take away liberty just for their statist views. And he’s now seen these same forces come together under the green banner. And I think he has a very potent message to deliver.

Heartland Institute Conference

Avi Davis: Vaclav Klaus, for the benefit of our listeners, is the author of a terrific book called Blue Planet, Green Shackles which is actually recommended on our website, so I refer you all to that.

I want to talk a little bit about the conference. Perhaps you can give us some more details. And give us the sense of what it achieved last year and what you hope to achieve with the conference this year. The conference is taking place on March 8 – 10 in New York City; and it is sponsored by the Heartland Institute.

James Taylor: Yes, we will be bringing together nearly 100 global warming experts coming from the fields of science, from economics, from policy backgrounds that will be discussing the implications of the global warming debate. We will be discussing just what science does and does not say.  We’ll be discussing what the cost will be to ration carbon dioxide; and where, politically, the global warming debate now stands. These will be some of the most important leaders in the field. We have, for example, Dr. Richard Lindsen from M.I.T.; we have Dr. Willie Soon from Harvard; we have Dr. Roy Spencer who oversees the NASA Satellite Temperature Data; we will have President Klaus; we will also have Jose Maria Aznar who was formerly the President of Spain. We have a very powerful line-up of speakers and we also expect to have approximately 1000 people in attendance to participate in this conference. Last year we received some substantial media coverage. In fact, our media coverage was far better than we had even hoped for. We were covered by ABC, CBS, NBC – the major television networks here in the U.S. – CNN, FoxNews, the Wall Street Journal; you name it, they were there. And much of the coverage was very favorable. Because we do have top rated, impeccably credentialed scientists that are presenting scientific information. And I would also like to note that we have invited, not just those that are ’skeptical’ about alarmist global warming theory, but we have invited the biggest names on the other side of the issue. We have invited James Hanson, we’ve invited Michael Mann, we’ve invited Al Gore, we’ve invited Gavin Schmidt, and none of them, typically, as is typical for them, none of them will appear at our conference and tell us their side of the story in a forum by which, and in which, their views can be challenged with hard science. But we expect to have a fantastic turn out, the scientists themselves will learn a lot from each other; they’ll have an opportunity to network and make connections with each other; and we hope that the media will convey the message that these scientists are delivering – that we are not facing a global warming crisis.

Avi Davis: If you want to find out more about the Heartland Institute’s Conference titled,  please go to our website www.americanfreedomalliance.org where you’ll find a link to the conference right there on the website. Please do that at your leisure.

I want to talk now about the media. How has the media – and this is a question for you Chris, because you do address it in your book – How does the media aid and abet the global warming alarmism and what does it have to gain by doing so?

Media Involvement

Chris Horner: Well, as an industry of course, the media has been selling catastrophe of any sort, but particularly environmental, for over a century.  In fact, I point out that after the Titanic hit an iceberg, one of the New York newspapers found an academic – didn’t even have to go all the way to Stanford University which is where they’re generally gathered now – to say that the iceberg hitting the Titanic was proof that  the Earth  was coming under attack from a new Ice Age. You can always find them to express some outrageous opinion, and that’s how the media likes to sell papers and so on.  We’ve seen a real difference here in that they’re now fully bought-in participants of an ideological agenda, okay?

Now, probably I think, there was a change around the Vietnam Era, but there’s a different type of individual going into this self selecting universe of journalism and they are dominated on this issue by something called the Society of Environmental Journalists which is a very woolly, old liberal organization that has handbooks on how to, essentially, be an agitator on the issue.

They’re very biased and I go through some of that, though a lot of it got cut because there’s so much material there. But I quote from Editor and Publisher Magazine, which demanded that the industry formally adopt the idea that balance is bias. When it comes to global warming, again ‘just for this issue we need to throw every single standard that might harm us’ – that is transparency and openly in debate – ‘out the window.’ And the editor of Time Magazine says, ‘look, we know what we’re doing and our job is to solve problems and this is a big problem. So, essentially, we are advocates.’ And, so, they are no longer just alarmists, they’re activists. I’m sorry, it used to be sensationalism – now it’s alarmism. Sensationalism sells and there’s a lot of that. I mean, Fox News which is derided as, so called, conservative, but they have wicked weather graphics and love themes that pop up anytime there’s severe weather anywhere because this draws eyeballs to the set.

But it’s very different now, and I think I document this pretty exhaustively, the reporters themselves, and their bosses, are now fully vested participants in an ideological advocacy campaign. Again, by fairly now widely chanting the balance is bias I think they prove that.

James Taylor: If I can add a little bit to what Chris just said? Just over a year ago I was at a conference hosted by the Society of Environmental Journalists, and after a presentation given by the publisher of a major U.S. newspaper one of the attending journalists in the audience raised her hand and asked a question. She asked, ‘Well, we hear sometimes from the skeptics that global warming may not be nearly as bad as we hear from the United Nations and that we, therefore, don’t need to take all these serious steps to address it. But my question is, what if global warming turns out to be even worse than the United Nations tells us?’

Well, the publisher for this major U.S. newspaper smiled, rubbed his hands together and said, with a big, broad grin, ‘Well, now we have a better story, don’t we?’ And that just tells you everything you need to know about the issue. And that is why, for example, when there are claims that the Gulf Stream is shutting down which will trigger a new Ice Age, that receives all sorts of headlines in newspapers around the world. But then, when a few months later scientists study the issue more diligently and realize that’s not going to happen, that refutation never gets published in the newspapers because it’s not as good of a story.

Selective Interviewing

Chris Horner: Real quickly, it’s not just that. It’s source selection, that is, who they will interview and who they won’t. And we usually get a throw away line in the ritual; but the not-everyone-agrees- section buried in a story and they’re always described as industry pundits or so on. Even though the global warming alarmists industry is, of course, industry funded. And it’s not just in story selection; it’s in the abuse of words. For example the words, “could”, “may” and “might” – when you read the New York Times – translates as ” could not”, “may not” and “might not” and so on. Read the stories with a different eye and you’ll see the games they’re playing. Read my media chapter, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Government  Involvement

Avi Davis: Well indeed, and it dovetails very much with what we’ve been saying at the American Freedom Alliance for a long time  -  that many journalists throughout the world today have basically abdicated their responsibility to discern truth and have instead become advocates for whatever cause they particularly believe in. So it is of extreme concern to us and, in fact, we are hoping to hold a conference on this very issue in June to address it.

We’re going to be ending in few minutes, but I wanted to just read to you something very quickly, Chris, from your book.

“The Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) created a children’s specific site inviting them to calculate ‘How big a greenhouse hog are you?’ as described by writer, Ben O’Neill. The fun continued when the kids mouse-clicked the skull and crossbones on the site in order to  “Find out what age you should die so you don’t use more than your fair share of the Earth’s resources.”  The website also discusses quote, ‘cultural imperialism’ and quote, “How much your lifestyle sucks”

Now this ABC, for those who don’t know, is funded by the Australian government; it’s an official government television vehicle.  Should it be  of deep concern that the government is sponsoring such vitriolic websites?  How do you respond to that?  Either of you can address this issue.

Chris Horner: Well, I think that there’s a couple of angles here. I’ll start with the latter, which is government. I’ve got a chapter on big government, essentially the use of government to expand government. This is just one more example. They’re in, essentially, Her Majesty’s service here by touting an agenda that would essentially require more confiscation of wealth and reduction in individual liberties seeding them to the state because – as you know, I also point out that when Kevin Rudd was elected Australia’s new prime minister and Europe’s best and brightest got together and he came to address them, one of the issues on the table was whether they should strip all Australians of their citizenship, allowing them to earn their passport back by proving fealty to global warming alarmism, or simply strip Australians of their citizenship if they expressed dissent allowing them to reclaim their passport upon – you guessed it – re-education.

Okay this is, in many ways, about government -  and Australia and the U.K. are providing some of the worst excesses to show to Americans and others.  Here’s what’s in their minds, now when it comes to the children there’s a couple of things – this is about population to a large swath of the alarmist industry. People,  that is other people, are pollution. Just enough of them, way too many of you and me, and to those people that believe the world is tragically overcrowded I say, we will miss you.
Unfortunately, they don’t show that kind of leadership – it’s all about other people not having babies. You’ll notice how Al Gore, once again, saying that having babies is pollution; although, he has four lovely blond haired children.  Then they terrorize them. And in Australia we had the first clinically diagnosed case last year of climate change delusion. Now, I work in Washington so I assure you it’s not the first case of climate change delusion.  Not to make light of this, but a child was committed, psychiatrically, in Australia because he had been convinced – by, of course, his teachers – that his individual consumption was contributing to an ongoing and ecological catastrophe that, of course, isn’t.

Brainwashing Children

And you can see children melting down on YouTube being egged on by a House of Representatives Committee Chairman and people cheering – interest groups who brought her here clearly not fit for the purpose to which they were employing her. She was rather emotionally fragile and had been convinced her homeland was being destroyed and so on. James’ organization has been the recipient of a hate mail campaign by 6th graders who were assigned it by their teacher to write to him, ‘You horrible people.’ So this is about brainwashing children, pester power at best; causing sleeplessness and terror at worst.  More than half of U.K. school children report sleeplessness because of terror over catastrophic man-made global warming  – which isn’t happening. So the state used to be charged with protecting us from child abuse, and they’re enabling it.

Avi Davis: Thank you very, very much. Chris Horner author of Red Hot Lies and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and James Taylor, Senior Fellow for Environment Policy at the Heartland Institute.  Join us next week as we speak to Norman Podhoretz, author of World War  IV:  The Long Struggle Against Islamo-Fascism. Thank you for joining us.