Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, March 7, 2008

Scientists, economists, and policy experts gathered for the International Conference on Climate Change in New York City this week joined in issuing the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change following the conference. The Declaration reads:

“Global warming” is not a global crisis

We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognizing that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed ‘consensus’ among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change. Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend —

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as “An Inconvenient Truth.”

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008

(Readers can endorse the Manhattan Declaration here.)

The conference, sponsored by the Heartland Institute, brought together scientists, economists, and policy experts from around the world who question the claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others that manmade global warming threatens catastrophic impacts and must be stopped by mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Nearly a hundred presentations, mostly in parallel sessions, were given at the conference. The most thorough report on the conference I’ve seen thus far is by the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee’s Marc Morano. Morano’s report includes links to many media reports on the conference–and deftly points out the bias in most coverage. As a former newspaper reporter, editor, and publisher myself, whose father was a lifelong journalist committed to the notion that newsmen should report and not opine, I find most of the coverage shameful, and it is particularly ironic that a partisan Senate staff member, Morano, should have so thoroughly bested the professional journalists at their own profession.

Plenary speakers at the conference and their presentation titles included:

• Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D., research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and editor of the online World Climate Report, “Global Warming: Some Convenient Facts”
• Robert C. Balling, Jr., Ph.D., professor of climatology at Arizona State University, “The Increase in Global Temperature: What It Does and Does Not Tell Us”
• Ross McKitrick, Ph.D., associate professor of economics at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, “Quantifying the Influence of Anthropogenic Surface Processes on Gridded Global Climate Data”
• Tim Ball, Ph.D., environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, “Climate Is a Generalist Discipline”
• S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., atmospheric and space physicist, distinguished research professor at George Mason University and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia, “The NIPCC Report: Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate”
• William M. Gray, Ph.D., professor of meteorology at Colorado State University and long-time specialit in hurricane studies, “Oceans, Not Carbon Dioxide, Are Driving Climate”
• Vaclav Klaus, Ph.D., president of the Czech Republic, an economist, “Why We Should Not Make Big Mistakes Over Climate Change”
• Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D., principal research scientist for the University of Alabama, Huntsville, former senior scientist in climate studies with NASA, “Recent Evidence for Reduced Climate Sensitivity”
• John Stossel, ABC News correspondent, “Freedom and Its Enemies”

 

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