The Heartland Institute's First International Conference on Climate Change

Yesterday (Friday, 1st October, 2010), I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Heartland Institute’s First International Conference on Climate Change. It was held at the Sheraton on the Park, and began with a hot English breakfast at 8 a.m., followed by three wonderful speakers for the morning session: Dr. Chris de Freitas, a leading climatologist from New Zealand, Dr. Robert Carter, one of Australia’s top climate scientists, and Senator Cory Bernardi from South Australia.

Dr. de Freitas spoke about the influence of the Pacific Ocean on the world’s climate, and explained the Walker (east-west) and Hadley (north-south) air flow systems, as well as the Southern Oscillation Index (El Nino and La Nina). He talked about the Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976, which saw a change from regular La Ninas and a period of global cooling to more frequent El Ninos and a move towards a phase of global warming. This phase ended in 2000, and since then, the La Nina pattern has recommenced, accompanied by the expected global cooling. Dr. de Freitas spoke about the thirty year warming/cooling cycle that has been a natural part of the Earth’s climate for centuries, if not millennia. For example, there was a cooling period between 1870 and 1910, followed by a warming between 1910 and 1945. Then another cooling phase began between 1945 and 1976, followed by a warming period between 1976 and 2000. Since 2000, we have entered a new cooling phase which is expected to last for another two decades or so.

The scientist emphasised that long-term prediction of climate (as the IPCC is attempting) is not possible because climate is a coupled, non-linear, chaotic system. Dr. de Freitas also stated that although the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen since the Industrial Revolution began, there is not a single, peer-reviewed research article which provides empirical evidence of man-made global warming. As a scientist who was involved with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd IPCC reports on global warming, he commented on the fact that these assessments were cautious in their predictions about anthropogenic climate change, stating that there was little evidence for man’s influence on the global climate. Words like “prediction”, “scenario”, “story line”, “speculation”, “may” and “might” were used to show this lack of confidence. It was only the 4th IPCC assessment, of which he was not a part, which made the outrageous claim of 90% confidence that humans are causing climate change. De Freitas regards this claim as being purely political and not based on science. He also mentioned that the IPCC scientists, Mann, Salinger and Cranberg, who were responsible for this assessment, tried to stop the publication of all climate research papers that showed results that cast doubt on their claims. On the other hand, the two scientists considered to be the world’s top atmospheric physicists, Spencer and Lindzen, do not support the anthropogenic global warming theory.

De Freitas also discussed the fact that the Earth’s climate is a stable system governed by negative feedback that always brings a swing in climate back to the normal range. For example, as temperature rises, cloud cover increases, and albedo brings the temperature back to normal. High clouds produce warming, while low clouds cause cooling. During La Nina, the Walker Cell is more active and the Hadley Cell quietens down, and when El Nino comes, the Hadley Cell is dominant and the Walker Cell is less active.

The changing tilt of the Earth, volcanic activity, the Sunspot Cycle and several other factors all influence the temperature of the Earth, with the concentration of CO2 playing a very minor part. Finally, de Freitas stated that increased levels of atmospheric CO2 act beneficially as a plant fertiliser, increasing the rate of photosynthesis, resulting in increased food production for the world’s growing population.

After question time, Dr. Robert Carter spoke. He began by telling us that there is no such thing as an expert in climatology, as the United Nations would have us believe. Climatology, itself, involves around one hundred different disciplines, and no climate scientist can be a master of the entire field.

His talk concentrated on the history of sea level rise and fall. During the last ice age, eighteen thousand years ago, the sea level was 120 metres lower than it is today because so much water was locked up in the ice caps and glaciers. At that time, Tasmania was part of mainland Australia, and Queensland was joined to New Guinea. Further back in time, the seas were 100 metres above our present level, and five thousand years ago, sea level was 1.5 metres higher than it is today. Many islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans today were totally submerged at that time.

Dr. Carter then explained that sea level is measured locally, not globally, and that the term “average global sea level” is meaningless. For example, when the last ice age finished in Scandinavia, the huge weight of ice that had pushed the land downwards disappeared as the ice melted, and Scandinavia experienced an isostatic rebound, with the result that sea shells can be found on the hills, 70 metres above the present sea level. On the other hand, the remains of molluscs and estuarine sediments can be found deep below the ocean surface off the coast of Australia. Another example of the variation in different localities is shown in Sydney Harbour where the rate of sea level rise is only half that of the current global average.

The two main ways to measure sea level are via satellite readings and tide gauge measurements. Tide gauge readings are considered more accurate than satellite measurements (which can be contaminated with results connected to the changing shape of the Earth). During the 1980’s, the eustatic (global average) rise in sea level was measured at between 10 and 20 centimetres per century, compared with a rise of 10 metres per century at the end of the last ice age, when the ice was melting rapidly. Between 1993 and 2010, satellite readings have shown a drop in sea level as more ice forms around the southern ice cap. Although ice has been melting in the Arctic, with rising temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, the opposite has been happening in the Southern Hemisphere with a build-up of Antarctic ice and resultant sea level fall.

The next speaker was the South Australian Liberal Party Senator, Cory Bernardi. He spoke about the threat of the Green Labour Government’s plans for a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme, in which the public would have to endure huge rises in their electricity, gas, petrol and food bills, with absolutely zero effect on the Earth’s carbon dioxide concentration, and no science to prove the link between industry and world temperature. The fact that global temperatures have now been falling for the past ten years puts an even greater question mark over the need for a carbon tax. However, Prime Minister Gillard is intent on forming a closed committee, made up solely of anthropogenic global warming alarmists, which will not feed any information to the public and has a set agenda of high taxes and wealth redistribution from the working, productive members of society to the unemployed and special interest groups. Climate change is merely the “well-meaning” guise by which to hoodwink the public. Bernardi plans to call for the setting up of a Royal Commission to look at the scientific evidence for manmade climate change before any carbon taxes can be forced upon the public.

Following this talk was lunch, consisting of delicious wraps, cheeses and fruit. This whole day was free of charge, with talks, food and drink all supplied without any cost to the interested public. Everyone was very friendly and I talked to an astronomer who measured the shape of asteroids as they passed in front of distant stars, a nice woman from America and a Pakistani PhD who lectured in philosophy at the university in Lahore.

The afternoon session began with a wonderful talk by Dr. David Evans, an engineer and mathematician who had worked for the Australian Greenhouse Office, now called the Department of Climate Change. As a former anthropogenic climate change believer, his views changed as he gathered more information on climate and witnessed, firsthand, the manner in which the science was being corrupted by politics. He left the department in disgust and his talk was about the methods used by politically motivated groups to warp and distort the global temperature record to give the results they wanted in order to “prove” manmade global warming.

There used to be six thousand well-placed weather stations around the world. “Well-placed” means away from windbreaks, brick walls, concrete and asphalt, air conditioning outlets, car engines, aeroplane exhausts and sewerage storage ponds. Since the idea of anthropogenic global warming reared its head twenty years ago, these carefully placed stations have been closed down, and there are now only one thousand stations which measure global temperatures. 80% of these stations are now placed next to motorways and airport tarmacs, in city centres and next to brick buildings, air conditioning units and car parks.

Dr. Evans stated that in cities with one million people or over, the urban heat effect was 12°C warmer than elsewhere, and yet these results were being included, along with the other inappropriate readings, in the climate record. Weather bureaux, government offices and universities were also manipulating data so that past temperature records were being pushed down or “lost”, while more recent readings were being elevated. The “Climategate” IPCC scientists who were found guilty of scientifically doctoring their temperature records were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to keeping fraudulent records.

Dr. Evans stated that satellite temperature records have shown that global warming stopped in 1998, and temperatures are now falling. He also said that Argo buoys, which record ocean temperatures, are extremely accurate, and they have measured a strong decline in world ocean temperatures since 2003. The results of the Argo readings have not been published, and access to them is not available online or by any other means.

According to Dr. Evans, during the 1980’s and 1990’s, many global warming sceptics have been sacked from their jobs in meteorology and climatology, and global warming believers have been hired in their place. There is no auditing, no regulation, no competition and no opposition to these bodies, which are now heavily influenced by the United Nations and government departments. This includes the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO, a once proud scientific organisation. Britain’s Royal Society has also become a victim of the global warming scam, and so has the BBC, which also used to have a fine reputation for its accurate reporting of scientific matters. To conclude, Dr. Evans summed up by saying that the global temperature records have now been so corrupted that no-one can use them as an accurate measure of anything, and that any evidence for or against anthropogenic climate change that we might have been able to spot is now buried amongst statistically altered and untrustworthy garbage.

The final speakers for the day included: an economist, Dr. Alan Moran, who talked about the effect of carbon taxes on a nation’s gross domestic product and on the falling living standards that will be suffered by its people (e.g. Spain now has an ETS, loses two ordinary jobs for every “green” job created, has run up a massive national debt and now has an unemployment rate of over 20%); Dr. Barun Mitra, a political advisor and public opinion monitor for the Indian Government, who gave an account of the Copenhagen Climate Conference from the Indian and Chinese perspective; a lawyer, whose name I’ve forgotten, who described the false temperature records being kept by the weather bureau in New Zealand, which reported rising temperatures where there had been none, and about the coming court case which will ask the weather bureau to provide accurate scientific information regarding climate change or face being closed down; and finally, a climate change blogger called Joanne Nova, who spoke about the tyranny of the “Global Warming Witchdoctors” and their reliance on pseudoscience and deliberate misinformation and disinformation to the public for their own political gain, and how to turn the tide against them by using sarcasm, humour and ridicule to inform the public of their lies and deceit.

The day ended at 5 p.m. with free books and information sheets to take as we pleased, and an encouragement for us all to try to inform others of the science and corruption around this very important subject of climate change – a most enjoyable day.