Heartland Institute Experts Comment
on Latest United Nations Climate Report
On Sunday, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its “Synthesis Report,” which completed the organization’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on Earth’s climate. The report claims “Human influence on the climate system is clear and growing, with impacts observed on all continents.”
The following statements from environmental science and policy experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at jlakely@heartland.org and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 312/731-9364.
“As one who speaks before many thousands of folks across America each year, it is clear that the shrill panic of the global warmers has worn thin on the common people in this nation. They no longer take it seriously and see it for what it is: the last death rattle of a delusion that never impacted Earth, its environment, or its citizens.”
Jay Lehr
Science Director
The Heartland Institute
jlehr@heartland.org
312/377-4000
“The IPCC and the world’s press seem to be in a unique co-dependent relationship. It has been about a year since the IPCC’s first press event on AR5. That report was old news long ago. Few other bodies employing repeated lavish junkets could garner this much press attention for recycled announcements of dire conclusions at odds with their own facts.
“The probabilities cited by them aren’t scientific; they aren’t actual probabilities. They are just the opinions of fallible human beings dressed up to look scientific. They become even more meaningless when they are raised from nearly 100 percent to even more nearly 100 percent. It is remarkable that this number swill is accepted as science in the first place. But it is even more remarkable that its ludicrous echoes make the news again and again as fresh as spring flowers.
“Fortunately, the IPCC is self-limiting. It cannot draw out the drama too long on the Fifth Assessment Report without interfering with the next report, which no doubt is in deep planning even now. I wonder if this so-called settled science ever will be so truly settled that a future assessment report (say, the 42nd assessment report) will conclude that there is no need for another.”
Christopher Essex
Professor and Associate Chair
Department of Applied Mathematics
University of Western Ontario
Policy Advisor, Environment
The Heartland Institute
essex@uwo.ca
519/661-3649
“As evidence increasingly mounts that climate alarmists’ claims are full of hot air, the more shrill their cries become that the end is near, absent quick conversion, a climate apocalypse is in the offing. Nothing brings out the ire and panicked response of end-time prophets more than evidence that their faith has been misplaced and science is proving them wrong.
“Fewer severe storms, an 18 -year stall in temperature rise, more polar bears, more Antarctic ice – all the facts are aligning against long-time promoters of the theory of human-caused warming. Millions of dollars have been spent and their reputations are on the line, thus the IPCC fights a rear-guard action.
“Regardless of the level of CO2, the fact remains temperatures are stalled. Forests, grasslands, and fields are expanding, and life spans are increasing. The only way to draw attention away from the good news is through hyperbole and by desperately clinging to flawed predictions.”
H. Sterling Burnett
Research Fellow, Environment & Energy Policy
The Heartland Institute
Managing Editor, Environment & Climate News
hburnett@heartland.org
800/859-1154
“United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon exemplified the childish and deceptive nature of the UN’s approach to climate change when he told reporters at this week’s launch of the Synthesis Report in Copenhagen: ‘Human influence on the climate system is clear – and clearly growing. ... The atmosphere and oceans have warmed. ... Science has spoken. There is no ambiguity in their message.’
“In reality, human influence on global climate is not even detectable. It is lost in the noise of natural variability. Neither the oceans nor the atmosphere have warmed of late (the atmosphere since 1998, the oceans since 2003). There is massive ambiguity in the science. Only in the speculative climate models and the minds of UN bureaucrats is dangerous human-caused climate change ‘unequivocal.’”
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition
Policy Advisor, Energy and Environment
The Heartland Institute
tom.harris@climatescienceinternational.net
312/377-4000
“It is hard to fathom yet another IPCC report attempting to crank up climate fears. This latest UN IPCC climate report confirms that ‘global warming’ is being run like a partisan campaign issue – full of urgency, a grand bargain of ‘act now or else,’ and carefully crafted messaging to persuade the public.
“The new report is boring, boring, boring. Even though climate coverage is my mission, I am having extreme difficulty covering the latest IPCC report. Please give us something new and different! The same partisan figures like Michael Oppenheimer (funded by Big Hollywood’s Barbara Streisand and EDF) and the same media articles have to be tedious even to the warmists themselves at this point.
“I predict that no matter the obstacles, the Obama administration, led by Sec. of State John Kerry, will sign ‘something’ in Paris in 2015. Obama and Kerry will seek a climate ‘legacy’ and will have a big symbolic moment signing a climate treaty. It remains to be seen what the GOP or the next president will do with the climate change issue.”
Marc Morano
Publisher
Climate Depot
morano@climatedepot.com
312/377-4000
Morano is the producer and host of the upcoming documentary Climate Hustle.
“The first four words of the report are very important: ‘Climate change is happening.’ You bet it is. The climate of planet Earth has been constantly changing for 4.5 billion years. Earth has been frozen into a sort of ice ball on at least four occasions (the ice ages) and has been as warm or warmer than it is today at least three times (Interglacial Periods) during its history. Smaller changes such as the Medieval Warm Spell and the Little Ice Age come more often, and smaller swings in climate occur almost constantly.
“It seems to me that climate scientists, the media, environmentalists, bureaucrats, and politicians have all been thinking about climate in a wrong way for a couple of decades now. They seem to have been thinking that there is a normal climate and it is what the climate was when mankind began to use fossil fuels. They have been positioning the climate debate to tell us that it is our responsibility to maintain the climate exactly as it was then. But natural changes in the climate have been continuing since that time.
“There is no reasonable way to conclude that, at this time, important, meaningful, or significant ‘climate change is happening.’ Yes, we are altering the climate at spots and in minor ways through our activities, but the bottom line is that it is not changing very much and no significant climate change is occurring or likely in the future. There is no climate crisis.”
John Coleman
Meteorologist
Founder, The Weather Channel
Policy Advisor, Environment
The Heartland Institute
media@heartland.org
312/377-4000
“The latest ‘Synthesis Report’ released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the panel is more certain than ever the planet is warming and humans are the cause.
“Despite the fact half of all the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial age has been produced since 1990, the peer-reviewed, scientific literature has concluded there has been no significant increase in average global temperature since 1998, the year Seinfeld aired its final episode.
“How exactly the IPCC can be more certain than ever that human activity will have severe, ‘pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems’ when their temperature predictions have been woefully inaccurate may well be the biggest mystery of the entire climate debate. Perhaps this report has been called a ‘synthesis report’ because it is based on ‘synthetic science.’”
Isaac Orr
Research Fellow, Energy and Environment Policy
The Heartland Institute
iorr@heartland.org
312/377-4000
“Everything you need to know about how perverse and dangerous the IPCC is can be summed up in its latest report. It is the same tired, old, and untrue claims of ‘severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.’ The IPCC wants the world to stop using coal, oil, and natural gas, saying that they must be ‘phased out almost entirely’ by the end of the century. The report reeks of the IPCC’s contempt for humanity.
“Losing electricity, no matter where you live, is losing every technology that enhances, preserves, and extends your life. You lose the ability to cool or warm your home, apartment, or workplace. You lose the ability to keep food safe in your refrigerator and freezer. You most certainly lose lighting. You lose the ability to turn on your computer or television. Indeed, you lose everything you take for granted.
“Eighty-seven percent of the energy mankind uses everyday comes from burning one of the fossil fuels: coal, oil, or natural gas. That has not stopped environmentalists from denouncing coal and oil as ‘dirty’ because their use generates carbon dioxide emissions. What they never tell you is how small those emissions are, that they play an infinitesimal role in Earth’s weather and climate, and are essential to the growth of all vegetation. They never tell you that Earth has centuries more of untapped reserves. The modern world could not exist without them. “To recommend ending their use is to declare their disdain for humanity, all seven-billion-plus of us.”
Alan Caruba
Founder, The National Anxiety Center
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute
acaruba@aol.com
312/377-4000
“It's ironic the IPCC releases its final draft of the global warming Assessment Report 5 on November 2 when an arctic blast hits the Eastern U. S. with freezing temperatures in Georgia and record snowfall in the North. The report increases its dire predictions in spite of no global warming the past 18 years during a period of highest atmospheric carbon dioxide increases in millennia. A panic must possess those involved preparing the reports, worried they may lose their tax-payer funded jobs with generous travel benefits.
“Data is readily available on the Internet for a century or more on events prophesized to be disasters - such as sea level rise, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, flooding, wildfires, reduced snowfall, etc. The data show the same changes took place in times prior to 1950 when carbon dioxide changes were negligible, as have happened after 1950 when carbon dioxide increases took place. Some data show decreased numbers and severity of events, such as hurricanes the past three decades.”
James H. Rust
Professor of nuclear engineering (Ret.), Georgia Tech
Policy Advisor,
The Heartland Institute
jrust@bellsouth.net
312/377-4000
The Heartland Institute is a 30-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.