By Tom Stacy

UPDATE: See the keynote addresses now posted on Heartland.org here. All presentation coming soon.

Greetings to my friends and those I have worked with in matters of energy choices.  I am writing to you from my Hotel room in Chicago just after the close of the fourth international conference on climate change, where the science is always never settled, and the first law of thermodynamics and our climate continue to ignore computer models. 

The entire conference - all 94 presentations by scientists from 30 nations - is available (or soon will be) for replay, and the presentation slides from many for download, here. What a tremendous and important resource for our work to preserve our nation and its founding principles!!!

Several speakers stood out for me.  Dr, Bryan Leyland of New Zealand spoke in concise terms about wind energy.  I hope to use his presentation as a model for some education opportunities on my horizon.  It can be found soon here (Session Four, Economics Track).  Video for certain, and the presentation slides if he decides to release them. 

Dr. Willie Soon, astrophysicist made some down to earth comparisons for us non-scientists, noting that if Refrigerator Perry (Chicago Bears, retired) were our climate, then King Kong might represent the sun’s ability to move it up or down, and he (a gentleman of modest stature), might represent CO2 in the same effort. Man’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 was represented in the example by a plate of five cheeseburgers that Willie was eating in preparation for his attempt to “impact” Refrigerator Perry. 

For the first time, scientists from the climate change camp also presented at the Heartland conference.  Two of them.  Mr. Tam Hunt, owner of Community Renewable Solutions spoke on behalf of renewable energy’s growth and economics (but not on their measured impact on AGW), and A. Scott Denning of NOAA and Colorado State University presented on the first law of thermodynamics, and the infra-red energy absorption potential of CO2 molecules in contrast to nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere.  I found Dr. Denning to be a very effective communicator.  At the close of the conference, Scott thanked Heartland and the 800 conference attendees for inviting him, said he had made friends and learned much over the three day event.  He concluded by imploring that squelching scientific debate undermines the scientific method, and called out to his global warming theory believing peers to attend the next (fifth) conference.  I hope this message finds its way somehow to the boards of education in every public and private school system in America.

Several speakers including Apollo moon walker and Senator, Harrison Schmitt, and network television meteorologist (and Icecap board member) Art Horn both indicated their dedication to preserving the teaching of the scientific method in our schools - by appropriately exploring both sides of the global warming theory issue in the science classrooms.  I had an opportunity to interview Senator Schmitt on video during the conference, and am happy to share that footage with you upon request at a later time.

In addition to Schmitt, numerous lawmakers attended and several gave speeches at the conference. State Senator Jungbauer of Minnesota, Utah Assemblyman, Mike Noel, Senator Cory Bernardi of South Australia, former US Senator and Representative from Virginia, George F. Allen, and via video tape, US Congressional hopeful, Dr. Arthur Robinson (primary today).  Thanks to all of them for making cap and trade and its underlying driver, climate consensus, a priority issue.

Dr. Gabriel Calzada Alvarez, the author of the contentious “Spanish Green Jobs Study” last year also spoke, although I jumped to two other tracks to see Cork Hayden and Willie Soon present, so missed Alvarez.  I do encourage you to review his paper at:  It was important enough to AWEA and NREL that they collaborated on a rebuttal, setting a dubious precedent in the US Department of Energy.  We’ll have to catch the replay here.

From leading MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen to economists from CATO, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, to numerous active and retired energy experts, the message was loud and consistent:  Our government has no business mandating carbon emissions or energy sources, and the clear winners from such policies will be the mega-corporations whose lobbysists conspire with politicians to ensure and pad their future success at taxpayer and rate-payer expense.

My friend Jay Lehr is, among other things, Science Director for The Heartland Institute.  I will echo advice from his key-note speech this morning:  We each bear the burden and responsibility to preserve sound science, our country, our freedom, and our constitution.  We can do so just by casually but credibly sharing with others what we learn about important topics like “cap & trade” and “global warming.”

The closing speaker at the conference was Lord Christopher Monckton of the United Kingdom.  Monckton, who claims to be a lowly non-scientist, proved his scientific competence by coherently summarizing much of the meat from other heavy presentations into a resounding policy message:  Man Made Climate Change cannot be proven, but the media-enticing scare tactics of the theory’s sponsors can be.  Lord Monckton, after citing a passage from Article One of the US constitution as “proof enough” that the EPA has no rights under the law, closed in tears while reciting ta passage from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address:

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”