Some participants will call on their colleagues to synchronise the arguments they are using against governments’ plans to curb greenhouse gases. Some concede that humans probably do contribute to global warming, but argue that the shift in temperatures poses no urgent risk. Others attribute the warming, along with cooler temperatures in recent years, to solar changes or ocean cycles.
Organised by the free-market Heartland Institute, the conference brings together conservative business interests, political campaigners and scientists, including the geologist and former US astronaut Harrison Schmitt and president Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic.
Joseph Bast, Heartland’s president, called the event the last bastion of intellectual honesty on the climate issue. In contrast, Kert Davies, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace, said that the conference speakers were “a shrinking collection of extremists” who have been “left talking to themselves”.
Noting that there should be no further delay in acting on global warming, Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said: “Sceptics are good. It’s important to give people the confidence that the issue is being called into question.”
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