Scientists, Economists Challenge Global Warming Alarmism

Third international conference attracts SRO crowd to Washington, DC

Washington, DC- Global warming skeptics, who for a decade have emphasized hard-science evidence to refute doomsday predictions from alarmists, added new ammunition to their arsenal Tuesday at the third International Conference on Climate Change.

More than 250 people crowded into Washington Court hotel meeting rooms to hear a dozen elite scientists refute the claim that global warming is either man-made or would have harmful effects on Earth.

But The Heartland Institute, a 25-year-old think tank that produced the three international climate conferences, also recruited seven elite economists to focus on the devastating personal and broad economic impact of legislation, sponsored by Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and headed for approval in the U.S. House, to put a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Businesses, commercial structures, farms, and other emitters could purchase and trade the permits to emit carbon dioxide and other gases that exceed the cap.

While the scientists reported on a vast array of peer-reviewed literature that cast doubt on the causes and severity of global warming, the economists produced data that showed the cap-and-trade scheme not only wouldn`t halt the release of greenhouse gases, but would add huge costs to business activity that inevitably would be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Dr. Jeff Kueter, an economist and president of the George C. Marshall Institute, referred to Waxman-Markey as "a dismal down-payment on injuries more intrusive into our lives and economy" than ever seen before.

Kueter cited independent economic studies that showed the diversion of capital to emission permits from the investment in new plant and equipment in the U.S. economy would:

reduce employment by 1.1 million jobs a year from 2012 to 2030, and more than double that job-loss in 2035.

slash gross domestic product by an average of $491 billion a year from 2012 to 2035, and hit $662 billion in 2035 -- a total evaporation of productive output of goods and services worth more than $9.4 trillion.

reduce average global temperatures by an insignificant 0.36º Fahrenheit by 2100 and by 0.09º F by 2050.

Similar costs with negligible benefits in Waxman-Markey were cited by other economists and public officials, including Dr. David Tuerck, president of the Beacon Hill Institute and chairman of the economics department at Suffolk University in Boston, and U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla).

U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), a veteran global warming skeptic, urged attendees to call Waxman-Markey a "cap-and-tax plan" that amounts to "unilateral disarmament in the economic sphere" for American businesses and workers.

Another long-time skeptic, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (D-Calif.), provoked sustained applause when he declared that the partisans of Waxman-Markey are "stampeding the public and elected officials in the biggest power grab in the history of human kind."

Economist Dr. Gabriel Calzada of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid reviewed the dismal performance of cap-and-trade mandates in Spain, where unemployment has reached a daunting 18 percent, carbon emissions are higher today than before cap-and-trade was installed, and fraud and misrepresentation of emission abatement programs are rampant.

(Click to read entire article)