International Conference Will Challenge Global Warming 'Consensus'

     When it comes to climate change the media often sound like a broken record – repeating gloomy predictions and calls for “action.”


     In fact, some reporters have even made it their “mission” to prove that global warming will have a devastating impact.


     That’s what NBC’s Ann Curry said on Oct. 29, 2007 “Today.” Curry was referring to her trip to Antarctica when she made her bias clear: “[O]ur mission, of course, is to find evidence of climate change.”


     Despite the one-sided treatment of global warming and climate change in the media there is another perspective. Hundreds of scientists and policy professionals will be in New York City March 2-4 for the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change calling attention to dissent in the scientific community over assumptions that modern warming is man-made or that it is a crisis.


     The conference is being run by the Heartland Institute. The Business & Media Institute is one of several co-sponsors and will be reporting from the event. BMI will also be hosting a panel discussion on the media’s involvement in advancing alarmism.


     Those who challenge the popular theories that humans are causing global warming or that climate change will lead to catastrophic events are often ignored by the media or branded as “skeptics,” “cynics” or “deniers.”


     The media have been eager to report on climate change throughout modern history, alternating between the imminent threat of global cooling and global warming in the past century. The recent trend in media-driven global warming alarmism has seen the media glorifying crusaders like former Vice President Al Gore while vilifying -- or ignoring -- scientists and others who don’t buy into the hype.


     Shortly before the conference, BMI will release "Global Warming Censored," a new Special Report on the media’s coverage of climate change. The special report will follow-up the popular Fire & Ice report originally released in 2006.


     “Global Warming Censored” will expose the extremely one-sided perspective of ABC, CBS and NBC news programs on the issue of global warming. It will also illuminate the media’s aggressive attempts to discredit or ignore those who challenge catastrophic global warming predictions and its failure to highlight the cost of proposals aimed to stop global warming.


     Some of the findings of “Global Warming Censored:”


    Global warming proponents overwhelmingly outnumbered dissenters in coverage of the issue in the last half of 2007, and the media often turned to non-experts for “expert” opinions on complex scientific issues.

    Proposals to address global warming -- everything from mandating the use of more efficient light bulbs to putting caps on carbon emissions -- will affect Americans’ personal finances as well as the business that support the economy, but the media largely ignore the costs.

     The Heartland Institute conference will address the “one-sided” debate that is “dominated by government scientists and government organizations agenda-driven to find data that suggest a human impact on climate and to call for immediate government action, if only to fund their own continued research.”


     More information about the conference is available at The Heartland Institute's Web site.