(Paul Chesser, Liberty Headlines) With the election of President Donald Trump, and his emphasis upon reduced regulations and strengthening the nation’s fossil fuels industries, the free-market Heartland Institute has announced it will host its twelfth International Conference on Climate Change, to educate and advise the new administration on recommended policies in transition to a freer and fairer energy economy.
The Arlington Heights, Ill.-based think tank is recognized as one of the top advocates for realism in the global warming debate, based upon observed scientific phenomena measured in actual data, as opposed to projections informed by computer modeling that can be more easily manipulated by human error and bias. Heartland and other nonprofit organizations that advocate for limited government, fewer regulations, and less intervention in a free economy — such as the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation — have been the targets of demonization and attacks by environmentalist pressure groups, left-wing academia and the interventionist government establishment.
“The purpose of this conference is to introduce members of the Trump administration and newly elected members of Congress and their staff to leading scientists and economists who hold a data-based, non-alarmist view of the climate,” said Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute. “It’s time to reset U.S. climate and energy policy away from the alarmism and fake science that dominated policymaking during the Obama era, and plot a new course based on real scientific data and economic analysis.
“The American people deserve a huge ‘peace dividend’ that can be brought about by ending the unnecessary and futile war on fossil fuels.”
The conference is scheduled for March 23-24 in Washington, DC. Thousands of people have attended previous conferences hosted by Heartland in various locations around the world.
Many of the presentations at past conferences delivered a scientific view on climate change that undermined the narrative — predominantly delivered by the legacy media — that fossil fuels and human activity exert an inordinate, dangerous, and heat-increasing influence upon the planet. Outcomes from that perspective have driven government policies that have nearly destroyed the coal industry; Placed onerous regulations on the automobile industry and other fossil fuel development; Pushed lawmakers to pursue taxes on carbon dioxide and cap-and-trade policies; and subsidized inefficient and costly renewable energy schemes.
Trump’s election has transformed the outlook on government’s climate change and regulatory policies. The president appointed Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as head of his transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency, and Thomas Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research as transition chief for the Department of Energy. Both advocate for free market environmental policies and less regulation in the electricity and transportation energy sectors.