The Ninth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC9) was held on July 7th to July 9th, 2014, at the Mandalay Bay hotel and conference center in Las Vegas. Of the nine conferences, I’ve been to eight, in various locations, missing only the one held in London. I live in Las Vegas so I didn’t have to go far this time.

The International Climate Conferences are sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank headquartered in Chicago. The conferences are a place for global warming skeptics to gather and exchange ideas.

I’ve also attended many conferences sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (the AGU). The AGU is ostensibly a neutral scientific organization, but it is also an organization that vigorously promotes the global warming scare. There may be a connection between the AGU’s promotion of global warming and the billions of dollars that have flowed to its scientist members because of the global warming scare. At the AGU conferences I’ve met many scientists who are closet skeptics, afraid to speak publicly against the global warming juggernaut. You can see the technical posters I’ve exhibited at AGU conferences here.

A short, 4 minute, video summarizing the ICCC9 conference can be found on the global warming skeptic site Watts Up With That. Watts Up With That is a play on the name of the sponsor of the site Anthony Watts.

The global warming establishment consists of politicians, environmental organizations, scientists and scientific societies, as well as the manufacturers of such things as corn ethanol, wind turbines, and solar power stations. The global warming establishment is showered with money in the form of government subsidies and government regulations that force consumers to subsidize the establishment. Calculating the total amount of money flowing to the global warming establishment is a difficult accounting challenge. A report by the Congressional Budget Office places the cost of renewable energy subsidies at about $20 billion per year. This is by no means the total subsidy since many states have their own mandates and subsidies. For example, many consumers in California are being charged 40 cents (at tier 5) per kilowatt hour for electricity that could be provided for 10 cents. By making electricity exorbitantly expensive, roof top solar panels become economical, thereby subsidizing the solar power industry at the expense of electricity consumers. If you want to see how lobbyists work to promote their self-interest read here how the American Wind Energy Association tries to convince us that one of their subsidies is good for the nation.

The website DeSmogBlog defines its mission as:

“The DeSmogBlog Project began in January 2006 and quickly became the world’s number one source for accurate, fact based information regarding global warming misinformation campaigns.”

In reality, DeSmogBlog provides misinformation about global warming skeptics. Their usual form of attack is to suggest that skeptics are in the pay of fossil fuel companies or tobacco companies. Being attacked by DeSmogBlog is actually an honor. It has long been an affront to my vanity that they don’t include my name in their research database, even though I’ve urged them to do so.

Patrick Moore was a prominent figure in the radical environmental organization Greenpeace. According to Wikipedia he was a founder of the organization, but according to DeSmogBlog he was no such thing. In any case, in 1986 Moore changed sides and became a critic of Greenpeace and the environmental movement. Moore spoke at ICCC9, giving one of the best presentations. The video is here.

Roy Spencer is a very creative climate scientist about whom I have previously written here. DeSmogBlog repeats the smear that Spencer primarily does science to support Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. Spencer gave a very amusing and informative presentation at ICCC9. The video is here. (Some insider references in the video are Mann-caused global warming, a reference to Professor Michael Mann, a prominent promoter of the global warming scare. Bill Gray is an authority on hurricanes and a retired professor. He was trashed in a New Yorker profile. The IPCC is the International Panel on Climate Change, a UN organization that promotes the scare.)

Patrick Michaels is a climate scientist with a long history of skepticism concerning global warming. DeSmogBlog concentrates on connecting him financially with fossil fuel and tobacco interests. (Large oil companies are prominent supporters of the AGU. Apparently this is ok with DeSmogBlog.) In his presentation he discusses the corrupting influence of government money on climate science and on science in general. The video is here. My own take on corruption in science is here.

Ron Arnold has a long history as an opponent of environmental extremism and wealthy leftism. His talk on dark money describes how foundations manipulate public opinion. He stitches his research together with psychological theories to explain the motivation of wealthy elites who support extremist environmental movements. The video is here.

Anthony Watts is a meteorologist. He runs an important website on climate, Watts Up With That. Watts undertook, with help from a cadre of volunteers, the large task of reviewing the siting of weather stations in the U.S. He discovered that many were sited near parking lots, air conditioners and other structures or heat sources that would bias the temperature. After selecting the 10% of stations that are well sited and that meet other criteria, Watts computed that the U.S. rise in average temperature from 1979 to 2009 was probably overstated by 100%. The video is here.

George Christensen is a member of the Australian parliament. He recounts the surreal Australian experience with global warming alarmism. The video is here. A bit of the video is cut off at the end.

Arthur Robinson is a most unusual man. Once a colleague of Linus Pauling he moved to the backwoods of Oregon and set up his own research foundation. He was the driving force behind the Global Warming Petition Project that collected 31,000 signatures of scientists opposed to global warming alarmism. He was given an award at the conference and made an acceptance speech. He did not mention that he is running for Congress, for the third time, and has a good chance of unseating a rather unsavory politician who has held the seat for many years. The video is here.

DeSmogBlog endorsed ICCC9 with this:

“Sin City is a fitting spot for the world's most anti-science front group to convene its friends who deny the scientific consensus that human-caused global warming is real and a grave threat to our future.”

A complete listing of the videos of the conference presentations is here.

Norman Rogers is a volunteer Senior Policy Advisor with the Heartland Institute. He writes often about global warming alarmism and green energy. He has a website.