In what has become an annual non-event, the Heartland Institute will gather the who’s-who of the global warming denial network together in Chicago this weekend for the fourth International Conference on Climate Change. 

As in years past, the event is expected to receive very little mainstream media coverage.  The deniers like to think the reason is some liberal media conspiracy.  In reality, the lack of interest stems chiefly from the fact that this denial-a-palooza fest is dripping with oil money and represents a blatant industry effort to greenwash oil and coal while simultaneously attacking the credibility of climate scientists.

Despite the lack of press interest, the show must go on.  After all, the Chicago meet-up will provide deniers and industry front groups a chance to coordinate their ongoing efforts to smear the reputation of the IPCC, and they can reminisce about the Climategate non-scandal like boys in the schoolyard kicking around a rusty old can.

For insight into the underlying aim of the Chicago denier conference, let us take a look at the funding sources for the sponsoring organizations.

Among the many conservative think tanks faithfully pushing the skeptic message in Washington, D.C., few are as prominent—or, should I say, infamous—as the Heartland Institute. The “independent” research and non-profit group has the dubious distinction of having organized the first major denier-palooza, the “International Conference on Climate Change,” last year. Despite a less than stellar showing, and an even more lukewarm follow-up in March, it’s hoping that the third time will be the charm.

The likes of Senator James Inhofe, Lord Christopher Monckton and Anthony Watts will be descending on the Washington Court Hotel this week to discuss the “widespread dissent to the asserted “consensus” on the causes, consequences, and proper responses to climate change.” Its ostensible purpose will be to “expose Congressional staff and journalists to leading scientists and economists in the nation’s capital” and demonstrate that “global warming is not a crisis and that immediate action to reduce emissions is not necessary”—which it calls the emerging consensus view of (the handful of) scientists outside the IPCC.

Solomon's New Book Full of Hysteria, (Imagined) Persecution, and Fraud

National Post stringer Lawrence Solomon's book-length version of his newspaper series on purported climate change deniers is just as unconvincing - and misleading - as the original Post articles. But at least he admits his motivation for writing it: he's an anti-nuclear, anti-mega-hydro guy watching the environmental tide turn against him.

The Heartland Institute is rounding up the usual suspects for a conference that will alert international media to "the fact" that a shocking number of "scientists" can be induced with a little cash and a free trip to New York City to question the science of global warming.

"If he [Bob Carter] has any evidence that [global warming over the past 100 years] is a natural variablilty he should publish through the peer review process," said Graeme Pearman, a former former CSIRO climate scientist. "That is what the rest of us have to do."

A well-stated and simple point refuting the words of the well-known and very vocal global warming denier Bob (RM) Carter. Often at DSBlog we have quipped that if the so-called "skeptics" are so "skeptical" why don't they get into a lab and prove it. Last time I checked, that's what scientists do. Anything else is just arm-chair quarterbacking.

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Despite beginning the year with a chilling La Niña, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) advises that 2006 was the fifth-warmest year in recorded history and the hottest year in the U.S.

Check the attached graph and see if you buy the Dr. Bob Carter's contention that global warming ended in 1998.