The Objective Standard Blog

Saturday, September 20, 2008

A Critique of Global Warming Science and Policy

Posted by ARI Media at 11:44 pm

What: A panel discussion challenging widely accepted views on global warming science and policy, followed by a Q & A.

Who: Keith Lockitch, Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights and Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Where: Taper Hall of Humanities (THH) Room 102

When: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 7:00 pm

For maps and directions, click here: http://www.usc.edu/about/visit/upc/driving_directions/

Description: It is now widely believed that man-made greenhouse gases are causing an unnatural warming of the earth that will have devastating consequences for human life. Environmentalists and politicians are pressing for severe restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions aimed at preventing global warming. But are these beliefs and policies justified? What does the scientific evidence actually support regarding the causes of climate variability and the role of anthropogenic greenhouse gases? Are the predictions of catastrophic changes supported by scientific fact? Is government economic intervention aimed at severely restricting greenhouse gases an appropriate policy response? Panelists will address these critical issues in a lively discussion.

Bios:

Keith Lockitch is a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, specializing in science and environmental policy. His writings have appeared in publications such as the Orange County Register, San Francisco Chronicle, Australia’s Herald Sun and Canberra Times, and USA Today magazine. Dr. Lockitch has been a frequent guest on radio shows such as The Thom Hartmann Program on Air America Radio. He is also a contributing writer for The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal of culture and politics.

Dr. Lockitch teaches for the Ayn Rand Institute’s Objectivist Academic Center; he teaches writing for the Center’s undergraduate program and a history of physics course for its graduate program. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and has conducted postdoctoral research in relativistic astrophysics at the University of Illinois and at Pennsylvania State University.

Willie Soon is both an astrophysicist and a geoscientist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Dr. Soon is the receiving editor in the area of solar and stellar physics for New Astronomy. He is also the chief science adviser of the Science and Public Policy Institute (based in Washington DC). He writes and lectures both professionally and publicly on important issues related to the Sun, other stars, the Earth as well as general science topics in astronomy and physics. He is the author of The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection, published March 2004. He also co-authored (with P. N. Okeke) the textbook Introduction to Astronomy that is used (now taught at the University of Nigeria) for students with little or no access to telescopes. Dr. Soon’s honors include a 1989 IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Graduate Scholastic Award and a Rockwell Dennis Hunt Scholastic Award from the University of Southern California for “the most representative PhD research thesis” of 1991. In 2003 he was invited to testify in the United States Senate and was later recognized, with a monetary award, for “detailed scholarship on biogeological and climatic change over the past 1000 years” by the Smithsonian Institution. In June 2004 he was presented with the Petr Beckmann Award of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness for “courage and achievement in defense of scientific truth and freedom.”

All views expressed are strictly his own and do not reflect upon any other person(s) or institutions.

Please note: The above event is organized, hosted and sponsored by an individual campus club. Although ARI provides financial support, educational materials and speakers for eligible student clubs, campus clubs are organizations independent of ARI.

Copyright © 2008 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.

Posted in: Environmentalism, Events, Science and Technology