So-called climate policies by governments and Big Business, not alleged man-made climate change, are leading the world toward catastrophe on multiple fronts, warned leading scientists and policymakers from across the United States and beyond. Gathered at the Heartland Institute's 15th International Conference on Climate Change, this broad coalition of more than 50 experts sounded the alarm on man-made crises ranging from energy and food scarcity to economic devastation and even tyranny unleashed under environmental pretexts. A dozen of them spoke with The New American magazine about it.

One of the major themes throughout the conference was the ongoing global-cooling trend observed in the temperature record. Over the last eight years, human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have continued to grow. And yet, according to government data, there has been no warming at all. Rather than causing catastrophic climate change or global warming, increasing atmospheric CO2 levels have produced a "greener" planet and increased agricultural yields, experts said. That is because CO2 is actually plant food, and plants thrive in environments with far more CO2 than is currently in the atmosphere.

But there was also a clear warning call from the assembled experts: If the "climate" movement led by governments, the United Nations, tax-funded environmental groups, and Big Business is not restrained, there will be a great deal of needless pain inflicted on humanity - especially the poor. For instance, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), one of the keynote speakers at the event, warned that the Left was weaponizing "climate change" as a vehicle that could ultimately see the United States go the route of Venezuela, which is collapsing under socialism.

"This isn't about climate or saving the planet, it is about the Left utilizing climate change to create fear to control our lives," Senator Johnson was quoted by writer Nancy Thorner in Conservapedia as telling the assembled crowd. He added that climate is always changing and the sensible thing to do is to adapt to changes. "Perhaps the last thing we should do is spend money on something we can't do anything about."

The conservative senator, who has enraged the establishment in recent years by exposing Covid lies put out by authorities, also reminded the audience about the endless failed climate predictions of yesteryear, including the predictions of imminent doom from CO2-fueled "global cooling." Johnson showed the crowd how glaciers retreated from Wisconsin thousands of years ago -- long before the internal combustion engine or significant human emissions of CO2.

"It's fine if we are just talking about two groups with one group worried about climate change and the other group saying we will adapt, but it's way more than that," Johnson said. "The group alarmed by climate change has a lot of power and is using that power to implement dangerous policies... Because of climate alarmists we are going the way of Venezuela." The Wisconsin Republican urged the audience to "be engaged in the fight for freedom," as the stakes are incredibly high.

Also speaking at the event was U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), a firebrand who has enraged the establishment just as much as Johnson, if not more. Speaking of her faith, the conservative lawmaker said she loved freedom because "Jesus was sent to set us free." Pointing to America's Founding Fathers, Representative Boebert said those in attendance and Americans generally "have that spirit of freedom inside of us." However, she also warned that powerful forces were scheming to undermine that freedom.

Leading scientific experts offered similar warnings. Among the top scientific minds who spoke at the conference was Princeton physics Professor Emeritus Dr. William Happer, who served as climate advisor to President Donald Trump. Carbon dioxide is actually good for the planet, and should be celebrated rather than demonized and taxed, he explained to The New American. In fact, there is no climate crisis -- only a powerful movement that preys on ignorance to accumulate money and power.

Dr. Happer blasted the idea of "carbon taxes" -- really, CO2 taxes -- and warned that if not stopped, the totalitarian "climate" movement could unleash Cambodia- or Soviet-style horror on the world. "It's the same evil fanaticism that has plagued mankind since we began," warned Dr. Happer, who helped found the CO2 Coalition. "It's simply a waste of money, a power grab... Use your common sense."

Another leading scientist who spoke at the summit, MIT meteorology Professor Emeritus Dr. Richard Lindzen, has regularly referred to climate alarmists as a "cult." The quasi-religious movement does not understand how climate truly works, he told The New American in an interview after his talk. But their plans to spend trillions of dollars restructuring global energy and economic systems will seriously hurt billions of people, Dr. Lindzen continued. "It's immoral," he added.

Lindzen, who famously worked on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Nobel Peace Prize-winning assessment report, also mocked Al Gore's claims that young children could supposedly understand climate change. But despite the imploding "science" underpinning the movement, he was not sure how to stop it. As implementation of the "climate" plans proceeds, however, the harm will become more obvious - "you saw a hint of this in Sri Lanka" - and that may derail the agenda, he said.

Other experts echoed those concerns. The contradictions and false predictions made by the UN IPCC should be glaringly obvious to anyone, explained Professor Emeritus of physics at the University of Connecticut Howard "Cork" Hayden in an interview with The New American. Dr. Hayden, who edits The Energy Advocate, said he did not know why so many scientists were failing to speak out on these contradictions and errors. "Perhaps they don't want to contradict their political bosses, because there is big, big money involved," he said, adding that the UN was working to reorient the entire world to solve a problem that does not even exist.

Another major speaker at the event, JunkScience.com founder and Heartland Institute board member Steve Milloy, pointed out that despite massive amounts of human-caused CO2 being released into the atmosphere over the last eight years, there has been no warming observed. The reason Americans do not know this fact is that it contradicts the narrative justifying the climate alarmism and everything that goes along with it, and as such cannot be reported by the press, he told The New American.

Ultimately, the climate narrative has nothing to do with climate. In fact, it is being peddled by "communists" and totalitarians to control people, explained Milloy, a regular contributor to Fox News. "It's all about control," Milloy explained. The longtime slayer of "junk science," who uses government data to debunk the narratives, said that while climate alarmism is probably the most important example of junk science plaguing humanity today, it is far from the only one.

Drilling deeper into the scientific fraud being perpetrated on humanity was Dr. Willie Soon, one of the world's leading astrophysicists. Government agencies and the UN have a vested interest in perpetuating the man-made warming agenda, he said. As such, they are deceiving mankind about global temperature records using flagrant errors that must be the result of deception rather than innocent mistakes. "The UN IPCC, through NOAA and NASA and the U.K. Meteorological Agency, has been able to hoodwink the rest of the world," he told The New American.

One of the most significant frauds in this process, which Dr. Soon has been exposing in peer-reviewed papers and at conferences for many years, involves relying on what he calls "contaminated" temperature data from urban areas. These areas show increased temperatures, but that is due to human development, not CO2 or global warming, he said. This has been known for over a century, and yet climate profiteers keep peddling the fraud. Dr. Soon's own published studies on this have been cited even by top UN IPCC scientists, so they can't claim ignorance.

When asked why, Dr. Soon pointed to a presentation on the "Great Reset" that Marc Morano, editor of the top global website for skeptics known as Climate-Depot.com, gave at the summit. "It's all about control, it's about manipulating what you eat, what car you drive, what energy source you use," explained Dr. Soon. "It has nothing to do with science, that is very clear by now. The motive is clear: It's about having absolute control. After Covid lockdowns, they want climate lockdowns." Fear is the tool used by these would-be tyrants, he added.

Former Heartland Institute President Frank Lasee, who now leads Truth in Energy and Climate, explained to The New American that the Biden administration was deliberately sabotaging U.S. energy production and even the power grid. The real threat is not "climate change" or CO2, but rather Communist China, which is reaping an enormous windfall from the "green scam" by selling solar panels, electric car batteries, and wind turbines to Americans subsidized by U.S. taxpayers - all built using fossil-fuel energy in China.

"Folks, there is no climate emergency," said Lasee, who served in the administration of former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, adding that Big Tech firms such as Google were actively suppressing the truth. "People who moved away from traditional religion, the green ideology is their new religion, they take it on faith that wind and solar are good, that fossil fuels are bad. They don't know any of the facts." It is up to Americans to put a stop to this by working with their elected officials, pushing back and "saying no," he added.

If left unchecked, the result of these policies will be disaster, retired chemist Marty Cornell told The New American. Aside from being self-evidently impossible to achieve, the notion of "net zero" emissions - a policy being pursued by the UN, Western governments, and countless "woke" banks and businesses - is extremely dangerous. In fact, it will devastate the U.S. economy and families as blackouts become more common, said Cornell, who worked for one of the world's largest chemical companies. However, he believes the public uprising in response to the pain will eventually force politicians to stop.

Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division Jeff Clark, who served in the Trump administration, compared Biden officials and climate alarmists to the infamous pigs in Animal Farm. "The pigs who actually run the system, I think they run it for communistic purposes, so that's what explains the fact that there's a debate about whether this environmental catastrophe thinking is religious or is it self-interested from dark forces," he explained in his talk at the summit. "I think it's both."

Sponsors of the conference included well-known environmental organizations such as the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, and Reality News. Among the other speakers at the summit were WeatherBell co-chief meteorologist Joe Bastardi, Cornwall Alliance founder Dr. Cal Beisner, Institute for Energy Research CEO Robert Bradley, Climate Forecast Applications Network founder Dr. Judith Curry, Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore, CFACT chief Craig Rucker, and many more.

There is no way the climate-alarmist narrative could survive the barrage of facts, evidence, and data presented by the world-renowned scientists and experts at the summit. No wonder, then, that not one "mainstream" media outlet in the United States covered the conference. Still, the facts are getting out, and the climate narrative is imploding. You can do your part by sharing the truth with opinion molders in your community. Civilization, liberty, and prosperity depend on it.