sickness into the civil war she developed an opium depend si, a, was that true and b, how in your opinion did that affect her personally? >> well, she used it in her writing. it gave her material. she took opium to sleep, she said. and periodically she would go on and off it. i think she was aware -- i think people must have been aware of its dangers even though it was available and not expensive. it was really the only painkiller at the time. she had these horrible headaches and she had real low periods where we would have to call depression. there was one six month period where she did nothing in her room and ache. there was no remedy for a headache. i think she also took hashih i

think in a way for recreation. she has a wonderful story about a woman like her, very glammorized and it loved with a young man and she's ashamed of it. there was a bunch of young people having a picnic. it's down around plymouth ducks bury area that this is set. and one -- a medical student says i got this hashish candy because they're bored and they take it and she takes some of it and she does it on the sly and she doesn't admit it. and she and the guy that is in love with her and vice versusa go out on a boat to go find another member of the party who hasn't come back. and so they're alone in a boat and anyway there's a big storm that comes up and they confess their love and they are rescued and they come back the next day,

she says, i don't want you to say i took hashish he said okay if you told me you take it. she said i'm tired of being a lonely statue. i want to be soft and lovable like other women and that's what she says and they fall into each other's arms and heaven bless hashish if it's dreams like this. [laughter] >> she does say she use it is in a novel also. and she says no one who has used it can describe what it's like. yes, she was addicted to opium at various times. any other questions? i think we should wrap it up. marta, what do you think? another question? last question. >> okay. well, if your curiosity is satisfied, thank you very much for bearing with me. [applause]

>> i've been at this game for two weeks. for two weeks so i'm really a neophyte. >> and there are books available in the back. once again, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> hairot reisen has written documentaries, for more information go to alcottfilm.com the book. >> we're here with james reston book. he has a new book called "defenders of the faith," let's start with the basic question. who was charles the v.

>> he was the holy roman emperor. and sula was the tenth sultan of the ottoman empire and they come together in a clash. and it really was a clash of empires and a clash of civilizations and a clash of religions. so we think after 9/11 we were the only ones that had ever had this experience of, you know, jihad versus crusade but this is what i've been really doing for the last four books is reminding of people in episodes of history where christianity and islam came into conflict. >> now, what was the result of this battle? >> well, the result was that the ottoman turks, the islamic forces, were stopped at vienna. and had they not been stopped, what suleiman the magnificent

wanted to go to the rhine river and so it's a major turning point in history. >> and when you're working on this type of history, ancient history, what are your sources? >> well, i have an office at the library of congress. and the library of congress is the best library in the world by far. so there are always, i found with this book and others in medieval in histories there are contemporaneous chronicles. and those are the most immediate sources -- you know, those are the ones, you know, that are the narratives of people who were there. so that's what we always look for. >> you talked about the correlation between 9/11 and this period in history. when you're doing this research, are you constantly reminded of that? >> well, of course. i've never done any history that wasn't in some way relevant to the current day. you know, that's a kind of litmus test for me. and it just seemed to me after 9/11 that it was really important for americans to understand that they -- they were not the first ones to have

this kind of slash with the islamic world. and it's important for them to know also what the pipe dreams are of the islamic world. and who they're heroes were. and suleiman the magnificent and i've written the third crusade as well -- these are important stories to know. >> what has your eye right now in regards to your interests? >> well, i could tell you but then i would have to kill you. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. >> in his book, "the deniers," urban renaissance director lawrence solomon talk about prominent scientists who disagree with al gore's views on global warming. the event is hosted by the competitive enterprise institute and the cooler heads coalition at the dirksen senate building in washington, d.c., it's 50 minutes.

>> okay. let's begin. welcome. thank you all for coming and thank you for c-span being here today. i'm myron e. bell. i work on energy and global warming policies at the competitive enterprise institute here in washington. it's also my privilege to chair the cooler heads coalition about which more in a moment. i want to begin by thanking mark morano for arranging us to have this room today. and also to thank senator inhofe the ranking republican and chairman barbara boxer. the cooler heads coalition is an ad hoc coalition of approximately two dozen groups that question the scientific

case for global warming alarmism and oppose energy rationing policies. we have done a number of things over the years since being founded in 1997, the year the kyoto protocol was negotiated. and i want to just tell you about the resources, the public resources, of the coalition. first it's the website, globalwarming.org and i urge to you look at it. and if you go to globalwarming.org you can see a sign-up sheet to receive the newsletter of the coalition by email almost every week. it's called the cooler heads digest. i was going to bring copies of this week's digest but some incredible technical difficulties from my colleague's computer he boasted all week that he had just gotten a new computer and as soon as he tried to produce the digest on it, the program wouldn't work.

and the other resource of the coalition is this long series of hill briefings. and we have had many distinguished scientists and economists and experts on almost every aspect of global warming policy over the years. i think today's event is our most unusual. and the reason i say that is because we have -- we don't usually offer a briefing opportunity for one of the world's leading environmentalists. in fact, we never have. but we are very fortunate today to have lawrence solomon, the author of "the deniers" and i am very proud and pleased that he can be here with us and going to give the cooler heads briefing. he is clearly an outstanding person. he's had an outstanding career really building the environmental movement. and the more i learn about him, the more i respect him.

and i have to say, we've never had one of the world's leading environmentalists as a speaker before. but now that i know him and now that i've read his outstanding book -- it's highly readable. and many of the speakers that we've had over the years are featured and profiled in the book, but now that i have had a chance to read it and to learn about him, i'm going to have a lot more respect for some of the policies i'm going to be -- i'm going to listen to him when i need some -- when i think that some of the things i read about the environmental movement and i think how, you know, silly or nutty they are, i'm going to consult him first because i think he is a man who deserves a great deal of consideration and i also think that he may be, you know, stepping out further than is prudent for him in writing

this book, "the deniers." yet, it isn't going to make him any friends because we have established, of course, that there is a consensus on global warming science. but i'm not actually here to introduce him. i'm here to introduce his publisher, richard vigilante of richard vigilante books, who has had an outstanding and incredibly varied career in the conservative movement and in media. and i'm not even going to begin to introduce him. i'm just going to say, welcome. thank you for publishing this book and thank you, lawrence solomon, for being with us today. please join me in welcoming richard vigilante. [applause] >> i'm not -- that was a great introduction to larry. i'm just going to say one thing, which is that we believe that this book and larry solomon, the author of the book, are incredibly important strategic tools in this debate.

there aren't that many global warming books that set out to prove their point and then actually succeed. there are a lot of contentious books, there's a lot of alternate theories and there's a lot of debate in the blogosphere but larry set out to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt one very important point which is that there is a vigorous debate. and since the leading advocates of global warming alarmism have said again and again and again that there is no serious debate, that there is an absolute scientific consensus, this speaks -- this book speaks directly to their credibility. it is impossible to read this book and not think that -- and think that al gore, for instance, is a credible witness. so this book doesn't prove that global warming is coming or isn't coming.

it doesn't prove that the planet -- that man is causing it or isn't causing it. but it does prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, and i use that word "prove" advisedly and those who deny the debate deserve no credibility. and that's why i think all of you need to make use of the book and we're happy to facilitate that and, larry, as a strategic tool. so that's all i'm here to encourage you to do that and those who want to talk to me about doing that should find people afterwards. thank you. >> thank you, richard and myron, for those introductions and thank you all for coming to this book forum. i've been grateful for a long time to ces and the cooler heads coalition and myron and to fred smith, who isn't here, for the

integrity and the tenacity that he and they have shown during this entire global warming debate. fred isn't here so i can tell some tales out of school. i first met fred 25 years ago, not far from here, at a conference sponsored by the american rivers association. we, the conference participants were meeting to save the world river valleys from development sponsored by the international development agencies such as the world bank and the multilateral development banks. the conference had the usual suspects. you know, the sierra club and rdc, friends of the earth, cultural survival, survival international among others including my organization, energy probe or the probe international from toronto and the conference also had one very unusual suspect, and that would be fred smith.

who shared with us all about a concern about the harm that the world bank was causing around the world. fred was a force at that conference and very much in tune with us, although i don't recall -- i don't believe he was actually -- he actually marched with us on the world bank headquarters when it came time for that. i suspect that the people who are here represent an atypical audience in that much of what i describe in my book will not surprise you. those of you who know the cooler heads coalition already know there are many credible scientists who dispute the conventional wisdom of al gore and the united nations on climate change. but some things that i found in writing "the deniers" might surprise you. in interviewing scientists, i often ask them, how many of

their scientific peers in their own discipline subscribe to the views of al gore and the united states. some said they didn't know. some said that they thought most of their peers did. but more often they answered that most scientists in their field rejected the united nations position on climate change. in some cases the answer was effectively that all scientists in their field rejected the united nations position. it dawned on me that? in some disciplines at least say solar scientists, the consensus was there but it was actually in the other direction. the majority perhaps a great majority dismissed out of hand the notion that man is responsible for global warming or at least the majority of global warming. it also dawned on me that among top scientists, the majority

view rejected the consensus that al gore and the u.s. claims exists. yet, the press states over and over again that there is a consensus. they have evidence, too, of this consensus, the 2,000 or 2500 scientists associated with the u.n. reports that get issued every six years or so with great fanfare -- this figure, 2000 or 2500 scientists is the foundation on which the press has been basing its claims that there's a consensus on climate change. we see that time and time again, those figures of 2000 or 2500. the press feels that 2500 scientists can't be wrong. i wondered who exactly those 2500 scientists were.

so to find out i contacted the secretariat of the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change. and asked for their names and contact information. the answer that came back was negative. i learned that the names were not public. so i couldn't have them. and i learned that those 2500 people were reviewers. they weren't endorsers. those scientists hadn't endorsed anything. they were merely people who had reviewed one or more of the literally hundreds of input studies, background studies. some of them were important studies. some not. and they all fed into this gigantic mall in the united nations bureaucratic process. those scientists all would have

reviewed just some small part of the -- of the final product, if any at all. they didn't review that final product or endorse it. their reviews weren't even all favorable. i know that from many sources including from among some of the scientists that i profiled. who consider the united nations' work a travesty and who feel that their comments, their reviews were ignored. by the united nations. so there is no endorsement by 2500 top u.n. scientists. the press has been taken. it's been taken in by a big lie. this big lie has been told to us for 15 years now. in the early 1990s, al gore was

saying that the science was settled on climate change. he was saying this at the same time that a greenpeace poll came out showing that the majority of scientists disagreed with gore. he said it 15 years ago and he's been saying it ever since and through a coincidence of many factors, the big lie took hold. temperatures did indeed climb, dramatic weather did occur in the background of the public's general concern for the environment became widespread. also in the background gore worked the united nations system. it paid off big. in the late 1980s, gore encouraged the united nations to hold what would become the world's biggest conference on the environment. the united nations conference on environment and development.

and then he encouraged them to get behind the conference and allowed the general assembly to get behind it and then gore shaped the agenda behind the conference and he did wonders in publicizeing it. and he even convinced a very reluctant president bush, the first president bush, to attend the conference, to be there with the other world leaders to make the conference a success. this was 1992, the date of the of the united nations conference on environment and development. also known as the rio conference and that's what spawned the kyoto conference years later. he got everyone to sing from the same hymn book.

an unprecedented number of groups attended the conference and that helped give the conference moral authority and helped create a sense of inevitablity. and an unprecedented number of world leaders attended rio as well giving the conference an official stamp and also putting the world's governance on record. and an unprecedented number of media outlets attended to report on this juggernaut. picture yourself in or as al gore in the middle of this? he had believed since his university days that manmade global warming was threatening the planet and now here was vindication in the form of the world's environmental groups, the world's political leaders all under the united nations auspices. they were all there endorsing his view.

if you were him, would you -- would you not feel vindicated? might you not believe that you had been right all along, maybe even that you had a mission to fulfill? a mission that was greater than yourself? in that setting, that rio, the science truly was settled. it's easy to see how gore's mind would become formed in the belief that there must be no back-sliding. no one must question that the science was settled. the science was so clear that man is responsible for climate change that nothing else could be contemplated. not even by the u.n.'s own agency, the intergovernmental panel on climate change. the mandate of this agency was and is to investigate manmade climate change. other causes of climate change,

the sun, the cosmic forces or natural phenomenon, those were ruled out. no need to look at anything except manmade causes. and with only manmade causes looked at, is it any surprise that only manmade causes were found. this u.n. environmental bubble explains in part, i believe, how gore can maintain that credible scientists don't exist in any number. it explains in part why earlier this month on "60 minutes" when asked by leslie stahl, he said it was a tiny, tiny minority. those who hold this view that the earth is flat and the moon

landing is staged in a movie set in nevada. it may also explain how he could miss the irony of likening deniers who don't believe in space travel one of those is michael griffin, the head of nasa and the other who heads research on the russian international space station. a third is the head of the danish national space agency. a fourth is one of the best known scientists known on earth to further space flight he discovered nuclear propulsion for the orion project. this bubble, i believe, also explains the fervor of belief by al gore and others and their ability, the freedom they feel to act with impunity.

the ability to attack regardless of his credentials. last year when michael griffin, the head of nasa, told national public radio that he believes global warming isn't a problem worth wrestling with, well, he was attacked. you'd think that griffin was entitled it off express his viewpoint. he holds a ph.d. in aerospace engineering. he holds five masters degrees. he's a member of the national academy of engineering, and the international academy of astronautics, he was unanimously confirmed to head nasa by the united states senate. he oversees the single biggest climate research budget, $1.1 billion a year. yet, no sooner did he express

his opinion then he was called an idiot. he was set to be in denial. he was called a fool. and he was called surprisingly naive. he was called totally clueless or a deep global warming idealog by his colleagues and he apologized and the public hasn't heard from him on the subject and the public haven't heard from hundreds of others who don't want to subject themselves to the type of abuse that griffin faced. i was at a literary function in toronto last year and happened to sit next to a global warming denier, he's one of canada's

prominent scientist, i asked him over dinner why he decided to speak up, he paused for a moment and and he said i was diagnosed with testicular cancer. he decided he didn't want to die a cowered and so he went public. and he described the pressures that confronted academic when he goes public. he became a pariah. his colleagues stopped talking when he entered a room. he was faced with loss of grants for his projects but not only was he faced with that, so was his entire department. which meant that he was threatening the careers of his colleagues. he's now cured of cancer. and he says he regrets that he went public. [laughter] >> but only part of him regrets it. i think he's also proud that he's gone public.

and i think he's going to have an increasing amount of company among other scientists. my sense is that scientists are increasingly speaking up. and not only are they speaking up but i feel they are increasingly becoming firmer in their views. some like claude alegg actually reversed their position. at the time of rio he was an ardent believer that c02 represented a mortal danger. he was an organizer. his name was on a petition with other scientists that decried what man was doing to the planet. but after seeing the decades of science that has come out of the united nations, he's become convinced that there is no credible scientific case.

for global warming. the list of so-called deniers includes the president of the world federation of science who's also italy's best known scientists. it includes one of britain's best known scientists and one of germany's best known scientists. it includes scientists from the world's top research bodies, bodies at the pasteur institute and a 50-year-old institution that has 20 country members and services half of world's particle physicists. it includes top climate scientists, legends in the field such as william gray who's considered by many the world's foremost authority on the prediction of hurricanes and reed bryson who has been called the father of scientific climatology and who was the world's most cited climatologist.

at some point possibly quite soon if climate science doesn't demonstrate a breakthrough capable of impressing scientists, this whole big lie may come crashing down. so thank you. [applause] >> thank you, lawrence. we're going to have questions. i hope this has whetted your appetite to read this book. it's very readable. it's got a lot of stuff in it. i mean, i know most of the people here you have seen them as cooler heads lecturers including one who's here today, fred singer. but i learned quite a lot that i didn't know as well so i'd encourage you to read the book. a couple of housekeeping details. i forgot to thank my colleague julie walsh for arranging this briefing today and if you have to leave early, sure to pick up a book on your way out.

if you can stay until after we're finished, then larry solomon has agreed to stick around and sign your book if you'd like him to sign it. so now questions. we have a microphone and please use it. thank you. >> mr. solomon, i read your book and it's a wonderful book. i'm also with cei. and as myron said there are many things in the book that were completely new to me. as they were to him. one of the most remarkable parts of the book i thought was the discussion of carbon dioxide which i had assumed was totally settled. that a, carbon dioxide does accumulate in the atmosphere for 50 to 200 years. that's why we have to be worried about it. and secondly, that we know for a

fact that carbon dioxide levels today are higher than they've ever been in the last 650,000 years. and yet you presented -->> >> your mic's off. >> sorry. >> and yet you reviewed the research of some scientists who have challenged these very core premises of the whole ippc consensus. i'm wondering if you have received any -- any further inquiries from scientists or letters from scientists about this particular part of your book which i think as far as raising questions about the consensus is the most radical that i have seen from any of the so-called skeptics? >> no, actually, none -- i'm in

touch with quite a few of the scientists on an ongoing basis. none of them have raised that particular issue. it doesn't seem to be controversial with them. >> you said you were -- you were there in rio in '92, what -- what was your feelings then and how did that change over time to come to be -- to be a skeptic? >> i personally wasn't there. people from my organization were there. i think all along we have considered global warming to be a potential threat. we're one of the first organizations in canada, environmental organizations, to note it as a potential threat. and there are people in our organization who still think that it may be a potential --

and i think that there's a possibility that it's a potential threat. it's just that the evidence hasn't been there. and in part it's the -- it's the way dissenters are being treated. and it reminded me of the way scientists who dissented from the -- from the nuclear conventional wisdom. our organization does not like nuclear power. we're opposed to nuclear power. in se the '70s, late '70s, there was a pretty well unanimous view that nuclear power was safe, clean, cheap, inevitable. and anyone who spoke out against it was castigated. scientists were castigated. we remember that period. we spoke out against it at the time. after -- well, we came to

realize that nuclear power was just not economic and not likely to become economic. but the treatment of -- that scientists suffered at the hands of those who wouldn't tolerate any dissent always offended us. and it seems as if the same thing is happening now. >> the professor of the history of california in san diego and supposedly a serious scholar. she has published and still maintains that there is not only consensus but there is no disagreement, whatsoever, with the view of the ipcc. that the global warming is human-caused. how do you explain this phenomenon on the part of a

supposed scholar who presumably should have access to the same information that we all do? maybe even have -- maybe she's even read your book? >> well, i don't -- i don't know her. i haven't -- i actually have been involved with her page on wikipedia because her page on wikipedia seems so outrageous, a couple of -- several weeks ago i tried to make corrections to it and also i tried to make corrections to slanderous comments that were made against bennie pizer and that has become quite a saga because no sooner did i make a change, wikipedia, as you all know, is a citizen-managed encyclopedia

that, in fact, has enormous reach. i've seen statistics showing that the majority of high school kids, for example, rely on wikipedia for their research, so this is -- it's an important way of disseminating information so i decided to make changes to the wikipedia page to correct the record dealing with bennie pizer and also dealing with naomi because her study was described as uncontroversial. and no sooner did i make the change did it get reversed and i thought i forgot to save it and i made the change and it got reversed and it happened 28 times. [laughter] >> i wrote about it in my column in the national post. and there's been a large reaction. but i have since heard from quite a few people. and wikipedia is in effect

patrolled by zealots who make sure that any scientist who is on the wrong side of the debate is slandered. i'm quite sure you did not come across well on the wikipedia page. not having to look. i checked cei's wikipedia's page it seems all you're interested in is taking money from oil companies and tobacco companies. [inaudible] >> this is a follow-up. i think you're quite correct about wikipedia. some people whose business it is to smear any of us who are skeptical about global warming. in my case, i'm being accused of all kinds of nefarious schemes and connections and some really

bizarre things -- my wikipedia biography is i believe the moons of mars were constructed by martians. it's really trying to paint me as a whacko. >> i planned to ask you about that because -- [laughter] >> no, i don't believe the moons of mars were made by martians. i don't know who put this on there. and i'd like to know how do i correct the record. >> you cannot correct it. >> say again. >> you cannot correct the record. >> you cannot? >> since that article that i wrote on wikipedia, it has been picked up by almost 10,000 blogs and i have been -- i've heard from many, many scientists of stories of their attempts to change their page, to get rid of slander, and utter failure because there are -- it's not just one person. there's an organized systemic

campaign to -- [inaudible] >> we don't know if it's well funded. we don't know -- they claim it's volunteer, entirely run by volunteers, some of the emails indicate that may not be the case and i'll be -- i'll be investigating that. but there's no question that it may be the world's single biggest source of misinformation. >> this is really bizarre, you know, to be accused of martians -- [laughter] >> constructing an artificial moon. [laughter] >> well, anyway. [inaudible] >> i was going to ask you something else, but on wikipedia, can't somebody sue them someplace? maybe in the united kingdom, canada if not in the united states?

get a bunch of these people who have been slandered and go after them? [laughter] >> my question is, i had the misfortune of being in edmondton alberta to talk about climate change on january the 31st and the first of february. it was the coldest day they had for a very long time so i had no problem making my case that there are many more important things to worry about than climate change. okay. but what accounts for the fact that canadians seem to be relative to the united states quite gung ho on climate change given their climate, you'd think they would be a little bit more welcoming of more climate.

>> i think canadians see themselves as altruests and ineffectual. [laughter] >> so taking taking a strong moral stance has only good consequences under those circumstances. [laughter] >> we have a number of questions. is there anybody on this side? we have one here, one here, and one there. james, why don't you pick one here and we'll work our way back. >> several nations have come to the conclusion that climate change is caused by manmade activities and have begun several steps to address that like cap-and-trade programs. is there any evidence that cap-and-trade programs are working? >> no. well, cap-and-trade programs may end up working. so far they've worked out very poorly.

but the assumption of most people who promote cap-and-trade or most people who promote the notion that we should reduce c02, reduce carbon in the atmosphere -- the assumption is that it would be a benign activity. that at worse we would have wasted some money. but ended up with a cleaner environment. but, in fact, kyoto has emerged as being perhaps the greatest destroyer of the global environment now. my organization has a large third world wing. and it deals with -- deals out the grassroots with organizations in the third world. and they are up in arms over what the ramifications of kyoto are for them because, for example, when we purchase here a carbon offset, we take a plane flight, we want to shed our guilt for the emissions that are

involved with that plane flight, so we might buy a carbon offset, the other half of that transaction is typically the purchase of a carbon sink in the third world. that carbon sink is very often an industrial eucalyptus plantation, which is fast-growing. in plantation form it collects a lot of -- a lot of carbon. it's a very efficient way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. to get the land for those eucalyptus plantations, people are being evicted from farm land, which doesn't hold much carbon, and they're being evicted from old growth forests. so we're seeing the take-down of old growth forests, a takedown of farm land in the third world. people are being disposed typically without fair compensation, sometimes without compensation at all.

and this is all in aid of solving a problem that may not exist. so the consequences -- and that's only one consequence. another consequence of our rush to implement kyoto is that we are -- we are bringing back large hydrodams. hydrodams became uneconomic several decades ago. all the good sites were built. the remaining sites were not -- were no longer economic. well, with carbon credits, changing the bookkeeping, suddenly large hydrodams are coming back and those hydrodams -- they can -- they can flood -- well, in the case in the case of three gorgeas dam, people are being flooded from this dam which is uneconomic and is not helping climate change, and may not be helping climate change but it's being billed as helping climate

change and another instance of bad environmental policy being caused by our desire to remove carbon or to switch to noncarbon fuels is a resurgence of nuclear power and nuclear power has never been economic anywhere. there are a number of environmental risks with it. so we're seeing lots of environmental risks, a lot of real environmental damage, all this to mitigate a problem that may not exist. >> earlier you said that the press has been taken in by a big lie. and i don't disagree with that at all. for example, even the heartland institute's conference that they did on this subject back in early march rather than really use what science was presented there and all the things that were going there, they use it as a forum to attack us including dr. singer, who was on abc evening news and the world news on sunday. what do you think can be done or

should be done to try to turn the tide with the media? >> i think what may well -- several things may change the public's perception. one is temperatures may be dropping. last year we've seen quite a drop. but i think -- i think the role of the third world environmental groups could be -- could be key here because they have interests different than the western environmental groups and in terms of having a moral case i think the third world groups trump the western environmental groups. and we may see -- we may see more and more from them. >> this is somewhat related along the lines of the press kind of getting the story wrong. i haven't read your book but i'm assuming many of the scientists that you talk to make their living by publishing in scientific journals. is the press not reporting accurately in your view what's coming out in the scientific

journals? or the scientific journals not reporting or giving fair shrift or fair play to those articles that are being submitted anyway maybe from the dissenting side? what's your view. >> people are having difficulty getting published and when they do get published, the press ignores it. >> did the people you talk with the scientists say they are having difficulty and the reasons for it? >> oh, yes. >> the editors of the journals are prejudiced against them? >> that's right. >> they demonstrated this? >> they are enable to get their studies published and they are even unable to get the letters in the scientific journals correcting science that they feel isn't correct.

>> larry, i have a couple of questions. first, your book started as a series of columns that you write in the national post in canada. and you mention in the book that you have collected a very large number of other deniers since you started writing the column. are you still writing the column to bring in profiles of other people that aren't covered in the book? >> yes. i'm planning to -- i think i'm up to maybe 39 or 40 columns in this series. and i plan to keep it going for a while but not at the same rate as before. >> my second question is, one of the things i noticed about the people who challenge the consensus publicly rather than in private is that most of them are not like dick lentz and they

are not still in their careers or professors and they are retired will. -- at the point when they are retired they announce they are skeptical about the much of the so-called consensus and then they become vilified after they no longer have to worry about getting government grants for funding and as you mentioned funding for their entire departments being jeopardized by not signing onto the bandwagon. is that -- do you think -- have you found that to be just a general -- that there are a lot more people who are retired who are willing to go public than people who are willing to go forward worrying about public budgets and so then? -- so on. >> many of the scientists i dealt with did say they were concerned about their finances in making those decisions. some had other sources.

some had, say, wives who had an adequate income to support them but it was always a kindergarten. -- concern. and i think that's one category or scientists who are -- who are retired and another are scientists who have such a great reputation that they don't worry about what others might think. >> like freeman dyson? >> yes. >> i have one more question and we'll have the final question from r.j. smith. one of the things that has struck me is that outsiders have played a role in changing the debate. and i just want to mention that you discuss them briefly in your first chapter. the two most outstanding outsiders who have really changed the debate are canadians. steve mcintyre was a businessman who was trained as a stastician and mathematician and he looked at the hockey stick and said there's something fishy here.

he was not part of the community and yet he's made a tremendous difference and by the way we had both steve mcintyre and ross as cooler heads speakers in the past so your part of a good group and i just wanted to mention that. now r.j. smith. >> larry, i'm wondering if you know of anybody anywhere is looking to me what i think is a very intriguing question here. is how so many seemingly otherwise rational people got wrapped up in this huge monomaniacal craze that man is driving climate change on the planet. perhaps you have to look at books like the -- what the extra madness of crowds and how people got involved, whole nations in the tulip craze or the south sea he island bubble. i mean, a fairly intelligent elementary school student taking a basic course in physical geography or geography know for millions of years the planets

have been characterized by ice ages and interglacial warmings and that all takes place naturally without man involved at all. i mean, a couple of years ago i was up in ottawa testifying at your parliament on the select committee on environment. they started talking me he and cei because we were destroying the planet because we didn't believe in their theories. and i said to the chairman, i said aren't you aware of the fact that this very hill where parliament is sitting 10,000 years ago there was a mile of ice on top of this and suddenly it all disappeared and are you going to tell me the first natives here were driving around in suvs or heating their teepees with fire. it's surprising how many people got trapped in this. is anybody looking at this that you know of or asking these questions? >> it sounds like a great

subject for a ph.d. thesis and there's a lot of them in the works now. >> good. i hope they come out soon. >> that's the last word. pick up your copy of the book. if you want more, it's widely available now this month in bookstores and online. and if you want to do an event with lawrence solomon, sandy schultz, the publicist for richard vigilante books is here. please talk to her and now please join me in thanking lawrence solomon for an outstanding presentation. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> you've been watching discussion on "the deniers: the world's renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political perswcution and fraud." written by lawrence solomon,

executive director of the urban renaissance institute. for more information visit urban-renaissance.org. >> the new book "they dared return: the true stories of jewish spies behind nazi germany." who is frederick mayer. >> he's the american great living spy from world war ii. he was part of operation greenup. they went back behind the into nazi germany and was described as a german officer and changed the course of world war ii. got tens of thousands of jail term soldiers to surrender and found the plans for hitler's bunker and destroyed 26 trains with an air strike. >> patrick, what time period did this take place? >> this took place in 1945. and it's one of the great untold stories of world war ii.

fred was put in for the medal of honor and that's a medal that has not been -- nothing has ever been -- nothing has ever happened to it. it's like one of those untold questions that we're trying to find out as far as his recommendation. >> how did you get involved in this story? you said it's an underreported story. how did you find out about it? >> before six years ago i was researching a book and i authorized veterans and fred mayer was one of my first veterans that i ever interviewed and from there i became, you know, close friends with this man and i was -- i just got involved in his story which is really one of the great untold stories of world war ii. >> mr. mayer you led operation greenup. could you tell us a little bit about that. >> well, we were parachuted on a glacier in austria. and did what we had to do from then on. >> what did that entail?

>> well, first my original job was to find out how the germans got weapons back through italy through the pass. and it turns out our photograph showed that the bridges were all destroyed. but the germans had built portable bridges which i pulled them in the tunnels and i pulled them out only when a train was going through. so our aerial photographs were null and void. >> the title of the book "they dared return" from the title of this these gentlemen started in europe and they came to the united states and went back, correct? >> they were all german refugees that barely escaped nazi germany and then -- they were american citizens and did the unbelievable, which is parachute back into nazi lines and fred was a german officer impersonated a german officer

behind nazi lines and gathered actionable intelligence that literally changed the course of the war. >> you must have had moments where you feared for your life. is there a particular story? there must have been moments where you feared for your life impersonating a german officer. were there moments or a story that you remember in particular? >> at the age of 21 you know no fear. >> that's sort of the understatement of the year. frederick mayer is very self-effacing but he was captured by the gestapo and literally waterboarded and tortured for three days and survived, didn't break. and then literally turned the tables on his captors and got tens of thousands of german soldiers to surrendered. >> he was joined with the subject of his book, fred mayor, thanks so much. >> thank you. ..