Warming skeptics face shrinking support

NEW YORK, March 9 (UPI) -- Climate change skeptics meeting at an annual conference in New York Monday are showing signs of internal disputes and weakening support, observers say.

The three-day International Conference on Climate Change, organized each year by the nonprofit Heartland Institute, which seeks deregulation and unfettered markets, serves as a platform for those who dispute the position of the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers who cite science pointing to human activity as the cause of global warming.

But this year, Heartland is facing reduced financing from large corporations like Exxon Mobil, which records show in past years has contributed more than $600,000 to the non-profit group, The New York Times reported.

"Major corporations are painting themselves green around global warming," Heartland President Joseph Bast told the newspaper, adding that the companies have shifted their efforts to trying to influence climate legislation.

Meanwhile, conference participants are criticizing not only "climate change orthodoxy," but also other skeptics. Keynote speaker Richard Lindzen criticized assertions by some skeptical colleagues that fluctuations in the sun, and not human activity, were causing recent temperature changes, the Times said.