MIDDLETOWN — With energy and climate policy expected to take center stage nationally this year, the Ohio Liberty Council — whose membership includes area Tea Parties — will host an Ohio Energy and Climate Conference on Feb. 6 at Miami University, Middletown.

Guest speakers will include Pat Michaels, senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute; Ben Lieberman, senior policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation; Mary Hutzler, senior fellow at the market-based think tank Institute for Energy Research; and William Tucker, author of “Terrestrial Energy.”

Topics will include current and future policy, the science of climate change, and nuclear energy.

Hutzler said she will talk about energy sources, and how some estimates call for fossil fuels to be available and widely used for another quarter century.

“It’s not a situation where we’re going to be able to move to renewable power like some people believe we are; that’s sort of a fallacy,” she said.

Michaels, a member of the International Panel on Climate Change, plans to talk about how global warming is real but happening much slower than some scientists say.

He said global temperatures are only forecast to rise 2 degrees this century.

“This hardly becomes the end-of-the-world problem it’s presented as,” he said, adding he plans to talk about “distortions” of climate data.

Both presenters oppose cap and trade legislation. And both have views that would be deemed controversial to some climate scientists.

Event organizers expect lots of questions from the audience after the brief presentations.

The event is scheduled from 1 to 5 p.m. at Dave Finkelman Auditorium.

Tickets are $12 each at www.americanjunto.org. The full ticket price is tax deductible.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2175 or jsweigart@coxohio.com.