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Gambling on Global Warming Goes
Mainstream
Ker
Than
Live Science
Saturday April 14, 2007
An MIT meteorologist said three years ago that he would bet money
that global average temperatures would cool back down in 20 years.
The quote triggered a flurry of Internet dialogues and prompted
scientists to challenge each other to make bets on climate-change
issues.
One scientist took the wagering meteorologist, Richard Lindzen,
up on his bet, but the deal fell apart over a disagreement about
odds.
Now, an online gambling service is giving the public a chance to
do what scientists have been doing among themselves for years. The
service, BetUS.com, announced it will give members a chance to wager
on various global warming-related issues.
But scientists warn the odds are designed to part suckers from
their cash.
Pop culture gaming
BetUS.com spokesman Reed Richards said the company will personally
back numerous bets, or “propositions,” posted on the
website related to global warming. “It’s part of a campaign
we’ve been doing for the past two and a half years called
‘pop culture gaming,’” Richards said. “You
can wager on things in the headlines.”
One bet gives members 1-to-5 odds that scientists will prove global
warming exists beyond any scientific doubt by the end of this year.
Another gives 100-to-1 odds that polar bears will be extinct by
2010. (A complete list of all the global-warming related bets is
listed at the end of this article.)
Richards said “thousands” of people have already placed
money on the company’s global-warming bets, with $10 being
the average wager.
A dozen analysts combed through scientific studies on global warming
to create the odds, Richards said.
“This is where the advantage is to the player,” Richards
said in a telephone interview. “Unlike sports, where there
are set formulas and statistics and numbers, these are variables
that we can’t anticipate.”
A risky wager
Climate scientists disagree that the public has the upper hand.
Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA’s Goddard Institute
for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, said the bets are “designed
to part fools from their money.”
For example, one of the bets the website offers is 150-to-1 odds
that the oceans will rise six inches on average worldwide by the
end of the year. “It’s more like a billion to one,”
Schmidt told LiveScience. “Anyone who puts money on that would
be an idiot.”
Another bet for the taking has odds of 100-to-1 that Manhattan
will be under water by 2012. “Do they have any idea how high
the peak of Manhattan is?” Schmidt said. (The highest natural
point in Manhattan is 265 feet above sea level)
James Annan, a climate scientist at the Frontier Research Center
for Global Change in Japan, said many of the bets are “silly”
and mostly of the “Elvis will be found alive and living on
the Moon” type.
However, there is one bet Annan said he might consider. BetUS.com
is offering odds of 300-to-1 that humans will find a way to reverse
global warming so efficiently that global freezing becomes a factor
by 2020.
“This is really more technological and political speculation
than climate science,” Annan said. For example, scientists
could achieve this chilling effect by injecting enough sun-blocking
dust into the atmosphere or placing a large sunshade in space.
“300-to-1 might make this worth considering, I suppose,”
Annan said.
Scientists do it
While new to most of us, betting on global warming is old hat to
some scientists.
In 2005, Annan offered to take Lindzen, the MIT meteorologist,
up on his bet that global temperatures in 20 years will be cooler
than they are now. However, no wager was ever settled on because
Lindzen wanted odds of 50-to-1 in his favor. This meant that for
a $10,000 bet, Annan would have to pay Lindzen the entire sum if
temperatures dropped, but receive only $200 if they rose.
“Richard Lindzen’s words say that there is about a
50 percent chance of [global] cooling,” Annan wrote about
the bet. “His wallet thinks it is a 2 percent shot. Which
do you believe?”
Soon after, however, Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev,
two Russian solar physicists who argue global temperatures are driven
by changes in the Sun’s activity, agreed to Annan’s
bet.
The two camps have agreed to compare global temperatures between
1998 and 2003 with those between 2012 and 2017. The loser will pay
up in 2018.
Since 2005, Annan said he has offered to make bets with other global
warming skeptics. “There have been a few nibbles since but
nothing substantial has turned up,” Annan said in an email
interview.
Few climate scientists seem willing to bet against the effects
of global warming. “A couple of colleagues have offers on
the table, but there are no takers on the other side,” he
added.
A measure of truth
Schmidt said betting on global warming is a good measure of a global
warming nay-sayer’s conviction.
“Most people who claim to be contrarians and say the planet
is going to cool, none of them will put their money where their
mouth is,” he said. “It’s been a very good way
of showing that a lot of the noise that you hear from the wackier
elements is in fact just noise and actually is not based on anything.”
Schmidt described one bet he personally negotiated with a Canadian
paleo-climatologist one night over a dinner that included wine.
“I said it will warm more than 0.1 degree [Celsius] in the
next decade. He said it would warm less than that,” Schmidt
said. “But then in the morning, when he may have sobered up,
and I tried to get a confirmation that was the bet that we had,
I heard no more.”
Global Warming Related Bets Offered by BetUS.com (see notes below
regarding * and #):
It's proven that global warming exists beyond any scientific doubt
before Dec. 31, 2007 Yes - 1/5* #
It's proven that humans caused global warming beyond any scientific
doubt before Dec. 31, 2007 Yes - 2/1*#
The ocean will rise six inches by the end of the year (worldwide
as an average) Yes - 150/1
Polar Bears will become extinct by 2010 Yes - 100/1
A car that runs solely on water will hit the market by 2008 (must
be a stock car produced for mass consumption) Yes - 150/1
Antarctica will become livable for humans by 2015 (must be able
to sustain crops in order for wager to win) Yes - 500/1
Humans will find a way to reverse global warming so efficiently
that global freezing becomes a factor by 2020 Yes - 300/1
Manhattan will be under water before 12/31/11 Yes - 100/1
Florida will be under water before 12/31/11 Yes - 10/1
Cape Cod is submerged by 2015 Yes - 150/1
Cape Hatteras is submerged by 2015 Yes - 300/1
Cape Canaveral is submerged by 2015 Yes - 100/1
Cape Henry is submerged by 2015 Yes - 200/1
Cape May is submerged by 2015 Yes - 200/1
*To qualify as proven, "the government would have to announce
in a statement that the study is without flaw and also conclude
it is real without any scientific doubt," BetUS.com spokesman
Reed Richards said.
# Of these bets, James Annan said: “Under the definition
of ‘the government says so,’ then we seem to be pretty
much there, since the [U.S.] government has endorsed the IPCC report.
‘Beyond any scientific doubt’ is poorly worded though.
I don’t expect anyone in any official position to use that
exact form.”
INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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