Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
Newsweek's three subscribers will see this magazine cover this week. Yes, it's unbelievably irresponsible and totally ridiculous. So was Newsweek's claim last March that the magazine had Harold Camping-like prognostication abilities -- and that the biggest earthquake ever was about to hit California.
Donald Boudreaux writes in the Wall Street Journal against "global-warming chicken little-ism":
Contrary to what many environmentalists would have us believe, Americans are increasingly less likely to be killed by severe weather. Moreover, because of modern industrial and technological advances—radar, stronger yet lighter building materials, more reliable electronic warning devices, and longer-lasting packaged foods—we are better protected from nature's fury today than at any other time in human history. We do adapt.
He then says he's so optimistic in the face of these climate-change doomsayers that he's willing to be any of them -- including Al Gore or Paul Krugman -- $10,000 that the average number of Americans killed by tornadoes, floods and hurricanes will fall over the next 20 years.
Do you think any of them will take this wager?
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Mar '11
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
I'm surprised they have as many as 3 subscribers.
Yes, clearly the increased Earthquakes are because of the doubling of CO2. Indeed, Harold Camping is closer to the truth.
The increased Tornado activity is more likely a result of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation, which is the same reason that we have had such a cold winter and spring.
Edited on May 31, 2011 at 8:26amMay '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
$10,000 is Al Gore's Belgian chocolate bill for the quarter, (carbon offset of course); so I doubt that he will take up the bet. Mr. Gore already has $100M or more in those industries benefiting from those subsidies and taxes to "ostensibly" reduce CO2 emissions, and given the lack of shame around Inconvenient Truthers, is unlikely to be held account for his failed prophecies.
On a similar note I see Germany is closing all its Nuclear power plants by 2020, which will require them to source 22% of the energy from other sources. Pity they are the world's 4th largest economy by GDP. I guess we will see how a Western country can de-industrialise itself, and support the Ruhr etc using only windmills, and solar power for smelting. After all, mass unemployment in Germany has never resulted in anything bad happening has it? Perhaps the can convince the Chinese to wear lederhosen as a trade subsititution.
Edited on May 31, 2011 at 8:40amFeb '11
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
Looking at Al Gore, I don't think he'll last another twenty years. That aside, no, they wouldn't dream of taking the wager. It trivializes the cause. It's also too risky. Try predicting anything accurately twenty years down the road. Anyway, the alarmist insist that we don't have twenty years to wait to find out for sure. Lastly, carbon credit scams and activist NGOs are much more profitable and sound, to the multitudinous under and uninformed, like a much more noble endeavor in the supposedly valiant crusade to counter what the alarmists characterize as an existential crisis.
Edited on May 31, 2011 at 8:41amAug '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
I'm hoping that Germany's real plan is to replace their aging, obsolete "nuclear" plants with new, more efficient, much safer plants that are de facto "nuclear", but that will be given a different name that isn't "nuclear". Something like, "Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor" power plants.
"Nuclear plants? Nein! We have no nuclear plants. We have Liquid Fluoride plants. Totally different thing."
Edited on May 31, 2011 at 8:48amFeb '11
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
Um … it would be pretty perverse for them to take it. If Boudreaux is right, he can happily gloat about it, but no one would want to win a bet that lots of people are going to die.
Sep '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
Nobody would take this bet - not since Julian Simon won the bet against Paul Ehrlich, anyway. Doom-sayers are almost always fools, but it makes for good magazine covers, anyway.
The more important concern than global warming (if it exists, and if it is anthropogenic) is the moral hazard of the federal government subsidizing foolish construction in areas where flooding, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are likely to recur (ie, New Orleans).
Sep '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
And, by the way...this bet is by no means an original idea. Reason.com reported extensively on a similiar one in 2004. Like all good ideas, it gets repeated from time to time.
Jun '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
Chicken Little was unavailable for comment.
Nov '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
I doubt any doomsayers will take the bet, perhaps because Julian Simon won the bet with Paul Ehrlich, but that is a mere fact and facts don’t really matter to the AGW alarmists. Making such a bet explicitly relies on a future fact that will be established one way or the other, and that’s why they probably won’t be interested. The bet advances something their vision won’t countenance. It’s irrelevant.
Jun '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
No, they won't take the bet.
By the way, I've just lived through one of the wettest, chilliest Mays in Salt Lake City history. Two days ago, we had a bit of snow on our lawn.
Help me. Does the fact that it was cool mean that climate change is real? And if it had been really hot, that too would have meant that climate change is real? And if it had been pretty much average, that too would have mean that climate change is real?
Dec '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
They probably won't take the bet, but they'd be fools not to. When every meteorologic, geologic, pandemic and astronomic event is increasingly attributed climate change, well, they can't lose! They've left supernatural events untapped thus far, so they've got a virtual lock.
The Left doesn't have to explain itself or acknowledge facts because its intentions are always good. It is just trying to save the planet after all.
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
Certainly true. At some point, market minded economists realized this was a great idea for all sorts of doomsayer predictions.
Aug '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
Are you saying that Gozer wasn't the result of manmade climate change?!
Edited on May 31, 2011 at 12:04pmApr '11
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
David Williamson:The increased Tornado activity is more likely a result of the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation, which is the same reason that we have had such a cold winter and spring. · May 31 at 8:20am
Edited on May 31 at 08:26 am
I remember the late 80's/early 90s when ocean currents were the cutting edge of climate theory and they seemed fairly reliable. Now, talk of them is superseded by climate alarmism. It's too bad, as I see the oceans having far more impact on the climate than a trace gas. I guess there just wasn't a way to blame humanity for the ocean cycles, and therefore not enough money for dubious self-affirming research. It's my belief that this era will be looked on as a low point for science once the reality sets in that there's really nothing to see here.
Jul '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
Naah. They'll happily put your money or my money where their mouths are, though.
Sep '10
Re: Climate-Change Doomsayers Need To Put Up Or Shut Up
This is likely not a good wager. The number of intense tornados has been steadily decreasing since 1950. If you don't believe me you can look at Dr. Roy Spencer's good but geeky global warming blog here where he shows graphs of F3-F5 tornados from 1950-now. There have as I understand it been more of the weaker tornados but that may be largely due to our increased ability to spot them with weather radar.
BTW I don't even think this fits the general model of AGW, which is supposed to be most pronounced at the poles. That is, there should be more temperature rise the farther north or south you go. This would necessarily reduce the temperature gradient between the equator and the poles which should suppress rather than enhance intense weather.