Yesterday's guest blog post by my betting opponent David Evans has generated more hits on my blog than I've had in the last two months. It's amazing how differently people will view the same event - the denialist blogs are linking to it, and see this as some kind of vindication in that David used to support the consensus, and in that he's willing to bet.
I should start as my mother taught me though and say something nice, which is that the comments in the post, mostly by skeptics/denialists, are very complimentary to both David and myself for keeping our debate civil. It's good for me to get that reminder about the decent people that are on the other side of the fence. And I think I've already made my respect for David clear.
Okay, enough being nice. The irony is that most of the referrals are coming from Tim Blair and Planet Gore. Blair's site labelled me a troll and de-facto banned me for repeatedly offering to bet Blair and others at his site. I emailed Planet Gore just 3 weeks ago offering to bet them, and never heard a word. So now if they think David's action is commendable, why don't they show it by betting me themselves?
It would also help if they were accurate - both short posts on Planet Gore got essential things wrong - first, David isn't a climate modeller-turned-skeptic and never claimed to be. Second, he isn't betting that temperatures will cool (a claim repeated by other denialists who fail to read the post); instead he's betting that temperatures will increase at a slower rate than predicted by the consensus.
Finally, they fail to note that it took nearly two years for me to find someone to bet against the consensus position, I'm still open to more bets, as are other people, and we can't find betting opponents. From a free-market perspective, this seems a pretty clear indication that the consensus position is nearly universally-held, and people like David whose disbelief in it is strong enough to be backed up with their wallets are quite rare.
Summing it up, the effect's unclear so far. Stoat thought my bet was a good one but entails a PR risk, and he might be right earlier than he thought. On the other hand, in three years we'll start to see whether I'm on the path toward winning or losing the bets, and we'll see what PR effect that has too.
Showing posts with label Planet Gore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Planet Gore. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Murray and RP Jr. getting overbroad in their critiques
Iain Murray, at the denialist/weaselist Planet Gore website, cites approvingly to Roger Pielke Jr.'s attack on the Climate Appraisal website, for doing what Murray calls "selling alarmist predictions of what climate change might do to your property." RP Jr. says:
I think the name-calling I'll use is "sloppy," or to be more civil, "overbroad". It's not clear to me that either critic has actually read what the website promises. The sample report is here. The only site-specific, climate change predictions relate to regional temperature changes, derived from US government data, and the local effects of sea level rise. The sea level rise shown ranges from 3 to 20 feet, but they're quite clear about the high end:
On the low, 3 foot end, they say: "Climate Appraisal Services LLC Science Advisors project that up to three feet of sea level rise is likely to occur over the next 100 years, or by 2100, with more than half of that rise likely occurring in the second 50 years." I assume they're rounding to the nearest foot. This is a probability assessment for a higher sea level beyond that found in the current IPCC, but within range of a scientist's expert judgment (see RealClimate for reasons why the IPCC may be underestimating rise by 50%).
Other than pushing the envelope somewhat on sea level rise, I see no validity to the critique of Climate Appraisal. The one good thing from reading the critique, though, is that I now think I'll fork out the $30 to see what results I get at my address.
UPDATE: Reading more closely, Climate Appraisal says "up to" 3 feet is likely. I hope they're not relying on the "up to" qualifier, or else I'd consider it somewhat misleading.
Call me a skeptic or a cynic but I'm pretty sure that the science of climate change hasn't advanced to the point of providing such place-specific information.
I think the name-calling I'll use is "sloppy," or to be more civil, "overbroad". It's not clear to me that either critic has actually read what the website promises. The sample report is here. The only site-specific, climate change predictions relate to regional temperature changes, derived from US government data, and the local effects of sea level rise. The sea level rise shown ranges from 3 to 20 feet, but they're quite clear about the high end:
Climate Appraisal Services LLC Science Advisors project up to 20 feet of sea level rise within the next several hundred years, possibly by 2500 if there is no material slowing in the rate of global warming via a substantial reduction in greenhouse gases.
On the low, 3 foot end, they say: "Climate Appraisal Services LLC Science Advisors project that up to three feet of sea level rise is likely to occur over the next 100 years, or by 2100, with more than half of that rise likely occurring in the second 50 years." I assume they're rounding to the nearest foot. This is a probability assessment for a higher sea level beyond that found in the current IPCC, but within range of a scientist's expert judgment (see RealClimate for reasons why the IPCC may be underestimating rise by 50%).
Other than pushing the envelope somewhat on sea level rise, I see no validity to the critique of Climate Appraisal. The one good thing from reading the critique, though, is that I now think I'll fork out the $30 to see what results I get at my address.
UPDATE: Reading more closely, Climate Appraisal says "up to" 3 feet is likely. I hope they're not relying on the "up to" qualifier, or else I'd consider it somewhat misleading.
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