Let's flip this:<p>1. I will award $10,000 of my own money to anyone that can demonstrate, via the scientific method, that man-made global climate change <i></i>IS<i></i> occurring;<p>2. There is no entry fee;<p>3. You must be 18 years old or older to enter;<p>4. Entries do not have to be original, they only need to be first;<p>5. <i>I am the final judge</i> of all entries but will provide my comments on why any entry fails to prove the point.<p>Obviously not hard to see how a global warming denier could get away with not paying anybody.<p>Does anybody seriously believe that would prove anything either?
This is why I'm a skeptic, change my mind:<p>Let's say we have 150 years of accurate temperature data, and it shows an increase of a few degrees. What is the standard deviation in global temperature for 150 year periods for the last 100K or 1M years? How do we know what is significant change?<p>Any data gathered from models (ice core, tree rings, ...) just doesn't have the resolution to answer these questions.
If I put 20 mice in a container, together with a toy car, measure the temperature in the container for 2 months and write a report about my findings, would that count as scientific proof? Because by definition, scientific proof does not result in 'true' or 'false', right?<p>According to Socrates it's impossible to disprove anything. That's purely a philosophical theory, but in this case it applies pretty well. You can't prove manmade global warming is NOT occuring because, in theory, the global warming that we're seeing (note that the definition of 'global warming' isn't set in stone, too) could be caused by other factors.<p>So, proving something isn't possible is impossible, and to top that this person runs a blog on global warming skepticism. I have the feeling he/she could be somewhat biased...<p>Just to be clear: I'm not debating man-made global warming. It's just that these kind of challenges bug me.<p>Side note: what is 'scientifically proven' anyway? I wrote a thesis on propaganda, and discovered (among other things) that when you say something is 'scientifically proven' most people stop questioning your claim.
Considering that the theory of anthropogenic climate change is not falsifiable in the first place (a key tenet of the scientific method), this is a strange offer indeed.<p>There may be a purported "consensus" on climate change but that does not make it scientific:
<a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/07/a-question-for-oreskes-but-what-do-we-mean-by-consensus/" rel="nofollow">http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/07/a-question-for-oreskes...</a>
I was just commenting to my girlfriend the other day after the John Oliver "Statistically Accurate Climate Science Debate" that I would love to see the US government spend $100mm or $1b or $10b (say over 5 years) on grants to try and disprove climate change.<p>Now obviously there might be some issues ensuring that you get researchers who want to make a real go of trying to disprove it rather than erect straw men and tear them down. But that's probably solvable.<p>Yes in many respects it would be a big waste of money, but after you poke a million little holes in climate change they will be fixed. And that will strengthen our understanding of the climate and in all likelihood substantially bolster the claim that climate change is real and man-made. And if it takes $100mm or $1b or even $10b worth of very public extra research to really convince people it would be worth it.<p>The US Global Change Research Program's budget is $2.6b annually so $20mm per year is a joke, $200mm a year is a bit substantial and $2b per year might actually be a reasonable amount.<p><a href="http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2012/02/14/presidents-2013-budget-requests-6-percent-increase-for-usgcrp/" rel="nofollow">http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2012/02/14/presidents-201...</a><p>Again I realize that for many people it would be a "waste" of money. But if it was publicized properly (and I do realize that's a big IF) it could go a long way towards garnering the public support necessary to do some economically difficult things. When politicians are happy to kick the can down the road every couple of years it's pretty tough for the public to understand why this is an issue that can't be kicked as well.<p>EDIT: I also realize it's stupid to waste taxpayer money, something I'm vhemently against. But while I'm dreaming here, let's suppose that the money is taken from the military budget for the duration of the grant period.
The article has a weird tone.<p>Why is he being so agressive against people who think the opposite of him? I mean if you are tolerant against people whose religion place the women in a submission role and restrain to nothing individual rights, you can be also tolerant to people who think the earth is not warming up.
Let's just take this a piece at a time.<p><pre><code> ...there is a 97% consensus that humans are causing and exacerbating climate change...
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Ignoring the lack of citation, why is it necessary to resort to band-wagon style marketing?<p><pre><code> ...the only reason so many scientists agree on climate change being a thing is because all the ones who disagree are being “censored” or something...
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I don't think that most of us who are skeptical about climate change believe that scientists are being censored as a matter of scientific conspiracy. It happens that the "fix" for man-made climate change also aligns well with a particular political party. Unfortunately, this results in people who are equally ignorant about the science involved supporting climate change simply because they support the economic policies that would be enacted to "reverse" climate change.<p><pre><code> ...These people often believe that there is actual scientific evidence disproving climate change. There, of course, is not.
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Isn't that the same argument made by academics when religious observers attempt to reason faith against evidence? And isn't the author now asking for us to "prove via the scientific method" something that would be impossible to do? Perhaps that's the point? Who wants to lose $10,000 of their own money?<p>I know nothing about this guy except what I've read in this one post, but I feel that the author is being intellectually dishonest and with his "prize" and, instead, is attempting to argue his point via propaganda.
Disproving climate change is virtually impossible. Every scientist agree that climate changes, it has done so in the past, will do in the future and is doing it in the present.<p>That is not an interesting question.<p>The interesting questions are:<p>- Is climate changing in a different way (faster, for example) than it has done in the past?<p>- Do humans have anything to do with it? Is it caused by increasing levels of atmospheric CO2?<p>- Will this change be negative?<p>- If the change is negative (be it man-made or not), can we stop it?<p>- If we can stop this climate change, how much will it cost? Will this money better spent stopping climate or is a better strategy to adapt to this change?<p>- Do we understand climate physics well enough to create models that can predict the climate of the future?<p>This last question is important, because if we can not produce a model that can predict the future well enough, all the other questions are irrelevant. And it seems that predictions of the models and reality are showing quite significant discrepancies: <a href="http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-ar5-weakens-the-case-for-agw/" rel="nofollow">http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-ar5-weakens-the-case-...</a><p>So it's not black or white, yes or no, good or bad. As usually it is in science. Name-calling, appealing to consensus, arguments of authority… those are never the result of science at work.
It seems longbets.org would be a more appropriate arena. "The average temperature of the earth will (not) rise by more than X degrees in the next twenty years."
Well, let's just rough out the experiment, shall we?<p>First, we need to establish that human activity can change the climate. For the sake of argument, let's try rainfall in the Sonora Desert. What we could do is to burrow an underground canal from the Gulf of California into Laguna Salada, and from there to the Salton Sink. This would establish shallow, inland, saltwater seas upwind of the desert, in a very sunny area, as a source of atmospheric humidity. Evaporation would be further encouraged with sea salt manufacturing beds and Salicornia bigelovii plantations.<p>(It would also displace thousands of people whose homes would now be underwater, but let's handwave that aside for now.)<p>We then erect solar-powered ionization towers downwind of the new seas, to stimulate cloud formation via charged particles of dust. Those clouds will tend to blow east over the desert and rain out. To extend the rainfall further east, we simply plant dry-tolerant plants--such as sorghum, lucern, and field pea--in the newly wet areas, to recycle moisture back into the air via transpiration.<p>Results of the experiment will compare weather patterns in Yuma and Mexicali before and after the megaproject.<p>And then, after spending (optimistically) $20 billion on the subterranean saltwater tunnels, and $100 million on the cloud seeders, we can collect our $10000. Yay!<p>In comparison to what it would cost to test experimentally a hypothesis that states the entirety of global human economic activity is influencing weather patterns, you will have to spend an amount capable of simulating a portion of the global human economy towards a directed experimental purpose. $10000 isn't even a round-off error.<p>You would be better off buying up unproductive arid land and leasing it to cattle ranchers as semi-arid grazing land afterward.
A lot of crackpots think that they already have. To make this a good-faith offer, it might be good to google all of the major theories from the denialist side and explain in black-and-white terms why they would or would not qualify for the prize. Otherwise, it's just asking somebody to volunteer to be your punching bag for free.
Another stunning HN thread where a subset of posters have decided they know more about climate change than people dedicating their lives to the study of climate change.<p>Since so many of you are <i>wagering</i> or believing let me just toss out what I believe.<p>I believe that credible and respected climate change scientists have forgotten more than you could ever know about the subject.<p>Climate Change deniers are a joke and a menace and are tied neck and neck with creationists for the moron awards.
It is well understood that the atmosphere is a highly chaotic system. Small changes can have dramatic impact. It is completely inconceivable that six billion humans have had no impact on weather and climate. Arguing about the exact consequences of that is a complete waste of time. Humans have the ability to influence the environment and we need to do that in an educated way. Fixating on climate science distracts from more tangible environmental issues that need to be addressed.
97% consensus? Right away I'm calling bullshit. I think this only proves how immature the academic world tends to be and may point to a bigger problem.