Place Your Bets on Climate Change. Not Many Suckers Left.
January 21, 2016
There’s one dying every minute.
Want to lose £2,000? Then make a bet with a climate change expert that the world isn’t warming.
That’s what two members of Lord Lawson’s climate change science denying Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) did when they bet Chris Hope, a Cambridge University researcher, that 2015 wouldn’t be the hottest year ever recorded.
“You win some, you lose some,” Benny Peiser, director of the GWPF, told Reuters, adding that the pace of warming “is not something that people… need to be greatly concerned about”.
But new data released this week by meteorologists in the UK and US proved the GWPF wrong as 2015 saw “record-shattering” global temperatures.
Climate Bet
Five years ago British engineer Alan Rudge and Australian geologist Ian Plimer – both members of the GWPF academic advisory council – bet Hope £1,000 each that the Earth would be cooling by now, not warming.
Hope bet that average global temperatures in 2015 would be no more than 0.1°C cooler than in 2008.
As data released by the UK Met Office on 20 January revealed, the average global temperature in 2015 was 0.75°C higher than the long-term average between 1961 and 1990. The Met Office expects 2016 to beat this record.
When compared with the pre-industrial period, the 2015 average global temperature was around 1°C above the long-term average from 1850 to 1900 the Met Office said.
Temperature data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also showed that 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since modern record keeping began in 1880.
OSLO, Jan 20 For British climate expert Chris Hope, new data showing that 2015 was the hottest year ever recorded is not just confirmation he’s been right all along that the planet is getting warmer.
It also won the Cambridge University researcher a 2,000 pound sterling ($2,830) wager made five years ago against a pair of scientists who reject man-made global warming and bet Hope that the Earth would be cooling by now.
NASA, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the British Met Office said on Wednesday that 2015 was the warmest year recorded since 1880, boosted by a long-term build-up of greenhouse gases and a natural El Nino event warming the Pacific Ocean.
That puts last year ahead of 2014, the previous warmest, as well as 2010, 2005 and 1998, when a strong El Nino marked, for a time, a peak in temperature rises.
A slowdown in temperature increases after 1998 – described by most climate experts as a hiatus in a long-term rise – has been invoked by a small band of sceptics who say mainstream science has exaggerated the risks.
Hope agreed wagers of 1,000 pounds each with two of them: British engineer Alan Rudge and Australian geologist Ian Plimer. Hope bet average global temperatures in 2015 would be no more than 0.1 degree Celsius (0.18 Fahrenheit) cooler than 2008.
He said it was good to test theories with cash. “Of course, one side ends up happier than the other,” he said. Neither Rudge nor Plimer were immediately available to comment.
“You win some, you lose some,” said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, for which Rudge is an adviser. Peiser said the pace of warming “is not something that people … need to be greatly concerned about”.
Among other wagers, in 2005 British climate modeller James Annan bet $10,000 against two Russian solar physicists that average global temperatures from 2013-17 would be warmer than 2003-07.
“Things are looking good for my bet,” Annan said, noting the U.N.’s weather agency has said 2016 could be as warm as 2015. If so, Annan reckons that his bet is safe unless 2017 is the coldest year since about 1929.
His Russian opponents are not conceding yet.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
January 21, 2016 at 9:18 pm
I have never seen a climate change denier putting his money where his mouth is. Roger Helmer, leader of the UK nationalist party UKIP, and Member of the European Parliament, is a climate change denier. But he admitted in an email to me that he’s investing his money in solar energy.
January 22, 2016 at 12:11 am
Maurice Newman for those who don’t know. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/aug/15/fact-check-how-maurice-newman-misrepresents-science-to-claim-future-global-cooling
January 22, 2016 at 2:49 am
The satellites are the only credible measure of global temperature. Enough said.
January 22, 2016 at 5:01 am
Why do believe the satellites are the only credible measure of global temperature?
January 22, 2016 at 5:58 am
Most satellites (which measure radiance, and infer surface temperature with the aid of complex computer models – of which ‘sceptics’ are such big fans) – also indicate a clear warming trend. It takes single-minded cherry picking to find anything else. Enough said.
January 22, 2016 at 6:06 am
Nuhh.
Desperate avoidance of reality out of fear and cowardice.
Lets call a spade a spade
January 22, 2016 at 8:34 am
But such a statement is a credible measure of your ideological bent ScottishSeptic and probably your IQ too.
Next time please bring a small plastic bag so as to take your poop home with you.
January 22, 2016 at 1:15 pm
Make that a large plastic bag…
January 22, 2016 at 1:43 pm
You didn’t go far enough. Since the poop emanates from SSSSSSSSSOB’s mouth, we may as well have him do it right. So, to expand in the instructions:
Put the large bag over your head, SS, and fasten tightly around your neck with duct tape—-that will ensure that all the poop is contained and that you “take it with you” when you leave.
January 22, 2016 at 8:51 am
When the SSSSSSSOB appears on Crock, you know that the denier world has put out the word to “fight bacK” and is trying to clog up Peter’s good work in several recent p[osts. SSSSSSSOB is the bpttom of the barrel, folks, and his feebleness is apparent. The forces of truth ate winning!
PS For those who are new to Crock and haven’t met him yet, SSSSSSSOB (pronounced just as it looks) is the full acronym for our boy—-Sheep Shagging Scottich Skeptic Stupid S**thead S.O.B.
January 22, 2016 at 10:48 am
As someone with Scottish ancestry, I think this is one time when it’s okay to commit a logical fallacy and to state categorically that Scottish Septic (sic) is NO TRUE SCOTSMAN!!
January 22, 2016 at 1:04 pm
You are correct, and as someone who is married to a woman who is half-Scottish, I can tell you that the only thing “Scottish” about SSSSSSSSSSSSob is the stereotypical stubbornness with which he clings to his delusions.
When he appeared on Crock in the past, those of us who mocked him also pointed out that a disproportionate number of great scientists and great scientific discoveries have come from Scotland (to say nothing of the only whiskey I ever drink). Are we sure he’s really a Scot?
January 22, 2016 at 2:49 pm
January 22, 2016 at 9:21 am
well, ok.
why believe all those experts when you can believe Ted Cruz?
January 22, 2016 at 10:32 am
Not only does Ted Cruz look like Mr. Haney from Green Acres, he seems to be at least as big of a con man as Haney.
January 22, 2016 at 10:44 am
Gets even better. Not only does Paul Ryan look like Eddie Munster,but they put a pic of Ted Cruz next to Grandpa Munster and the resemblance is striking. Oh wait,wasn’t he Lily’s father?
January 22, 2016 at 9:58 am
Does this work?
January 22, 2016 at 9:59 am
Sorry! I tried posting a real comment and it didn’t take. I can’t find an affordance to delete the subsequent test comment.
January 22, 2016 at 1:13 pm
Species and civilizations. You win some, lose some.
January 22, 2016 at 1:23 pm
Oh well…waddaya gonna do?
Maybe the next sentient species will make a better bet.
January 23, 2016 at 9:14 am
[…] piece from the Times of London on the recent “climate bet” I reported on the other day, from Leo Hickman’s twitter […]