Climate bet scorecard

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Between 2005-2011, several public bets were made about climate change, specifically about the rate of global warming.

 Typically, on one side is someone who broadly agrees with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change i.e. that global warming is real, caused by human activity (e.g. fossil fuel burning) and that things will get worse if we carry on as we are. 

 On the other side is what we might politely call a contrarian, who broadly disagrees with the IPCC. Typically, their view is that the world is warming less than the IPCC view, or not at all, or is about to start cooling. 

 Just for fun,  I've produced a scoreboard of recorded climate bets between 'warmists' and 'coolists' (for want of some better names). It shows all the bets I can find where terms were agreed by both parties and made public - in chronological order of when the bet was agreed.

 The warmists are clearly winning:


CLIMATE BETS SCOREBOARD
Coolists
Warmists

Complete
1
6

Underway
0
3


Bet made in
Coolists

Warmists
Bet end
Stake
2005
Bashkirtsev &
Mashnich
vs
Annan
2017
$10,000
2005
Snowhope
vs
Crandles
2015
£500
2007
Evans
vs
Schmidt
2019
£1,000
2007
Evans
vs
Schmidt
2024

2007
Evans
vs
Schmidt
2029

2008
Whitehouse
vs
Annan
2011
£100
2008
Cohen
vs
Grossman
2017
$5,000
2009
Labohm
vs
Strengers
2014
A good bottle of wine
2010
Gosselin & Bjorn
vs
Hegerl
2017
A nice bottle of wine
2011
Bastardi
vs
Hausfather
n/a
Steak
2011
Plimer & Rudge
vs
Hope
2015
£2,000
2011
Gosselin et al
vs
Honeycutt et al
2020
$7,200 (charity pot)
Key
Coolists win
Coolists leading
Warmists leading
Warmists win
Draw
Not started

Note: the result of the Whitehouse vs Annan bet depends on which edition is used of the dataset they chose. More on that later.

 Following on will be some posts about each bet....




Comments

  1. crandles17 October 2018 at 15:19

    Do I get an entry? See http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/08/bet-number-2.html

    Should there also be a column for has bet been settled or settlement refused? In my case, I have tried to contact 'snow hope' but he hasn't logged in to UKWeatherWorld since Dec 08 2017.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hautbois18 October 2018 at 01:06

    Hi Crandles - I'm keen to add more bets; certainly those where the deal was struck and it's in the public domain. Unfortunately the link to ukweatherworld (via the URL you gave me there) is a 404. Do you have the text of your exchange with 'snow hope' ? If not, let me know the details of the bet either way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. crandles19 October 2018 at 06:15

    Hi, UKWeatherWorld forum has been though a few forum upgrades. At one point there were archives of the old forums but don't see that any more. Not quite sure why James wrote "on essentially the same terms" as I thought it was exactly the same terms as described at http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/08/bet.html but perhaps that just means making allowances for the parties involved being different and arrangements for keeping in touch.

    I would suggest the terms were made public by referencing the bet link above and there is sufficient evidence of this online at the bet-number-2 link and added comments that Brian tried to take the other £500 on offer but was refused, so it isn't just my word that it happened publicly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hautbois21 October 2018 at 14:57

      Fair enough - it was James Annan's "essentially the same terms" that made me wonder if it was slightly different. Shame the UKWeatherWorld thread is no longer there. Anyway, scoreboard amended accordingly. Thanks for the other two. The Brian Schmidt vs David Evans one is included already - the $1000 refers to the even odds bet. I'll be explaining the side bets in the post that follows. As for Annan, Connolley & Schmidt vs Romm, I think that's for a separate scoreboard where both parties are essentially 'warmists' but one thinks the IPCC is cautious e.g. on sea ice.

      Delete
  4. crandles19 October 2018 at 07:03

    Some others:
    $6-$9 thousand
    http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2007/04/new-global-warming-bet-for-7-10.html

    sea ice bet for $1000
    http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2007/12/got-another-climate-change-bet-with.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nikolai6 November 2018 at 08:28

    I'm interested in covering this story in a potential segment on HBO/Vice News Tonight. Would you be able to contact me at nicholas.fraccaro@vice.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. barry8 December 2018 at 14:39

    Hautbois, is there a way you could provide links to corroborate all the bets that does't mess up the nice presentation here? Perhaps a link to another page with all the links?

    ReplyDelete
  7. End Carbon Pollution27 December 2018 at 14:34

    This is great. Thanks for doing this and I love the detail behind each bet!

    ReplyDelete

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