What would you enter a contest that would pay $100,000 to anyone who proves global warming is anthropogenic?

Question

Here's the link to TheNewsRoom where you can find news you can use:

http://www.thenewsroom.com/details/575853?c_id=wom-bc-ar

Answer 1

Of course you'll never get any takers. See 'global warming' can only be predicted after 50 years. No one can tell you what the climate change is going to be in 6 months. That's weather, not climate - don't you even know the difference between climate and weather?

I think a better approach is to capitulate. Say global warming is man made and we know the cause. Once we do this, then we can cut back the funding that is now trying to prove that warming is man made. We can use the saved million to fight hunger in this country instead.

Answer 2

What a bogus "challenge". Milloy and JunkScience (more about them later) will just say "no you haven't proven it". Here's the challenge:

The winning entry will specifically reject both of the following two hypotheses:

UGWC Hypothesis 1
Manmade emissions of greenhouse gases do not discernibly, significantly and predictably cause increases in global surface and tropospheric temperatures along with associated stratospheric cooling.

UGWC Hypothesis 2
The benefits equal or exceed the costs of any increases in global temperature caused by manmade greenhouse gas emissions between the present time and the year 2100, when all global social, economic and environmental effects are considered.

Hell, the first hypothesis is a no-brainer. The definition of a greenhouse gas is that it causes global warming! If it weren't for greenhouse gases our planet would be a freezing hellscape!!

The catch is that the second is absolutely impossible to prove. Virtually every climate scientist agrees that it's false (it's obvious that higher temperatures will cause terrible consequences), but nobody can "prove" it. James Hansen (possibly the foremost climate scientist in the world) recently noted that

"When temperatures increased to 2-3 degrees above today’s level 3.5 million years ago, sea levels rose not by 59 centimetres but by 25 metres. The ice responded immediately to changes in temperature."

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/07/03/a-sudden-change-of-state/#more-1072

Does that "prove" negative consequences of global warming? No, but it's pretty goddamn strong evidence.

As for Milloy and JunkScience, they started out being funded by Phillip Morris tobacco company to depict peer-reviewed scientific papers which found a connection between secondhand smoke and lung cancer as "junk science" and corporate-funded "research" finding no link as "sound science". Now Exxon Mobile pays the site to do the same for global warming and human greenhouse gas emissions.

Answer 3

It's a rip off. Global warming can easily be proven* but I'm not wasting $15 entering a contest that has no winners. The 'contest' is akin to asking a Jewish person to award a prize to his/her favourite Nazi but only if they want to.

There's loads of prizes on offer to the first person to come up with x, y or z but you don't need to pay an entry fee, the prizes are offered by credible organisations, there's a panel of judges (not just one person), the judges are experts, the contests are legal and regulated (this one isn't), and a winner is guaranteed.

The judge in the contest is junkscience.com. This website is hosted by Steve Milloy, an outspoken climate change skeptic who receives editorial and funding from oil and power companies. The rules state that a winner doesn't have to be chosen - pretty obvious that no winner will be chosen and that Mr Milloy and his colleagues will simply rake in the money.

* There is absolute proof that global warming exists but it's impossible to precisely determine the natural and manmade component. Similarly it's impossible to provide absolute proof that common concepts such as light, energy and gravity exist.

Answer 4

No. Because the "prize" is rigged so that it can't be won.

In order to win, you have to prove two things, one of which is easy -- global warming is caused by us -- and one of which is impossible. The impossible one is a "scientifically valid" prediction of future economic activity. If that were possible, we'd all be millionaires. Not only that, the guy "giving" the prize is the sole judge of who wins. So you can bet your a** nobody is going to win from that alone.

If non-scientist lawyer lobbyist Steven Milloy, who runs junkscience.com, were intellectually honest -- which he isn't -- he would do two things. (A) Split the prize into two separate prizes of $50,000 each, one for each proposition, and (B) appoint an independent board of judges to decide if the prizes have been won.

That's the way honest prizes are awarded. That's the way the Orteig Prize, won by Lindbergh, was awarded, and the X-prize, won by Rutan, was awarded too. Milloy isn't fit to shine their shoes. He's nothing but a political hack.

Answer 5

The catch is the rule that Steven Milloy is the sole judge of what's proof.

And so, nothing at all will possibly qualify as proof. It's just a ripoff and a sham.

Scientists already agree that anthropogenic global warming is a fact.

Answer 6

No--because the human causes of global warming are already proven scientific facts.

Answer 7

no becuase It cannot be proven.

Answer 8

Nobody's proven it yet.