Friday, August 19, 2005

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Climate change sceptics bet $10,000 on cooler world

The betting story is in the mainstream press now, via this article by David Adam in the Guardian.

I'm pleased to see he explicitly mentions the futures market idea, which is an important part of the bigger picture. With Piers Corbyn apparently also keen to get involved, there may be opportunities for others to make some money, too.

So, I'm eager to hear from those on all sides of the debate who are prepared to put their money where their mouths are.

7 comments:

Brian said...

Congratulations, James! I wrote a brief post here:

http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2005/08/bets-on.html

I'd love to get involved in a similar bet against global warming denialists.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Congratulations!

Can we have some more details of the bet. Are any forcing excluded and if so how? Are there any alterations to the period in the event of volcano / El Nino? What is the precise wording? etc.

Also if I point out a potential bet can I take a share with you?
UKWeatherworld

CRandles

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Anonymous said...

Interesting blog, I would encourage to keep it up. I read though a few of your posts on models and found them quite interesting (and educational). The article in the Guardian was the first I heard of the bet and reminded me of Simon and Ehrlich. Hopefully you can find the time to blog on the specifics of bet. Specifically, what is the criteria used to determine the winner. I am also curious, when did you issue the challenge for this bet?

Anonymous said...

When you first broached this idea I inquired of the Iowa electronics markets whether they would be interested in running such a market. The response was that it was too long term of an issue.

A key point is that futures markets are relatively short term by nature and design and have well defined end points so that contracts can be wound up.

Eli Rabett

TokyoTom said...

Eli, I would bet that the insurers and reinsurers are entering into contracts that are essentially bets about future climate. They are certainly paying attention to the issue and have some long-term exposures to cover:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5737/1040