Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/223471/physicist-offers-10000-for-anyone-to-scientifically-disprove-climate-change/

by stevekinney • 12 years ago

37 102 12 years ago

hartator• 12 years ago

The article has a weird tone.

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.

alexkiritz• 12 years ago

Who ever agreed to be tolerant of fascist religions?

cushychicken2• 12 years ago

I'll wager a guess that it's because the stakes of being wrong on climate change are pretty high.

refurb• 12 years ago

Isn't the stakes of being wrong in the other direction (that global warming isn't happening) just as high?

Imagine if we spend billions/trillions of dollars trying to capture CO2, reduce oil consumption, etc. and it turns out CO2 wasn't the cause of global warming. That money could have done a lot of good if spent in other ways (i.e. lift millions of people out of poverty).

pizza2342• 12 years ago

Well, it's more complicated than "thinking the opposite"; it's more along the lines of "thinking the opposite of what hurts the wallet".

Religion is a correct analogy. If in a certain culture, women are submitted, that doesn't hurt people outside it.

People globally feels - and is, actually - threatened by global warming, so it's understandable to have ahem heat directed to people with power and without sense of collaboration (and I'm using an euphemism here), which is the current requirement for working out the problem.

waps3• 12 years ago

Somehow that doesn't seem to be possible.

The entire question is a fraud of course : the argument for climate change is based on statistical likelihood of existing trends continuing based on past measurement. While that does satisfy some standards used in science, no scientist in his right mind would refer to that as "proven", because it isn't.

So here's my version :

1) There is no argument from either maths, or even a simulation from first principles (NOT measured data and statistics and correlations) that shows a scenario like global warming.

2) principle of the excluded third ("tertium non datur") was an accepted standard in logic before Christ was born. It states that any statement that cannot be proven from first principles is disproved just by that fact (NOT wrong, but that wasn't asked)

Ergo, climate science disproved. Or at least, there is no known proof. There is loads and loads of statistical correlations indicating it exists, but there is no correct argument from first principles known, which is what I'd require to say "proof". It is overwhelmingly likely (well I haven't checked, but I believe them) that it exists, but not proven.

Now please keep in mind what I am and am not claiming here before you vilify me. I am claiming that climate science is very far from satisfying the standard used in exact sciences that is referred to when scientists use the word "proof".

Obviously I am not claiming that global warming will reverse or is just a mistake or whatever. The graph has been rising pretty constantly for 150 years or so, and yes, it absolutely does not look like it will reverse. This is however very far from having an explanation from first principles for climate change.

leephillips• 12 years ago

While the idea of "proof" here is just a distraction, we have vastly more than merely "statistical correlations". We know that we've significantly increased the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere, and we have a pretty good idea of what that does to a climate:

"Of all the planets in our solar system, Venus is the hottest one, even hotter than Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. Venus, whose daytime temperature can reach 900 degrees Fahrenheit (464 degrees Celsius), is surrounded by a thick gaseous layer that consists mostly of carbon dioxide. When the sun's rays reach Venus, the carbon dioxide traps the heat within, causing a kind of planetary greenhouse effect."

From http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/venus-hottest-planet

EDIT: Also, you seem to be confused about what the law of the excluded middle says.

bsbechtel2• 12 years ago

I thought one of (not the only) the main aspects of the scientific method was that it could only be used to disprove a theory, but never to prove it 100% correct. For example, you cannot ever prove that Big Foot is a hoax, but you can disprove it by finding him. Or, the theory of gravity can never be proven, only disproven if an experiment showed it to be false. Isn't that all this scientist is asking for?

Iftheshoefits4• 12 years ago

the argument for climate change is based on statistical likelihood of existing trends continuing based on past measurement. <

That can easily be generalized to any scientific construct, since all predictions and theories based on experiment implicitly contain the assumption of their continued validity. Consequently what you're doing is conflating an argument against the metaphysical underpinnings of science (amusingly, by arguing from the assumptions of rationalism which are themselves subject to at least as much skepticism and scrutiny) with an argument against the products of scientific discovery.

rossjudson2• 12 years ago

Because they don't just "think" the opposite of him; they claim that they have a scientific basis for their position. It's like the difference between hearing someone committed a crime, and watching them commit it (and testifying about it).

We certainly tolerate people who think unicorns fly out of pots of gold at the ends of rainbows, but we don't let them make decisions that will affect the health and well-being of a significant part of the planet's population.

belovedeagle2• 12 years ago

This is the very definition of dogmatism. You literally just claimed that thinking differently is okay, as long as it's not your sacred cow which is getting involved in the discussion.

Let me help you understand what this sounds like: "Because they don't just 'think' that evolution is real; they claim that the bible isn't the inspired Word of God!" That's absolutely no different than what you just wrote: science is your "inspired Word" about which no one can disagree, even if they're allowed to disagree about everything else.

Guthur• 12 years ago

Or tolerant of a society that uses women to sell cars, films, magazines. Objectifies them to the point where they are mere symbols of sexual desire.

Or we could tolerate a society where your private correspondences will be read where your home will be invaded and your every move monitored.

Or a society which takes your wealth and funds a bloated military industrial complex, banking system, or anyone else with a large enough lobby group.

But it's the internet, spouting assertions from positions of ignorance is common place.

Iftheshoefits4• 12 years ago

"Being tolerant" of a person's views doesn't entail "being respectful of" them, nor does it imply one must simply abide their expression in silence.

Here's a counter-question: why is it that when people who have extraordinary or extraordinarily extreme opinions are questioned or challenged there seems to almost always be an attempt to deflect the discussion toward one revolving around respect and tolerance instead of the merits of the issue involved? (That's kind of a rhetorical question, really--my long and varied experience on topics of this sort has led me to one conclusion if nothing else, and that is this: people who hold such views and attempt such deflection aren't interested in honest dialog.)

talmand2• 12 years ago

I usually see the opposite, the people with extreme opinions are often told their intolerance doesn't have to be tolerated.

Often times this bothers me because the people who choose not to tolerate the intolerable are the ones who seem not interested in honest dialogue.

My reasoning is because most often they are the people who also get to label what is considered intolerance and extreme opinions. Then, the use of such labels is the reason to dismiss the opposing viewpoint without honest dialogue. If you take an objective viewpoint of common debates on the news and whatnot, you'll see it.

facepalm6• 12 years ago

Can you really prove something by the scientific method? Maybe it would be better to say "show a likelihood of at least x%"?

pizza2342• 12 years ago

True. It's a kind of "intellectual" PR stunt. Hopefully, at least it will get rid of the cheap arguments on the opposite side.

vixin• 12 years ago

And presumably ignore cheap tricks and fiddled data on the the other opposite side - a comment not improper given your dismissive tone.

rockstartower• 12 years ago

my cheap argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uif1NwcUgMU

rossjudson2• 12 years ago

Yes. You can prove that water boils when you add enough heat. You are making a philosophical argument, not a scientific one.

Scienz• 12 years ago

If you do it scientifically, meaning by experimentation, you've really only shown that in all observed cases water boils when you add enough heat. It's an inductive process, which unlike deduction is never logically valid - excluding mathematical induction which is really more like deduction, since you can actually test all possible cases that way. It is a philosophical issue, but epistemology is the basis of the validity of science.

msandford5• 12 years ago

No, incorrect. In science nothing is ever REALLY proven.

But there are standards by which scientists agree that a certain amount of evidence will be accepted as "proof". At least for a while. Where everyone understand that it could always be overturned by some evidence to the contrary.

In particle physics it takes five sigma to make a claim. In other fields, often less. http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/the-particle-proof-1150/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence#Concept_of_...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

For example everyone knew that water boiled once it got hot enough. Then someone invented a pressure vessel and wasn't able to boil water over a fire because as the pressure rose, so did the boiling point. And thus a thing that everyone knew was true for thousands of years wasn't quite anymore.

antonwinter• 12 years ago

does that mean that lack of scientific proof means it is real? is that what they are trying to get at?

crdoconnor• 12 years ago

Let's flip this:

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 IS occurring;

2. There is no entry fee;

3. You must be 18 years old or older to enter;

4. Entries do not have to be original, they only need to be first;

5. I am the final judge of all entries but will provide my comments on why any entry fails to prove the point.

Obviously not hard to see how a global warming denier could get away with not paying anybody.

Does anybody seriously believe that would prove anything either?

bfwi• 12 years ago

Exactly. This is pointless.

shankysingh• 12 years ago

except its a good "publicity" strategy in right direction but agreed the method is little more than a moot point.

humanrebar• 12 years ago

I had a similar thought. But I take the point more seriously.

To be clear, given the current data it's very likely that the climate is warming.

But there are no empirical data that show we can do anything about it.

A better contest in response to this post would be awarding $10,000 for proof that any plan (cap-and-trade bill X, global carbon tax of Y%) would be a net benefit over a given period of time (50 years, a century?).

This contest wouldn't prove anything either, but it does demonstrate something more profound about the limits of empirical decision making.

asgard10245• 12 years ago

OK, challenge accepted. :-) I am submitting this: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence

Please provide the comments why the evidence failed to prove the point.

stronglikedan• 12 years ago

Correlation != Causation.* Maybe climate patterns are on a 650,001 year cycle?

* I make no claims as to my stance on the issue. I am simply playing devil's advocate.

paulhauggis3• 12 years ago

My issue is that I've heard many pro global warming scientists on public radio say that even if man-made global warming doesn't exit, we should have all of these regulations and tax increases because it's good for the environment.

naturalethic• 12 years ago

The issue has always been increased state control.

asgard10245• 12 years ago

So what exactly do you have to lose if you leave the oil/coal in the ground? It will still be there for your descendants.

Especially, if you accept that global warming exists but is not man-made, it may be useful to keep backup of energy to be able to deal with it in the future, wouldn't it?

forgotpasswd3x• 12 years ago

I don't get why people make a distinction between man-made climate change, and "natural" climate change, when both have equally terrible results. Even if the earth is "natually" warming, it's still going to cause issues. Why not work to stop it?

streptomycin2• 12 years ago

Imagine you are someone who believes that we don't understand the climate well enough to determine if releasing ridiculous amounts of CO2 has any effect whatsoever. If you believed that, you probably wouldn't think that we understood the climate well enough to alter it.

Mz• 12 years ago

Well, IIRC, the issue is that with science, nothing can be definitely be "proven." What makes it something in the scientific realm is that it is potentially disprovable. No?

So while we can show correlation and come up with hypotheses and theories etc ad nauseum, as I understand it, you can't "prove" anything. Supposedly. You can just show that your current theory is better than what we had before, basically.

So the "$10k to disprove" works scientifically. The "$10k to prove" should not.

Or so I understand it.

7952• 12 years ago

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.

eglover3• 12 years ago

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.

headShrinker3• 12 years ago

There are plenty of areas to pick apart this article and motivations behind it. 97% consensus isn't one of them.

Denial, is old and dead amongst the well informed. Join us.

msandford5• 12 years ago

That kind of consensus is actually worrying to me. It makes it seem like there is very little effort going into ensuring that all the research the climate scientists are doing doesn't have errors.

In other words, in the echo chamber there are no critics.

Kinda like the dumb ideas that occasionally come out of SF because nobody there knows about the real problems that real people have, they just know about the trivial problems that they as single dudes in SF have.

eglover3• 12 years ago

Denial indeed. About 50% worldwide including both public and private science. You might want to look into the source of that 97% and stop acting like you've got everything figured out.

tedunangst• 12 years ago

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."

imacomputer2• 12 years ago

That would be an excellent bet for the person betting that the temperature will increase. However, it doesn't prove that human actions are causing it. I think most deniers do believe that the climate is changing - even that the temps are going up. The problem is that causation is hard to measure. I'm not a scientist, but I think theories explain causes, and you can't directly measure a theory, only the observations that support it.

So, maybe a bet that includes more measurements (green house gas emissions, etc.) would be needed to prove man-made global warming. The outcome of the total of those bets would either support or not support the theory. But that might be a lot of bets and a mixed result could complicate things.

Andys• 12 years ago

Not really, because you'd have to agree on how to measure average temperature of the earth.

unabridged4• 12 years ago

This is why I'm a skeptic, change my mind:

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?

Any data gathered from models (ice core, tree rings, ...) just doesn't have the resolution to answer these questions.

Malarkey732• 12 years ago

Lets say we have my blood alcohol level measured in the last 5 mins. It's 0.2g/dL. Whats my blood alcohol level throughout my lifetime though - i reckon it goes up and down quite a bit? How do i know I'm drunk or that it was caused by this keg I just drank?

Any data gathered from physiological models I will just arbitrarily ignore... just because...[waves hands]

kbd• 12 years ago

That's a terrible analogy. Blood alcohol level only rises upon consumption of alcohol. Temperature rises and falls due to tons of external (not fully understood) factors.

mkhaytman• 12 years ago

What difference does it make if the cause is entirely man made or not. Should we let 80% of worlds population who live on the coast just deal with rising sea levels, because it natural? Do you really need to know it's causing a rise in temperature to want less trucks and cars polluting the air in your city? Or does the fact that we will never have the historic data to know for sure if humans are causing global warming, make it okay to ignore the issue entirely, forever?

unabridged4• 12 years ago

I agree that I want humans to stop fucking up the earth and I want less pollution. But those feelings do not prove climate change exists. Science doesn't work this way.

triangleman2• 12 years ago

What difference does it make if the cause is entirely man made or not.

If it's not entirely man made, it would mean that efforts to curtail emissions (and consequently economic output) would be pointless and unnecessary.

Should we let 80% of worlds population who live on the coast just deal with rising sea levels, because it natural?

It's not like the sea will simply rise several meters overnight, if it does actually rise. And again, if it's natural, then wouldn't that mean that we must, in fact, "deal with it"?

Do you really need to know it's causing a rise in temperature to want less trucks and cars polluting the air in your city?

The air pollution you are concerned about here is sulfur, particulates, and other things unrelated to the CO2 debated over by politicians currently.

Or does the fact that we will never have the historic data to know for sure if humans are causing global warming, make it okay to ignore the issue entirely, forever?

It certainly moves one's focus of concern to more pressing environmental and social issues.

_archon_• 12 years ago

This is a fair perspective. I propose that the scientific community's collective stance is not that this is a wild deviation from typical variations, but that a significant change will result in unfavorable consequences for humanity as a species. Such change is occurring based on the data we have available to us. If we can mitigate or delay such change, we will be better off for it. This leads to emission controls, etc.

I believe the cause for concern among the proponents of awareness and regulation is that a notable change is happening, and we desperately want the status quo. Whether or not this change falls within normal variations is irrelevant to this argument.

belovedeagle2• 12 years ago

This is a refreshingly honest analysis. Personally I'm not convinced by the need to maintain the status quo, however. We can read all about 'X species going extinct in Y years', 'Average temperatures will go up by .X degrees in Y years', and 'X miles of coastline will be destroyed in Y years', and yet none of this explains /why/ these are undesirable outcomes. The unstated premise is that "change is bad", which is a strange position to take, to say the least.

facepalm6• 12 years ago

I don't understand why that line of thought makes you a skeptic. Apparently you found something the current data can not answer. But why do you think your question is even relevant - more important than, say, average temperature? Just because there are questions a model can't answer, the model isn't proven wrong. It just shows that there are things we don't know yet, not that everything we know is wrong.

(I am not a climate scientist so I don't know what the main data points are that are employed in the arguments. I also don't know if your claim that your question can not be answered is correct or not)

unabridged4• 12 years ago

My point is that you cannot even begin to ask what humans are doing to the global temperature if you do not even have an idea what it would look like without humans.

asgard10245• 12 years ago

The problem is you're focusing only on one part of the evidence. The other part is the law of conservation of energy, the fact from which follows (after some modeling) that atmosphere will heat up when you add greenhouse gases.

And, quite interestingly, these two independent lines of evidence, match. (There are several others.)

In other words, you doubt the relevance of historical data. But the evidence is not just historical, it's also based on our understanding of the underlying physical mechanism.

DCKing5• 12 years ago

You appear to be saying that you think this could be explained by some natural variation. That seems plausible, but is not supported by scientific evidence.

The term "man-made climate change" is a term for the truth of these three claims:

1. Human activity has increased the concentration of CO2 (and other green-house gases) in the atmosphere.

2. The global temperature has risen over the last 150 years.

3. An increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is the cause of the rise in global temperature over the last 150 years.

Point 2 is simple scientific fact by now. Measurements show that this is the case, despite being critically revised and corrected for sampling biases over the years. Point 3 is also scientific fact; the theoretical effect has been shown to be true in simple laboratory expirements (it has been known for over 100 years) and the strong correlation of CO2 concentration and temperature over the last 150 years overwhelmingly implies that this laboratory effect applies for the atmosphere as well.

That could still mean that the source of all of this greenhouse gas is natural. Still seems plausible, but again scientific evidence shows that the large majority of this "new CO2" is sourced by human activity [1]. Various sources of evidence exist; the isotopic signature of CO2 in the atmosphere is atypical for natural sources, the concentration of CO2 in the oceans is rising fastest near the surface, and there are many more pieces of evidence.

It is true that there is still a large degree of ignorance on how global temperature varies "naturally" over long periods of time. However, we can show that this specific warming we're observing today is not just a natural variation. It is caused by humans.

[1] http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-increase-is-natural-not-...

msandford5• 12 years ago

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.

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.

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.

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.

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2012/02/14/presidents-201...

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.

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.

glenra6• 12 years ago

In context, that John Oliver debate segment was dumb. They took a perfectly reasonable Gallop poll result - that 1 in 4 Americans think the threat of climate change has been exaggerated - and rhetorically pretended the claim being made was that climate change "isn't real" or "doesn't exist".

But establishing that a threat exists is quite a lot different from establishing whether it's being overestimated or underestimated in the media, so the whole segment was a non sequitur - it didn't respond in any way at all to the news article it was allegedly answering.

My guess is that they had Bill Nye, wanted to do this gag, couldn't come up with any valid reason to do it based on any actual news stories, then said "heck, let's do it anyway; maybe nobody will notice!"

(As a side note, if you look into how the claims of "97% agreement" were determined, you'll find that most "skeptics" would also be in the 97%. It's pure propaganda at this point to claim 97% support for some vague "the consensus" without actually specifying what exactly "the consensus" they agree to IS. The original value of "the consensus" seems to have been: (a) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, (b) it's gotten warmer recently, (c) human activity has had a significant warming effect, where both the nature of the "human activity" and the meaning of "significant" are usually left vague and unstated.

Oh, and to get a number as high as "97%" what gets measured is usually not the level of agreement among "scientists" but rather among a tiny subset, such as "those climate scientists who publish the most in the field".)

dirktheman2• 12 years ago

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?

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.

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...

Just to be clear: I'm not debating man-made global warming. It's just that these kind of challenges bug me.

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.

triangleman2• 12 years ago

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.

There may be a purported "consensus" on climate change but that does not make it scientific: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/07/a-question-for-oreskes...

ZenPro• 12 years ago

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.

Since so many of you are wagering or believing let me just toss out what I believe.

I believe that credible and respected climate change scientists have forgotten more than you could ever know about the subject.

Climate Change deniers are a joke and a menace and are tied neck and neck with creationists for the moron awards.

paulhauggis3• 12 years ago

So because I'm not an expert, I should have no opinion on the subject? Experts make mistakes all the time. They are just people, after all.

I look at the tech world (which I know very well) and "experts" are wrong all the time. I can't imagine it being much different in other fields.

I see people here on HN making comments about the economy. Should all of these opinions be ignored because they aren't experts?

Look at the guy that discovered bacteria: The experts of his time shunned him and he died in an insane asylum.

Scientists pretty much lose their career overnight if they have any study or research on non man-made climate change.

How can we really have an honest debate when this kind of behavior is going on?

DanBC• 12 years ago

People are paid money to sow uncertainty about climate science. These tactics are the same ones used by tobacco companies. The tactics are the same and many of the scientists are the same.

That's not an honest debate.

The reason people don't engage with you has nothing to do with whether you're an expert or not. It's because people who deny climate change often grab a snippet of science, out of context, and that's been given a spin by deniers. Then, rather than learning why that bit is flawed or what the context is they'll just throw it into a discussion and demand that it is explained. And then they'll grab another bit. And another bit. Eventually it's easier to regard this as trolling (which it is - concern trolling) and treat appropriately (by stopping feeding the trolls).

peter303• 12 years ago

Considering my classmates the Koch brothers have given $10Ms to various organizations with the same goal, this is small potatoes.

pessimizer• 12 years ago

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.

logfromblammo• 12 years ago

Well, let's just rough out the experiment, shall we?

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.

(It would also displace thousands of people whose homes would now be underwater, but let's handwave that aside for now.)

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.

Results of the experiment will compare weather patterns in Yuma and Mexicali before and after the megaproject.

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!

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.

You would be better off buying up unproductive arid land and leasing it to cattle ranchers as semi-arid grazing land afterward.

mdip• 12 years ago

Let's just take this a piece at a time.

     ...there is a 97% consensus that humans are causing and exacerbating climate change...

Ignoring the lack of citation, why is it necessary to resort to band-wagon style marketing?

     ...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...

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.

     ...These people often believe that there is actual scientific evidence disproving climate change. There, of course, is not.

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?

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.

bprieto• 12 years ago

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.

That is not an interesting question.

The interesting questions are:

- Is climate changing in a different way (faster, for example) than it has done in the past?

- Do humans have anything to do with it? Is it caused by increasing levels of atmospheric CO2?

- Will this change be negative?

- If the change is negative (be it man-made or not), can we stop it?

- 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?

- Do we understand climate physics well enough to create models that can predict the climate of the future?

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: http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/06/ipcc-ar5-weakens-the-case-...

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.

Physicist offers $10,000 for anyone to scientifically disprove climate change

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