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Climate Change Contrarians Lose Big Betting Against Global Warming (theguardian.com)

Layzej writes: Two members of the Global Warming Policy Foundation academic advisory board have each lost [roughly $1,320 (1,000 British Pound)] betting that 2015 would not be warmer than 2008. The Guardian reports: "Between 2008 and 2015 there would be more than 0.1C of human-caused global warming, so for 2015 to be cooler would have required a huge La Nina event, or big volcanic eruption, or perhaps the contrarians were banking on human-caused global warming being wrong. Whatever their reasoning, it was a foolish bet to make. 2015 was a record-breaking hot year, about 0.32C hotter than 2008. It wasn't even close." The winner of the bet, economist Chris Hope, also discussed the possibility of implementing climate betting markets, and noted: "they could offer a financial incentive for people who disagree about the likelihood of climate change to carefully assess the risks, instead of just shouting their disagreement across the void. If we do nothing, all the signs are that dangerous climate change is one of the safest bets around."

5 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fool and his money are soon parted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's all a plot, and everybody is in on it except you.

  2. Re:Fool and his money are soon parted by istartedi · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why wouldn't I take that bet and place explosive charges around Mt. Pinatubo? Pets Siamese cat.

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    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  3. Re:Fool and his money are soon parted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    OK, you sprung us, we've all been colluding behind your back in one great big conspiracy the whole time. At the start we just wanted to play a silly gag about being descended from apes (evolution, even the name is silly), but you were so easy to trick we had to go again. So we upped the stakes with the whole "spherical world" theory... and you believed us! I mean come on, WTF did you think was stopping all the people in the so-called "southern hemisphere" from falling right off??? But you swallowed it! Seriously, keeping a straight face whenever we saw you was almost impossible! So after all of that how could we resist a bit of fun with the climate stats?

    Anyhow, sorry for the embarrassment - you must be feeling rather silly right now. We promise we'll let you in on the gag next time.

    signed
    the mysterious "them"

  4. Re:Fool and his money are soon parted by CeasedCaring · · Score: 3, Funny

    Modded -1: Trump

  5. Re:Has nobody heard of El Nino ? by meglon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Of course we've heard of the El Nino. The El Nino, the Pinto, and the Santa Mary were the three ships Jesus used to bring his dinosaurs to the US to set up his all white gun club.

    I get it, you didn't give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, and you're certainly not giving up now.

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    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's