Monckton willing to bet $500,000 on icesheets

The  Age in Melbourne published a letter from a “Maurie” declaring that the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets would “melt away in the next decade.” Monckton found it hard to believe The Age would print this drivel, and was amazed to find Maurie, apparently, is one of Australia’s foremost chemists”, — Maurice Trewhella, who seems to have won a green award at the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. (Not that I have heard of him).

So Monckton explains why the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets won’t be gone in 2024 then offers Maurie, and four others, the chance to win $100,000 each if this wild prediction comes even ten percent close. To show he is serious he offers to donate the first $10,000 to charity (so will other bet contenders). Will the “mean area of the combined Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets” in 2024 be less than 90 percent of what it was in 2014″?

Christopher Monckton:

Some 4,000 years ago, the temperature on the summit of the Greenland plateau was 2.5 Celsius degrees warmer than the present. Yet the ice did not melt. And it didn’t melt in the last interglacial period, 110,000 years ago, when again the temperature was 2.5 C degrees warmer than today’s.

The last time the Greenland ice sheet melted was 850,000 years ago. In modern conditions, nothing short of a massive natural cataclysm could make the Earth’s ice-caps melt. Even with nuclear weapons Man can’t do it. And our barely registering change in CO2 concentration certainly can’t do it. Still less can we affect the Antarctic ice sheet, which, the last time I checked, was 8,852 feet deep at the South Pole. That’s at least a mile and a half.

The bet

So to the bet I propose. Subject to contract, I’m offering to pay Maurie $100,000 if the mean area of the combined Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets averaged over the year 2024 shall be less than 90 percent of the mean area of the two ice sheets averaged over the year 2014, provided that Maurie agrees to pay me $100,000 if the mean area of ice on the two land masses in 2024 shall be 90 percent or more of the mean area in 2014.

That’s the bet, and it’s a very fair and generous bet, Maurie. After all, you say all the ice on the two ice sheets will be gone within a decade or so. I’m offering you the chance to claim a fat $100,000 if more than one-tenth of your predicted ice loss happens by 10 years from now.

But wait. There’s more! Again subject to contract, I’m willing to offer four more climate bed-wetters the same deal. Perhaps the editor of the Melbourne Aaarghwould like to take me on. Or some of the various climate-fascist billionaires. Steyer? Gates? Branson? Anyone?

To deter time-wasters: If you want to take up the bet, you must produce a solicitor’s letter to show you have the means to pay out on it when you lose; then, upon signing the legal contract for the bet, you must pay (and so must I) $10,000 up front to the Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta in Rome for its charitable work in 140 countries worldwide. The Order keeps the 10% from each of us in any event.

Maurie:

“The Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are acting as giant dampers to contain temperature rise in the oceans. When both of these ice sheets melt away in the next decade or so, the rise in both ocean and atmospheric temperatures will accelerate rapidly and demonstrate that the passing of … tipping points … has, indeed, occurred.

Read more at WND.com

It’s fairly hard work to hammer out these bets. Dr David Evans (my other half) organised a climate bet back in 2007. It’s one of the largest ones around and we offered one to Brian Schmidt too last year.

Alas, people who believe the climate science is 100% settled seem to like betting other people’s money, but not their own.

9.3 out of 10 based on 131 ratings

105 comments to Monckton willing to bet $500,000 on icesheets

  • #
    Eddie

    Does he mean St John’s Ambulance ?
    A very worthy cause I might add and one which will do a lot more for the children & the grandchildren with $20,000 than the billions being squandered on renewable energy projects and CO2 deprivation in futile and vainglorious gestures at ‘saving the planet’ ever will.

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  • #
    leon0112

    Make the offer to Al Gore. He is very wealthy.

    250

    • #
      Ava Plaint

      It’s only seems right making the challenge to the expert who made the claim and to the newspaper that was careless enough to publish it without regard to credibility or to checking the facts. He very generously however also extends the offer to anyone else who would support the claim.

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        The way it’s going it’s highly unlikely “The Age” will exist in 10 years’ time.

        Now that’d be a win.

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    • #
      ExWarmist

      Big Al is into making money – not losing it.

      170

    • #
      Bill

      Gore woudl never take a chance on parting with his hardly earned ill-gotten gains.

      130

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  • #
    leon0112

    Michael Bloomberg is an alarmist as well. Make him an offer.

    180

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Why do you keep naming people who can well afford to loose? The point of this bet is to present the other contenders with a meaningful dilemma; to force them to put some “skin” in the game.

      I would guess that $100,000 is petty cash to the likes of Bloomberg and Gore, so there is little at stake for them, should they loose.

      400

      • #
        Owen Morgan

        You’re right, but I’d imagine that anybody taking up Lord Monckton’s bet would either be in the Steyer/Soros category, for whom $100,000 is chickenfeed, or would have very wealthy backers, whose names, by an astonishing coincidence, could sound quite a lot like “Steyer”, or “Soros”. I don’t think anybody has established where Michael Mann gets the money to pay for his lawfare against Mark Steyn. There is no point imagining that the person nominally taking up Christopher Monckton’s bet would actually be risking any of his or her own money.

        Unfortunately, these people really do have money to burn. I shouldn’t be surprised if Tom Steyer starts carpet-bombing Antarctic glaciers with flaming balls of greenbacks, to make the ice melt. Seriously, I detected a fair amount of Schadenfreude in the United States, as viewed from here in the United Kingdom, when Steyer pumped money into quite a few of the Congressional elections last year and pretty much wasted his money. The only candidates who won with his support were the ones in pretty safe districts, anyway. What people missed, however, was that even the millions spent by Steyer were a tiny fraction of his actual wealth.

        That doesn’t negate what Lord Monckton is attempting, i.e. to expose the lie. We know that the alarmists can’t win this bet. They know that, too. If they had a way to rig the outcome, they would accept the bet, but they won’t.

        160

  • #
    tom0mason

    A fine easy wager for Christopher Monckton! The Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets — a racing certainty to be there in 10, 20, 100 years from now.
    I so wish I had such wealth just to wager, then I too would wager every [snip] doomsayer.
    I would also put adverts on billboards and TV advertizing/explaining water is this planets greatest GHG, that CO2 in the atmosphere is as a monetary equivalent to just 4¢ in $100, and that overall windmills have no functional or economic benefit to the world.

    [Sorry once again. But I fixed the typos. Hope that compensates.] AZ

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    • #
      tom0mason

      AZ

      Worth the wait and many thanks for the corrections, lawd knows some days I need the help.

      Thanks again T.

      40

    • #
      Glen Michel

      The point is how can anyone put a smidgen of credibility to this individuals nonsense.Of course the media will cover it- along with the oceans boiling,blah , blah.Flog that dead horse;flog it all night looongg…

      20

  • #

    It’ll be interesting to see who’ll take on a sucker bet like that.

    Pointman

    260

    • #
      Kenneth Richard

      Even the IPCC agrees with Monckton….

      “Ice sheet collapse: Exceptionally unlikely (0-1%) that either Greenland or West Antarctic Ice sheets will suffer near-complete disintegration (high confidence).” IPCC AR5 Chapter 12, page 80

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      • #
        Bulldust

        Suddenly I am less sure of Monckton’s position. Then again, the IPCC has to be right once in a while.

        21

        • #
          Truthseeker

          Then again, the IPCC has to be right once in a while.

          Yes, in the same way that a broken clock is right twice a day …

          110

  • #
    Don B

    Monckton has probably already contemplated a potential problem. Government employees in charge of the data tend to be warmists, and have been known to “adjust” data. A decade from now we may discover no melting at all has resulted in an 11% reduction in the official number.

    301

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Government employees in charge of the data tend to be warmists, and have been known to “adjust” data.

      But that would require a conspiracy to tamper with the official records, for financial gain, and … oh, I take your point.

      491

  • #

    “editor of the Melbourne Aaargh”

    priceless

    330

  • #
    Yonniestone

    Monckton would be a very brave man to take on this bet according to the latest BOM findings of record sea surface temperature in this article, it would appear the missing heat has risen from the depths and is worse than we thought! /sarc.

    270

    • #
      Matty

      Aren’t we getting long overdue a bit of warming ?

      And with Paris coming up doesn’t it seem almost…inevitable ?

      ” If governments turn up in Paris after a series of major climate events, the foundation of their discussions…would be somewhat different than if they turned up in a period of benign climate,” says Andy Pitman.

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    • #
      el gordo

      From Yonni’s link…

      “If we do get an intense El Nino, it will blitz the records,” Professor Pitman said. “The climate is on a performance-enhancing drug and that drug is carbon dioxide.”

      Here is a man who stands out as a leading member of the Klimatariat in Australia, he is shameless.

      For a start ENSO is unrelated to AGW and on this occasion its warming up to be a Modoki, which will have a negligible effect on world temperatures.

      The other thing worth mentioning (just in case someone reading this doesn’t yet know) CO2 is a harmless trace gas and does not cause global warming.

      242

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        But global warming can, and does, release CO2 from the oceans.

        (I always like to add that bit, because it makes me feel superior.) 😉

        170

      • #
        Glen Michel

        What drugs are climate scientists on? Prozac to a Mann.

        30

    • #
      Glen Michel

      Bubble burble.

      00

  • #
    handjive

    It’s a winner!

    via notrickszone: Sustainable Postponements…Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute Pushes “Ice-Free Arctic” Back To 2050!

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      And also look at the link to predictions about when the Arctic will become ice free.

      Sorry, according to those predictions it became ice free in 2007, 2012, 2013 and 2014 and also later this year.

      300

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  • #
    Safetyguy66

    I don’t mind The Lord stealing my idea (see thread from the weekend), hes got more money than me and besides, the main thing is Maurie gets some publicity for such an outlandish comment.
    [Editorial judgement applied – Fly]

    40

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    I think Monckton wont have any takers…putting a spotlight on the lies has a tendency to make the liars go quiet, a bit like someone being caught talking in class, and the teacher asking them to share it openly…..

    I think a few billboards around Melbourne & Sydney with an offer of “prove us wrong” ( as opposed to a bet ) couldnt go astray….. after all, clealry if the science is “settled”, proving it publically should be no problem if they are telling the truth……surely?

    And then every 12 months for the next 20 years, a repeat of the offer….

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  • #
    Todd

    Ha! There is a further link at Maurie’s green award win page to the 2009 Awards Booklet which goes into more detail about the win. And I quote:

    An innovative and novel process has been developed for the manufacture of the important pharmaceutical products, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, centred on the use of supercritical carbon dioxide as a reaction medium.

    The new process has demonstrated the viability of a large-scale manufacturing strategy, which minimizes water usage and avoids the need for organic solvents, instead employing a medium which is readily recyclable and has no environmental impact. Such an approach is consistent with current efforts to protect the environment and provides guidance for the future development of industrial chemistry/biochemistry.

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    • #
      Bill

      “no environmental impact”!!!!!! Priceless! (rolling on the floor in an uncaontrolable paraxism (sp?) of mirth) Seems he has no idea of what he is advocating.

      50

    • #
      Peter Carabot

      Now it’s all clear!! Governments around the world dont want an increase in CO2 just in case the populace learn to use the extra CO2 to make drugs at home!!!

      00

  • #
    Ruairi

    So full of misguided convictions,
    The warmists make dire predictions,
    Which just never ensue,
    Or have ever come true;
    Their imaginary climate afflictions.

    250

  • #
    Truthseeker

    Why don’t we get the Koch brothers on our side of the bet and go for some real money?

    50

    • #
      Matty

      Well I’m sure they’ll be dismissing it as a Big Coal funded wager anyway. Any excuse to wriggle out but the charitable component seems something of a masterstroke. How could they possibly deny the charity, let alone such a worthwhile global charitable institution ?

      If I was a Warmie I’d now be thinking could we find some public money to just pay off the charity , while wriggling out of the bet. If they have any honour at all at least the charity would benefit.

      90

  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    I do not have that kind of money to bet and would not if I did.
    I recall that in my teens those that smoked often carried a Zippo lighter (made in my part of the world) that was guranteed to light – every time. In Alfred Hitchcock’s “Man From The South” this was the basis for the story (link below). The bet was a fancy convertible against a man’s finger. I wonder if Maurice (Maurie) Trewhella has a finger he can do without?

    http://alfredsplace.com/man.htm

    50

  • #

    Monckton is pretty safe on this one. A 10% drop in the ice sheets would see sea levels rise by about 6 meters. At current rates they will rise by between .015 and .032 meters. It would require average polar temperatures to rise by over 5 degrees in the next five years. The odds that a bookie would give would so small that you would win more putting in an account bearing 1% interest.

    100

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I can see it gong on in the warmist camp right now. They’re counting their cards to see where they’ll stand when the bet is called. They look pretty frantic to me.

    I’d be frantic too if I was on their side of the table. Can they withstand this high stakes game? Hmm…

    70

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Very much like playing “Russian Roulette” with 5 bullets in the cylinder, yep high stakes indeed. 🙂

      10

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        Why not up the ante to 6 and be done with them?

        On the other hand, who would we have left to kick around everyday if we did that? So maybe give them a fighting chance and only put 3 in the cylinder. 😉

        10

        • #
          Mark Hladik

          Roy,

          I think that’s called “Polish roulette”. Either that, or one can use a semi-auto … …

          10

  • #
    Ron Cook

    Like Trewhella, I too am a member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. I have been following the utter rubbish written in ‘letters to the editors’ by AGW believing chemists. So I’m not surprised that Trewhella is one of them. Modern chemists ain’t what they used to be.

    😉

    R-COO- K+

    210

  • #

    Melt the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

    Tell ‘im ‘e’s dreamin’.

    Mean Summer Temperature for the Antarctic Continent is Minus 15C to Minus 35C.

    If the continental land mass never even approaches Zero C, how the hell is it going to melt?

    The thickest mass of ice is at Wilkes Land, where it is 4,776 Metres thick, just on three miles thick.

    Oh, and as to the warmest ever meme, the highest recorded temperature in Antarctica is Plus 15C, umm, on January 5th 1974, forty one years ago.

    Source – Antarctic Connection – a great site all round with a large number of links to go and look at.

    Tony.

    110

    • #

      I thought we’d covered this already in threads of yore… you need to look at how it melts. Implicit in your theory is that there is no flux; ice accumulating forever! In reality there is melt and ice gain. In any case I assume that this is the floating stuff.

      12

      • #
        Truthseeker

        Gee Aye, ice does not melt at -15C. The ice sheet does not continuously accumulate because it carves off into the ocean. You know those dramatic “oh my god! we are all going to die!” videos when a chuck of ice falls into the sea. What do these people think happens to it? If it did not do that, the ice and snow would have piled up until the top of the atmosphere by now.

        40

        • #
          PeterPetrum

          What did the Titanic hit on April 14, 1912? Oh! An ICEBERG. Now where did that come from over 100 years ago? Oh! Not the Arctic sea ice doing that calving thing so soon, surely? Did we have global warming then? I am too young to remember.

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        • #
          Gee Aye

          Ok badly worded. The carving and flow rate increases with temperature even sub zero ones and then there is what happens at depth. Sublimation occurs too and wind has an effect but not to an appreciable extent.

          11

      • #

        As I said in the original comment:

        If the continental land mass never even approaches Zero C, how the hell is it going to melt?

        This is the ice accumulating on the land mass of the Continent itself, and is not floating ice, as I very carefully stated.

        Tony.

        100

      • #
        tom0mason

        On cue Dr.Tim Ball gives us the heads-up as to the difference between the poles and good reasons why the Antarctic is not likely to melt anytime soon.

        http://drtimball.com/2015/north-and-south-poles-important-climate-differences/

        Basically it’s topography and geography directing the wind and ocean currents, mixed with the effect of our planet’s elliptical orbit.

        20

    • #

      So, let me if I have this right.

      That ice at Wilkes Land is twice as thick as Mount Kosciuszko is high.

      That’ll melt in a big bl00dy hurry.

      Tony.

      50

  • #
    Eliza Doodle

    Monckton can perhaps only afford it with his royalties from the Eternity II puzzle that he created, after betting (& losing) the farm on Eternity 1. Eternity II is not known to have been solved in the now approaching 8 years since it’s launch.

    Come on Warmies. How much do you really believe in Global Warming ?

    50

    • #
      graphicconception

      According to Wikipedia (so it must be right!), the game sold 500,000 copies at £35 each. The prize was £1 million. My maths is a bit rusty but I think “the farm” was quite safe.

      60

  • #
    thingadonta

    “When both of these ice sheets melt away in the next decade or so, the rise in both ocean and atmospheric temperatures will accelerate rapidly and demonstrate that the passing of … tipping points … has, indeed, occurred”.

    A kindergarten child is taught not to mix future tense and present tense in the same sentence, but apparently not a qualified chemist.

    ‘accelerate rapidly’. Future prediction.

    ‘passing of …tipping points’. Future prediction.

    ‘has, indeed, occurred’. Past tense.

    The comment above, apart from the grammar and mixing of scientific concepts, shows what sometimes happens when chemists, physicists and others try their hand at the earth sciences; sometimes they simply show they don’t know what they are talking about.

    This kind of thing isn’t new:

    -Kelvin (a physicist) was adamant the earth couldn’t be more than 400 million years old, based on heat loss measurements (which didn’t include radioactivity, which wasn’t discovered yet, but the stratigraphers who were familiar with the earth were adamant it was);

    -Einstein (a physicist) was very skeptical and dismissive of continental drift,(but the stratigraphers were adamant the continents did drift);

    -Alvarez (a physicist) didn’t at all like the idea that the dinosaurs were already declining when the asteriod/comet hit, or that other factors, such as unusual levels of volcanism, could be involved (but the stratigraphers were adamant they were already in decline and that volcanism was indeed a longer term factor, what is now largely accepted is that the asteroid impact pushed them over the edge together with longer term and high levels of volcanism);

    One should note that many within the climate science research community are not strictly trained in the earth sciences; many are statisticians, physicists, and mathematicians. This context has historical precedent. But they do like to behave as if they know a lot more than they really do, the reason for this, I would suggest, is often a deep-seated and historical social prejudice and dismissal of both field and earth scientists, compared to their more ‘noble’ and socially more distinguished, fields.

    In short, earth scientists are viewed as ‘lower class’, and ‘not really scientists, more like stamp collectors’, they have been called by one of the above. This prejudice is ancient, and runs deep, and has a great deal of relevance to what is going on in climate science today: field-based research is relegated in place of mathematics and modelling.

    There is historical precedence on this kind of dismissal and hubris between physicists and geologists, and the dismissal of the views of people who do field research and who actually know about earth history, and what the geological record tells us. (Another who is very dismissive of geologists, incidentally, is John Cook of the ‘skeptical science website-Cook, note, is a solar physicist).

    (I do think, incidentally, that Trewhella, above, means that the ice will melt away ‘gradually’, in the next few decades, but that is not what he said, and he should really know to be more careful about what he says, as a chemist).

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I think the saddest thing in all this is the trashing of Science’s reputation.

      The Left are like locusts – they descend on something, devour it and move on, leaving nothing but their guano behind.

      In broader terms, Science has been king-hit from behind, trashed and humiliated by politics ( that age-old problem ) and as usual its politics that does the damage.

      Generally I havent met many smart pollies ( but they may be out-house rat cunning perhaps…), but I also havent many politically aware boffins, so it has been a disaster in the making. Labelling the IPCC as a “scientific” outfit was a master stroke of camoflage.

      Boffins arent politically savvy, so perhaps its also a cautionary tale of when somwthing seems too good to be true ( i.e. the money )…. it comes at a heavy price.

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    • #
      ianl8888

      But they do like to behave as if they know a lot more than they really do, the reason for this, I would suggest, is often a deep-seated and historical social prejudice and dismissal of both field and earth scientists, compared to their more ‘noble’ and socially more distinguished, fields.

      Yes, from long, hard experience

      As with all deep prejudices, the actual “cause of animus” is impossible to expose. I’ve asked the question “Why do you think this ?” of quite a few non-geologist scientists and engineers. Never a coherent answer. Likely I will remain puzzled on this for what time may remain of my life

      60

  • #
    ROM

    I wonder just how many posters here let alone lurkers and members of the public have noted the very subtle shift in emphasis over the last few months.

    There is a less and less emphasis on Catastrophic Warming or the predicted environmental catastrophes. It is of course ALWAYS the predicted “future” catastrophes that will arise from Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, a term which has morphed into “Climate Change” which has further morphed into “Extreme Weather” which has morphed into “Climate disruption” which is morphing into ???

    Possibly all due to the inability to spell “anthropogenic” let alone understand what is meant by that term, both of which are likely to be beyond the ability of the shoe sized IQ levels of most warmists to spell and understand.

    The heat has gone out of much of the catastrophic global warming meme [ in retrospect, a truly lousy pun! ] and the replacement is the increasingly heated [ ? ] attacks on “Coal” as the “Great Polluter”.

    Such is Coal’s new found power, it now seems it will destroy the planet due to it’s nefarious abilities to heat water and make steam and a tiny bit of smoke and a goodly amount of CO2 while it generates immense amounts of energy and helps create vast amounts of cement for concrete to build things with and chemicals and fertilizers and road surfaces and to keep mobile phones and tablets charged and provides power for fuel bowsers and lights and coffee latte dispensers and etc and etc.

    All these nefarious attributes of Coal of course are seriously contributing to the near future demise of the planet and all its life forms as the “concerned” green inhabitants of our inner city enclaves will tell you while expressing their outrage at that criminally evil Coal over their lattes at those communal assembly points in the various electrically lighted and heated trendy little barrista coffee shops and bars in their immediate neighborhood.

    As those inner city green supporters will tell you with a perfectly straight face just how evil Coal is due to pollution and its acidification of those 1.3 billion cubic kilometres of sea water which will kill all the fish and destroy the few tens of millions of years old Great Barrier Reef and release all the CO2 that burning coal is putting into the atmosphere, that same evil CO2 which the plants of every description are racing furiously to suck up as much as they can of it before it stops increasing.

    The green self styled polymaths of the inner city along with all those other greenpeace and watermelon environmental catastrophists will as of very recently, now tell you quite categorically that the world’s troubles would be immediately solved in an instance if we all stopped using Coal and forced all the Coal mines to close and all Coal fired power stations to shut down and be dismantled so that they can never again threaten the world with a Coal created global climate and environmental catastrophe.

    And the most dedicated anti-coal activists will tell you that they intend to accomplish this by harnessing the power of the electronic communications network such as Twitter and other social mass media information systems to spread the word about the evils of Coal and all that CO2 that Coal puts into the atmosphere while being burned in those huge and dirty power generating stations.

    [ Do I really need a “/sarc” ? ]

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    • #
      LightningCamel

      Hey ROM, must be that new 20-20 vision kicking in, but I too have noticed the goal posts shifting again. I just hope the good Viscount* has his definition nice and tight, we all know how these anti scientific watermelons like to weasel out of anything specific by changing the definitions.

      * I know he does good work but I thought calling him the good Lord might be a bit much.

      90

      • #
        ROM

        Gotta get your [ Good ] good Lords in the right order!

        20-20 vision;
        20 minutes from in to out in the operating theatre.
        A sedative into the back of the hand .
        They had trouble with me as they couldn’t find any veins with blood in them until I explained being an old farmer the Banks had got all the blood and only the stone was left.

        Long needle inserted into the inside corner of the eye / tear duct corner of the eye for the local anaesthetic which I most definitely was not supposed to feel but did and told the surgeon later which made him sit up quite straight.

        Less than 6 minutes for the actual operation.

        ie; 3 mm slit in outer corner of eye
        Insert ultrasonic probe to break up the original natural lens with the cataract and irrigate / flush the bits of the old natural lens out.
        Insert plastic artificial lens through 3 mm slit and let it unroll in lens cavity .
        [ Happily watch the changing colours in the eye being operated on but couldn’t feel a thing by then.]
        Cover and tape the whole thing down
        Kick victim out of theatre to recovery.
        Next please!

        Half an hour in recovery to make sure I could still stand upright as the sedative wore off then out >>>

        The surgeon did 20 eyes for cataract lens replacements up at Nhill Hospital on wednesday last.

        The trees now have leaves and I can see what is growing along the roadside while travelling at my usual Mach number velocity.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Are the girls any prettier?

          50

          • #
            ROM

            Yeh! Even the old girls look a whole lot better.

            I won’t mention the young ones as us old blokes are supposed to be over it. Well in [ youthful ] theory at least

            Ssssigh—-!

            50

          • #
            Len

            After my recent cataract operations I did notice that the ladies were not as good looking as I thought. Also, I noticed I was not that wonderful looking either.

            40

        • #
          el gordo

          ‘They had trouble with me as they couldn’t find any veins with blood in them until I explained being an old farmer the Banks had got all the blood and only the stone was left.’

          Comedy gold.

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        • #

          Snap!

          Interesting part was getting a quote up front for $4500 or so an eye cf Fred Hollows doing it for a few $$?? Paid next to nothing in the end but how much did insurers+taxpayers pay.

          Excellent job though and excellent result.

          40

        • #
          Annie

          I missed out on the pretty colours each time but distinctly saw the shape of the probe second time round; also sharp pain with anaesthetic as you describe in that second eye. Luckily it was very shorty-lived. I’m very grateful for the greatly improved vision…it’s like a miracle! Thank you NHS!

          30

  • #
    Safetyguy66

    Its given me a business idea…

    Climate_Bet.com

    Get a few wealthy sceptics to put up the stake and star fleecing, or alternatively naming and shaming the alarmists.

    You make a claim, you ante up or you stfu. Simple.

    52

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  • #
    High Treason

    I reckon there should be bets laced with making the loser read a script written by the victor. The scripts would have to be agreed upon in advance, unfortunately. If one was really sneaky about it, you could get the scripts released to the media well in advance.

    Other stakes in the wager could be agreements to properly debate the issue or perhaps a wager with Mann to release all his emails . As for odds, as the cAGW/climate change/whatever the scare of the day brigade always carry on that things are worse than the predictions, no concessions are to be given. If they say some grossly exaggerated figure, make them stick to it with only a very small leeway. Offer them odds if things are worse than their predictions. This may be a way of getting them to stick their money where their mouth is.

    I do hope they put up the money. Mind you, with repeated attempts to create quantitative easing (inflation), $100,000 may only be enough to buy a cup of coffee in 2025.

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      Safetyguy66

      I totally agree.

      People like Flannery and Gore have been getting away with an activity that sounds a lot like terrorism when you describe it, for decades now.

      Their racket is… Make outlandish predictions of doom and ask for money to avert the crisis.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeNDSeknn_c

      In Italy its called La Cosa Nostra, in China, The Triads, in Iraq its, ISIL or whatever acronym John Kerry is using this week.

      Here in Australia we not only allow these people to use the MSM to demand money with menaces, in their half baked extortion rackets, we use tax payers money to sponsor their messages on our public channel and massively distort the information to increase the chances of the crime succeeding.

      Damn right people alarmist claims and demands of money should be named, shamed and made to recant publically and loudly.

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/10/failed-climate-predictions-gets-a-website/

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    pat

    13 April: SunriseswansongBlog: Jet’s Landing Gear Fails At Pole.
    https://sunriseswansong.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/jets-landing-gear-fails-at-pole/

    13 April: Daily Mail: Rugby stars stay on course for North Pole after their plane loses its landing gear on floating ice runway
    After the incident they were taken by helicopter to the exact latitude of 89 North before loading up their 60 kilo sleds and trekking to the pole.
    Their journey took them across ice floes and up five-feet high ridges and they endured temperatures as cold as -50C.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3035968/Rugby-stars-stay-course-North-Pole-plane-loses-landing-gear-floating-ice-runway.html

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    pat

    whether or not this is relevant to this thread, Lord only knows!

    13 April: CarbonBrief: Guest post: What the latest science says about thawing permafrost
    A guest post from Dr Christina Schädel, a research associate at the Ecosystem Dynamics Research Lab at Northern Arizona University.
    In our new study, published last week in Nature, we reviewed all the latest research to see what thawing permafrost could mean for climate change. We find that it is likely to be a gradual, long-lasting release of greenhouse gases over many decades rather than an abrupt pulse…
    Our study suggests that around 90 billion tons of carbon could be released by 2100 under a high emissions scenario. This would equate to 5-15% of the total permafrost carbon store.
    At these rates, the release of the permafrost carbon pool are unlikely to occur at a speed that could cause abrupt climate change over a period of a few years to a decade. Instead, our review suggests emissions will be a gradual and prolonged process over many decades and centuries…
    Because of momentum in the climate system and continued warming and thawing of permafrost, emissions are expected to affect the climate for many centuries to come. We estimate that 59% of total emissions from permafrost will occur after this century…
    http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/04/guest-post-what-the-latest-science-says-about-thawing-permafrost/

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      Hmm!

      Permafrost CO2 eh!

      I, umm, wonder how much of that is related to emissions from coal fired power plants.

      Tony.

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        Safetyguy66

        Tony I really loved the graph at 7:20 in Murray Salby’s presentation.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ0R1MCkSOU

        We simply are not capable of having an effect on net CO2 that is either consistently and accurately measurable, or able to be separated from the background noise.

        Yes we can roughly measure our total emissions, but how do we account for climate behaviour in times when our total emissions are below the background noise?

        Alarmism truly is the new denial.

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      ROM

      I marvel at the absolute accuracy and the immense skill that must be involved when climate modelling scientists when make so many, many of these predictions.

      We estimate that 59% of total emissions from permafrost will occur after this century…
      .

      Precisely 59% of the total emissions of CO2 and green house gases from permafrost melting occur after this century, a prediction of extremely complex events still more than 85 years into the future!

      Not “about half”
      Not “about two thirds”
      Not “about three quarters” but precisely 59% of total emissions will occur after this century of a product, the misnamed even by supposed reputable scientists as “Carbon” aka ” CO2″ / Carbon dioxide that WILL be released from permafrost.
      Permafrost where they don’t know with a couple of magnitudes just how much of that nefarious carbon is locked up in that permafrost. It’s all only models.
      They don’t know the details of how it is released or fixed .
      They don’t know the details of the biological pathways involved in fixing or releasing CO2 in permafrost .
      They use climate models which are so inept that they can’t compute for varying cloud cover at all in any large or small portion of the planet .
      They use Climate models that can’t predict the major weather and climate controlling event on the planet, the ENSO or it’s phase more than a few weeks ahead.
      They can’t predict or even guess at the shifts in the PDO. the AMO, the Arctic Oscillation and many more interacting climate phenomena oscillations.
      They can’t compute all the interactions and the flow on effects of these immense in size and number of interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, solar and cosmic phenomena on the climate and weather of the permafrost regions.

      BUT they can PREDICT or arrogantly claim to predict to a single percentage point just how much CO2 and green house gases will be released after precisely 85 years, the end of this 21st century

      I marvel at the absolute stupidity of making such claims and the complete chutzpah that permits such arrogant arrant nonsense to be so openly  displayed by supposedly reputable scientists in the wide open public sphere.

      Is it any wonder that science is going down the sink hole of public opinion when this sort of supposed pseudo science is continually being served up by those from within science itself.

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        Safetyguy66

        ROM I believe they use the same system I used to price my products in a business I owned.

        We would always do the basics cost of good sold+ margin etc, but in the end we always chose a rice that made it look like we had a good think about it. So the math may have given us a product price of $22.00 but that sounds too round and convenient, so we would go for something like $22.85 It gives the impression there is a reason for the number we chose.

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    Roger Knights

    “It’s fairly hard work to hammer out these bets.”

    I suggest you contact James Annan, a reasonable top-level warmist who works in Japan, and who has written lengthy threads and comments on RC about the technical issues involved in these bets. (Google for them.) He very much wants to facilitate such wagers.

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    Mark Hladik

    Kind of off-topic, but yet somewhat still on-topic:

    A website called “Resiliance” has an article (I read the opposition press to make sure I am up on the latest propaganda) on how close we are to “tipping points. This wager would be red meat for those piranha who patrol there. Jo (and Dr. Evans) should put up both of the wagers (theirs and m’Lord’s) and see if there are any takers.

    I shan’t hold my breath waiting for the Solicitor’s letters … … …

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    Mardler

    Well done, Monckton!

    I hope I’m around in 10 years (OR SO, remember Maurie’s weasel words) to see the warmsters cough up.

    A slightly off topic thought: why do we call ourselves sceptics?

    In the world of science and the properly operated scientific method, sceptism is key and the word is useful and accepted. In the rest of the, great unwashed, world sceptism has the ring of something nasty, “sceptic” is used as much as a pejorative as “denier”.

    I propose that from now on we call ourselves climate science rationalists. Better suggestions welcomed: a separate thread, Jo?

    By the same token warmists are climate science deniers.

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      tom0mason

      Mardler

      “In the world of science and the properly operated scientific method, sceptism is key and the word is useful and accepted.

      With modern science, I’m, errr, sceptical about that… 😉

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    Mardler

    My last two Fb posts were from this site; both required security codes before I could post them.

    Hmmm, censorship coming?

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    Fang

    Can I surgest that, instead of $$$$$ from the big warmest betters, that if any one looses the “bet” that they need to pay for a 1 minute ad at prime time TV on three of the major News networks, saying they are wrong about melting arctic ice, and theres really no global warming as they predicted!
    That to me would make it much more worth while than any $$$$ they betted!
    The public would certainly learn about whos predictions are worth more! 🙂

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    There’s a similar bet running at NoTricksZone

    Will the next 2011-2020 decade be warmer than the previous 2001 – 2010 decade?

    I’ve locked up some money for that one.

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      Matty

      Which Temperature series are they relying on Berndt ?

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        Matty

        Sorry, I should have dropped the t.

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        From the first link:

        Which dataset will decide the bet?

        It has been agreed to use a composite of RSS and UAH lower troposphere temperature – close to the earth’s surface. The result will be accepted without quibbling, as it is agreed that it’s the best we’ve got. The average of the two will decide the bet!

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    el gordo

    Here is a graph which shows conclusively that CO2 and sea ice have no relation.

    http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/CO2-vs-sea-ice.png

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