Featured in WSJ’s Opinion Journal
Scott Armstrong’s challenge to Al Gore was mentioned in today’s Opinion Journal Political Diary (subscription only), which features commentary and analysis on US Politics by the Wall Street Journal.
Read up on the article by Taylor Buley below (reproduced with permission):
Weather Report
Al Gore thinks the climate crisis is so dire that he’s written a book, produced a movie and organized a world-wide music event to raise awareness. These have helped to make him a rich man, but is he willing to put his money where his mouth is? Don’t bet on it.
J. Scott Armstrong, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and expert on long range forecasting, has offered to bet Al Gore $10,000 that he can do a better job of predicting the future of climate change than the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose forecasts of rising temperatures are cited in virtually every media account. Mr. Armstrong and a colleague, Kesten Green of New Zealand’s Monash University*, examined the IPCC’s work for last month’s 27th Annual International Symposium on Forecasting and found it essentially valueless according to established principles of forecasting. “Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder,” concluded the two.
So what’s Prof. Armstrong’s own climate prediction? No change at all. “The methodology was so poor that I thought a bet based on complete ignorance of the climate could do better,” says Mr. Armstrong. “We call it ‘the naïve model.’ Things won’t change.”
Professor Armstrong is the author of Long-Range Forecasting — the most frequently cited book on forecasting methods — and Principles of Forecasting, which was voted a “favorite book” by researchers and practitioners associated with the International Institute of Forecasters. If Mr. Gore accepts his challenge, Prof. Armstrong has proposed that each man put $10,000 into a charitable trust at a reputable brokerage house. The winner would then choose a charity to receive the total amount.
So far, Mr. Gore — usually quite the opportunist — has balked at the opportunity to establish credibility with global warming skeptics. “Please understand that Mr. Gore is not taking on any new projects at this time,” read a note to Mr. Armstrong from Mr. Gore’s communications director.
* Correction: Monash University is located in Melbourne, Australia.
Excuse me, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that there is significantly less snow and ice over the course of the year in the northernmost and southernmost points on earth than there were say, ten years ago. Not to mention that it gets worse every single year. How is this not proof of global warming? What other explanation could there possibly be? Also, maybe Al Gore is making a lot of money from all his exposure and media work, but for every Al Gore out there there are hundreds of thousands of other people - relatively poor people - who are willing to sacrifice a big paycheck for the sake of spreading information to the public about this potential disaster. Please let me know what you have to say about all this…because you don’t seem to offer any concrete “proof” to the contrary in your article. There are a lot of corrupt scientists out there who are willing to give an incorrect report for the sake of money - both in the case of their own funding and for this country’s economy. After all, if we all stopped buying so much gas for our cars in the name of global warming, our country would not have nearly as much money being passed around, don’t you agree?