Richard Lindzen's "Climate Bet"
Professor Richard Lindzen is a prominent sceptic who claims that the anthropogenic influence on our climate is close to negligible and that in fact cooling is about as likely as warming over at least the next 20 years. Now, although there must be some non-zero chance of cooling on this time scale (due to the natural decadal-scale variability of the climate, and the possibility of large volcanic eruptions), this opinion certainly seems to be well to one extreme of what most climate scientists think is likely.
Recently, my attention was drawn to some comments attributed to Lindzen: "Richard Lindzen says he's willing to take bets that global average temperatures in 20 years will in fact be lower than they are now." (thanks to William Connolley for the tip). Given his widely-promulgated views, I took this quote at face value and contacted him to arrange a wager. A payoff at retirement age would be a nice top-up to my pension.
Now here's the kicker. Richard Lindzen will indeed accept a bet - but only if offered odds of 50:1 in his favour! He actually started out quoting 100:1 - but came down to 50:1 in what he described as a "special favor" to me. If the temperatures went down, I was to hand over $10,000, but in the event of a rise, I'd get a whopping $200. That's worth around $8 per year on my pension. Whoop-de-doo. That's not really quite what I had in mind. In fact, not only is $200 too small a win to be worth bothering with, but moreover I think that his side of the bet is probably more attractive than mine. Note that I certainly do not consider myself to be a sceptic, but on the contrary am just a bit-part player in climate research who thinks that the IPCC TAR (by which I really mean Working Group 1, "The Scientific Basis" which is the only bit I know much about) has basically got it right. Yet here is one of the most prominent sceptics who is apparently less confident about the chances of medium-term cooling than I am myself!
As a ballpark estimate, I reckon something in the region of 10:1 or 5:1 odds on the bet would probably be fair on the 20 year time scale - I haven't tried to pin it down with any great precision, as there is such a gulf between my viewpoint and Richard Lindzen's, that it should be easy to find a mutually agreeable wager in the region of 2:1 or 3:1 odds. As I explained to him, 3:1 would be a reasonable middle ground between an honest sceptic - Mr 50-50, who believes cooling is as likely as warming and would therefore expect to win $1 on average from a $3 v $1 bet - and a (mythical?) "true believer" who believes that a rise in temperatures is certain and would therefore also expect the same bet to be worth $1 to him. I'm not claiming here that 3:1 is necessarily the correct odds to arrange a bet - but it certainly provides a meaningful and realistic starting point for negotiations, in contrast to Lindzen's offer. I hadn't reckoned that the gulf in opinions was that he is more insistent on warming taking place, and less confident about the prospects of cooling, than I am! A 1 in 50 chance of cooling is hardly a consensus-busting viewpoint.
Richard Lindzen's words say that there is about a 50% chance of cooling. His wallet thinks it is a 2% shot. Which do you believe? He says he was misrepresented in the quote on the reason.com site - can we expect to see a correction, and headlines in the sceptic press along the lines of "Richard Lindzen thinks there is at least a 2% chance of global cooling"? I'd probably take bets against that happening, too - and 50:1 odds against it seems reasonable in this case!
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