Bill Nye v. Marc Morano

[rambot]

This is climate change thread.
tl;dr
Nye and another organization wanted to make a 25000 bet with Morano (a denialist) that 2016 would be the hottest year and this decade would be the hottest on record. He refused.

Morano turned down both bets, telling DeSmog it was “silly” to take a bet when it was “obvious” the official records would show more global warming.

Now, I accept that this does not prove AGW, but if a denialist doesn't take a bet that 1 and 3 years will both show warming, what is he ACTUALLY arguing and what does he believe?

 

[Goonie]

This is climate change thread.
tl;dr
Nye and another organization wanted to make a 25000 bet with Morano (a denialist) that 2016 would be the hottest year and this decade would be the hottest on record. He refused.

Now, I accept that this does not prove AGW, but if a denialist doesn't take a bet that 1 and 3 years will both show warming, what is he ACTUALLY arguing and what does he believe?

Well Moreno is either like heissenor someone who believes scientists are faking the data, or is taking the other track and saying that yes the earths warming but it is not man made, denying the link to co2.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

On what date was the bet proposed?

If it was anytime after February, then it was a stacked bet considering this report already came out for February:
Earth's global temperatures in February 2016 were the most abnormally warm on record for any month, according to two, independent analyses from NOAA and NASA.

NOAA's global State of the Climate report released Thursday found February's surface temperature over the Earth's surface was 1.21 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average, not only crushing the warmest February in the 137-year period of record set just one year prior, but also the largest temperature anomaly of any month in NOAA's database dating to 188

You'd have to be silly to take that bet at that point in the game (whether your subscribe to idea of man made global warming or not).

It'd be like a buddy wanting to bet you on a Football game, when his team is already up 21-0 at the end of the first quarter.

 

[Vylo]

I bet this year is gonna be a sorcher, with lots of hurricane activity, probably record setting.

 

[Drekkan85]

On what date was the bet proposed?

If it was anytime after February, then it was a stacked bet considering this report already came out for February:
Earth's global temperatures in February 2016 were the most abnormally warm on record for any month, according to two, independent analyses from NOAA and NASA.

NOAA's global State of the Climate report released Thursday found February's surface temperature over the Earth's surface was 1.21 degrees Celsius above the 20th century average, not only crushing the warmest February in the 137-year period of record set just one year prior, but also the largest temperature anomaly of any month in NOAA's database dating to 188

You'd have to be silly to take that bet at that point in the game (whether your subscribe to idea of man made global warming or not).

It'd be like a buddy wanting to bet you on a Football game, when his team is already up 21-0 at the end of the first quarter.

Thank you for proving Bill Nye's point.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Thank you for proving Bill Nye's point.

Out of curiosity, would Bill Nye have made this bet if the first two months of the year had been unseasonably cold instead?

I'm not a climate change denier or anything like that...however, it seems that if you're a scientist of any kind, you're undermining your own scientific process and credibility by proposing stacked bets like that because it makes it seem as if you need to cheat to win.

Now, if Nye wanted to make a bet for 2017, that would be another story lol.

 

[Drekkan85]

Out of curiosity, would Bill Nye have made this bet if the first two months of the year had been unseasonably cold instead?

I'm not a climate change denier or anything like that...however, it seems that if you're a scientist of any kind, you're undermining your own scientific process and credibility by proposing stacked bets like that because it makes it seem as if you need to cheat to win.

Now, if Nye wanted to make a bet for 2017, that would be another story lol.

Except Nye wasn't really trying to make a bet. It was to prove a point. Thus far this decade has been the hottest on the books. This year has also, thus far, been the hottest on the books. He was trying to show the other chap how insane his position was - he's denying warming while at the same time we have lots of evidence of said warming (and at a scale/speed not really seen before).

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Except Nye wasn't really trying to make a bet. It was to prove a point. Thus far this decade has been the hottest on the books. This year has also, thus far, been the hottest on the books. He was trying to show the other chap how insane his position was - he's denying warming while at the same time we have lots of evidence of said warming (and at a scale/speed not really seen before).

I get that...

But, strategically speaking, I think he went wrong way in terms of proving his point.

The fact that he made it about this year (given that February stacks the deck), opens his own position up to the accusation of cherry picking.

Also, I think Climate Change experts need to do a better job emphasizing long term statistics on the matter. They shouldn't be making it about "last 5 years", "last decade", they should be emphasizing data for "Last 200 years"...really establish the fact that it's a long term trend that has been in motion for a while...otherwise, they immediately open themselves up to the critique of "Nobody seemed to be concerned about this 30 year ago, why is it a problem now all of the sudden???"

Many folks on the right already are skeptical about it simply due to the amount of crony capitalism that exists between The Environmentalism Movement and the Democrats (well, that and some of them don't believe in it due to their personal religious reasons). I think the fact that all of the emphasis is being put on the short-term history is playing right into their skepticism.