This will be a top post for a day or two, new posts appear below. For those waiting…PAYPAL is now available
I’m participating in this, as are some other well known climate skeptics. The producer (Australia’s video pundit Topher Field) has 4 weeks (28 days) to get it funded in IndieGoGo. I ask your help to make it happen. Note, I have no financial interest in this film, I’m merely one of the people to be interviewed. Thanks – Anthony
UPDATE from Topher:
What an incredible initial response! Thank you so much to everyone who has donated!
Paypal WILL be available soon (unless something goes horribly wrong). We are awaiting final confirmation from Paypal that our account is 100% set up and then we will enable Paypal donations.
UPDATE2: Topher responds to questions in this thread in comments, jump here
50-to-1 has the potential to shift the climate debate for good!
Watch the video to see how, or read on!
What if we could show you that trying to ‘stop’ climate change is 50 times more expensive than adapting to it? And what if we could prove it using numbers and formulas accepted by the IPCC, CRU and other ‘consensus’ bodies? Well that’s exactly what 50-to-1 does.
The original calculations were done by Lord Christopher Monckton who has since presented his conclusions to audiences of scientists, economists and mathematicians all over the world. You can see the calculations and a FULL LIST OF SOURCES here: 50 to 1 calculations and sources
Lord Monckton has now approached me to take the above and present it in a video and web package suitable for mass consumption on the internet. If we can successfully help the general public to understand the futility of ‘stopping’ climate change and the relative value of adapting, then we can stop wasting money on useless schemes and start putting our money where it will ACTUALLY make a difference.
The 50 to 1 project is designed to get this message to the general public in three different, complimentary ways:
1. A 7 minute video. This video is designed to be fun, easily understood and contain everything you need to know in one tight and beautifully produced package. This 7 minute video is the centrepiece of the project. It’s designed to be enjoyable, informative and SHORT enough that people will watch it and then pass it on via email and social media. This in turn will encourage people who want to know more to go to…
2. … The 50 to 1 website. The website will host the video and more importantly will contain ALL the references for ALL the information contained in the video (see the link above for an example). Anyone who wants to fact-check or dispute the video will have open access to all our sources so they can see for themselves that the conclusions drawn in ’50 to 1′ are consistent with the science as understood by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For those who really want to go deep into the issue and wrap their head around the current state of climate economics the website will also host…
3. … Expert Interviews. So far we have 7 confirmed interviewees, Former President Vaclav Klaus, Prof Henry Ergas, Prof Fred Singer, Anthony Watts, Prof David Evans, Christopher Essex, and Joanne Nova . Whilst excerpts of the interviews will be used in the 7 minute video, the real value is that we will be spending 30 minutes to 1 hour with each of them (so 3.5+ hours combined run time!) and the full interview with each of these internationally respected experts will be available on the 50-to-1 website as they share their thoughts and perspectives on climate change and in particular policy responses such as carbon taxes and trading schemes.
Each part of the 3 part structure is designed to work together, attracting people with the professionally produced, fun, funny and engaging 7 minute video, and then allowing them to fact check and explore on the website and discover for themselves through the interviews the true cost of ‘stopping’ climate change… which is 50 times more than adapting!
50 to 1 cuts across all the noise and fury surrounding the ‘climate debate’ and gets right to the point: Even if the IPCC is right, and even if climate change IS happening and it IS caused by man, we are STILL better off adapting to it as it happens than we are trying to ‘stop’ it. ‘Action’ is 50 times more expensive than ‘adaptation’, and that’s a conclusion which is derived directly from the IPCC’s own predictions and formulae!
This video, website and interview combination is a game-changer and could radically shift the climate debate. But it will only have an impact if a large number of people watch the video. The video needs to be so fun, fast paced and visually engaging that people will not only watch it, but also pass it on for their friends to watch. 7 minutes is an ideal length because it’s short enough to keep people’s attention, whilst being long enough for us to pack in all the information required to understand the maths and economics behind 50 to 1. It’s effectively a short film which mixes the presentation of the maths and formulae with animations to illustrate every step along the way AND snippets of interviews with internationally respected experts lending the weight of their professional opinions to the subject.
President Vaclav Klaus, Professor Henry Ergas, Professor Fred Singer, Anthony Watts, Professor David Evans, Christopher Essex, and Joanne Nova have all agreed to be interviewed and we are still waiting to hear back from a few others. Traveling with a production crew (to North America and Europe and back as well as around Australia) to get the interviews, as well as studio filming, editing, animating, colour grading and audio sweetening costs money. That’s why I need your help.
The 50 to 1 project has the potential to shift the climate debate for good. It has the potential to undermine political attempts to impose more taxes, stupid subsidies and the myriad of ‘green schemes’ which we’ve seen spring up in the last decade or so. It has the potential to save us all a small fortune in years to come if we can totally undermine public support for ‘Action’ on climate change and shift the focus instead to adaptation as required.
I’ve enlisted the help of an award winning production company here in Melbourne Australia to ensure the highest possible standard of production. All up we’ve calculated a budget (including all the travel etc) of $155,000 to do everything properly, although we can scrape by with less if we cut a few corners, potentially as little as $130,000, but any less than that and it will start to cost us money rather than enable us to pay our bills!
Your donation will help us to reach our minimum budget and once we get there it will be ‘game on’ and we will be able to get cracking and make 50-to-1 a reality.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/50-to-1-project-the-true-cost-of-action-on-climate-change
Twitter Share Shortlink: http://igg.me/at/50to1
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Indigo – as it is the politics of AGW that interest you; please reflect that AGW was an obscure and somewhat doubtful hypothesis before Margaret Thatcher saw in it a way to destroy the remains of the UK coalminers’ unions and the coal industry to make way for her own pet technology – nuclear power and, above all, to provide her with a platform as the only ‘scientist’ in a position of power in international politics. She set up Hadley, not to test the AGW hypothesis but to advise her government and the international community on what to do to ameliorate AGW. She dressed it up with the then-glowing image of HM Met Office and tried to give it academic status by associating it with struggling universities, especially UAE (that of East Anglia).
You are correct to see that it is the politics (rather than the ‘science’) of AGW that lurk the greatest dangers to sanity and political order and stability. Please do so with an open mind as befits a serious seeker after knowledge.
Thanks, mitigatedsceptic. I don’t buy your argument that Margaret Thatcher created the concept of AGW as a political device. But I like your point “You are correct to see that it is the politics (rather than the ‘science’) of AGW that lurk the greatest dangers to sanity and political order and stability.” Except you miss out on physics. AGW is just physics. Pump countless gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere over decades, altering its composition, and the climate will change. It’s self-evident. AGW will certainly challenge political order and stability in ways we can yet hardly imagine, but it is not a plot by Thatcher or a secret scheme by environmentalists, it’s just the outcome of the system we have made, with fossil fuels at its foundation, and the political order we have built to sustain it. Now we have to change it. As we have many times before.
Sorry, Indigo, I do not trade in unsubstantiated argument. The facts are there for any historian to read – in the proceedings of the UN, the original constitution of Hadley, etc., etc. Of course, I have no concern whether or not you choose to ignore well-established facts.
As to the physics of adding carbon to the atmosphere, it may change the already-destined-to-change climate but on whether to our advantage or otherwise the physics is absolutely silent.
If it were desirable to escape from fossil fuels, that could be achieved using advance nuclear technology and what future generations will invent/discover for themselves. We would need some vary powerful arguments were we to plan to ditch such progress as civilisation has made, bringing us from fearful superstitions to the enlightenment and the health and happiness of millions. If there is misery in the world, it is because the rate of reproduction of people exceeds the ability of technologies to support them – Malthus, but in a modern context.
By the way, there was nothing at all secret about the Thatcher policy – she was perfectly open about it and indeed later admitted that there was very little science to support her position.
mitigatedsceptic says: We would need some vary powerful arguments were we to plan to ditch such progress as civilisation has made”
Who said anything about ditching progress?
One thing I have against this is that he/she is assuming there is AGW global warming? This is what is wrong since there is no AGW and no evidence whatsoever for it and the figures keep on coming in every day to prove it. Notice there is a neutral ENSO ect and still temps are normal (+0.10C)!!
jc says (May 5, 2013 at 12:11 am ): “@ur momisugly Greg House. … Your comment that the IPCC was not in effect to be considered disreputable triggered that …”
==========================================================
My point was quite the opposite, I am afraid you missed that. It was about Monckton supporting the core IPCC statements and criticizing only minor and secondary inconsistencies. It was immediately confirmed by him on the parallel thread, where he called the same graph “correct” that he called “made up” 3 years ago. Pay close attention to his message.
indigo:
At May 5, 2013 at 2:34 am you say
Yes, “you have touched a nerve”: we don’t like offensive and insulting liars.
That evidence you are “pretty sure” exists only exists in your mind.
And that is why you DO “dwell upon” it and come here proclaiming its existence, but you cannot say what it is.
Richard
indigo:
At May 5, 2013 at 3:19 am you say
Wrong!
It is not an “argument” by mitigatedsceptic.
It is my analysis conducted in 1980 which predicted that the AGW-scare would come to be. My analysis was rejected as being implausible. But the AGW-scare did come to be.
Clearly, your indoctrination prevents you learning, but there may be others interested in the analysis and they can read it at
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/richard-courtney-the-history-of-the-global-warming-scare/
Richard
indigo:
At May 5, 2013 at 3:19 am you assert
That is so wrong it would require a book to address all its errors.
I will merely make a few observations to demonstrate the degree of ignorance and misunderstanding it represents.
AGW is NOT “just physics”.
At minimum it is physics, chemistry, biology and economics.
Nature emits 34 molecules of CO2 for each molecule of CO2 emitted from all human activities. It is an assumption that the small anthropogenic emission is sufficient to disturb the carbon cycle such as to alter the composition of atmosphere.
And there are good reasons to think the anthropogenic emission is not sufficient and cannot be sufficient to alter the composition of atmosphere.
For example, in one of our 2005 papers we report
(ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005) )
And if the atmospheric CO2 concentration were to rise then there would not be a resulting discernible rise in global temperature because the feedbacks in the climate system are negative.
This concurs with the empirically determined values of low climate sensitivity obtained by Idso, by Lindzen&Choi, etc..
In other words, the man-made global warming from man’s emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) would be much smaller than natural fluctuations in global temperature so it would be physically impossible to detect the man-made global warming.
Of course, human activities have some effect on global temperature for several reasons. For example, cities are warmer than the land around them, so cities cause some warming. But the temperature rise from cities is too small to be detected when averaged over the entire surface of the planet, although this global warming from cities can be estimated by measuring the warming of all cities and their areas.
Similarly, the global warming from man’s GHG emissions would be too small to be detected. Indeed, because climate sensitivity is less than 1 deg.C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, it is physically impossible for the man-made global warming to be large enough to be detected. If something exists but is too small to be detected then it only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has effects (observation of the effects would be its detection).
All empirical – n.b. not model-derived – determinations indicate climate sensitivity is less than 1.0deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. This is indicated by the studies of
Idso from surface measurements
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/Idso_CR_1998.pdf
and Lindzen & Choi from ERBE satellite data
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
and Gregory from balloon radiosonde data
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf
Climate sensitivity is less than 1.0 deg.C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration and, therefore, any effect on global temperature of increase to atmospheric CO2 concentration only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has observable effects.
Richard
What an amazing response with ideas to Topher for a series of videos. Again, the beginnings of alternative institutions. Anthony, and all concerned others, these actions are magnificent and a tribute to commitment to the truth, which is commitment to the scientific method, . There is no such thing as post-science or post-anything; there is change according to truths and this video is an attempt to educate/influence/emotionally attune people to those truths. I support this one and “sequels”. As soon as PayPal is in place, I will contribute.
at Inigo at 2:34 am:
You are the church-goer in this debate. But it’s heartening to know you’re “pretty sure there is lots of evidence for global warming.” On the other hand, there are many who believe the same thing about transubstantiation and the virgin birth.
Read Richard Courtney above. Like the rest of the skeptics on these pages, he makes a good case based on doubt. There is far more reason to doubt catastrophic anthropogenic global warming than there is to be “pretty sure” there is a lot of evidence for it. Except in very rare cases where irrefutable truth has been established over centuries, certitude in science is for fools.
Topher,
While I wish you nothing but the best, and have put money where my wishes are, I have some questions.
1- Why are you not listing Ian Castles as one of your interviewees?
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/climate-policy/economics/castlesonIPCC.pdf
2- how do you defend yourself against criticism that you are one hand knocking IPCC data and then on the other using IPCC data to support your case?
Respectfully,
@ur momisugly Greg House says:
May 5, 2013 at 5:20 am
“My point was quite the opposite, I am afraid you missed that. It was about Monckton supporting the core IPCC statements and criticizing only minor and secondary inconsistencies. It was immediately confirmed by him on the parallel thread, where he called the same graph “correct” that he called “made up” 3 years ago. Pay close attention to his message.”
—————————————————————————————————————————
I’m not sure what you are referring to in the above to be honest. I couldn’t find (I might have missed it) any comment where he said a graph was “correct” or what the parallel thread is.
So far as I understand this, it is that the IPCC claims that the actions needed are x,y,z to mitigate and prevent (and these can be costed at X according to their parameters), and that the impacts of a given amount of temperature increase are a,b,c, and the cost of adaption to this using their parameters is Y. And that X is 50 times greater than Y for a given amount of temperature increase.
It is possible that we are thinking about, and to a greater or lesser degree referring to, different things. From your comment I responded to in that way:
“There is no reason to believe, that it can “come across very clearly that the IPCC is untrustworthy” on economic issues, because nobody has presented anything scientific that proves that point.”
and
“…they do not seem to have a scientific point. …As I do not like supporting the core IPCC statements for no scientific reasons…”
There is a clear distinction to be made between any “science” whatsoever that the IPCC incorporates in its justifications for taking its cut of the money cascade, which can be – and is effectively – made up by a 5 yo, and the actual monetary cost of any implications of these dawdlings.
The “sciency” thingies can be complete fantasy. So too can the money thingies. But they are different thingies.
So it is not inconsistent to say: “All your sciency thingies are garbage. So too are all your money thingies [if you want to say that]. But according to what YOU say the money thingies of doing something now cost 50 times as much as the money thingies will cost to do things as needed.”
If that is what Monckton is proposing, I have no problem with it. And if delivered in something close to the manner I describe it in, with that attitude, it can be effective.
It can be accepted that the money thingies are soundly based whilst the sciency thingies are not. I wouldn’t, on the proven inadequacy of economics in understanding, and the established untrustworthiness of the IPCC. But it is, apparently, not necessary to believe a word.
And that the absurdity of the fantasy can be shown to be self-evident on its own terms.
That is: “It is essential that 50 houses be immediately built, maintained, and serviced, at the bottom of the garden for the fairies WE KNOW will need them; as opposed to building them on receipt of a Facebook message that their arrival is immanent”.
The IPCC is trash. That needs to come across.
I would like to contribute – but want to be certain ‘HOWTO’! 🙂
With the Paypal method not (yet) ready, will the solution be to make the payment to the Lord Monckton Foundation??
[If you wish . . mod]
jc says (May 5, 2013 at 7:58 am): “I’m not sure what you are referring to in the above to be honest. I couldn’t find (I might have missed it) any comment where he said a graph was “correct” or what the parallel thread is.”
=====================================================================
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/04/monckton-asks-ipcc-for-correction-to-ar4/#comment-1297360
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/04/monckton-asks-ipcc-for-correction-to-ar4/#comment-1297452
Waiting on PayPal to donate, I’ve pass it along via FB and Twitter
I don’t pretend to be au fait with the myriad graphs and representations in this area, or used by the IPCC. And I am not personally too concerned with knowing them, being variations on speculations so far as impacts go, and being aware that others have a keen interest and that anything of at least nominal substance to the issue will be raised by them.
Insofar (which I don’t know) as the graphs referred to are identical, I think I see your point. It seems in substance to be concerned with the timing of any correction undertaken by Monckton rather than the – current – accuracy or reliability of any data or claims made. If you accept that any CURRENT interpretation is reasonable, then, despite any queries or misgivings about how that has been arrived at, then I don’t see a current problem as being evident.
If you think the IPCC graph (or other) is wrong, that is one thing. And for the purposes of what Monckton proposes is irrelevant since he proposes utilizing their product as a thing independent of its actual justification. If you think Monckton’s interpretation of the graph (or other) is faulty, that is another matter.
I can very easily understand a concern with the IPCC representations. But the validity of them in themselves is not the issue here. It is the validity of them in relation to other interpretations they make: it is an “internal” matter.
Is this the way life should be? No. But it is not possible to force the IPCC to actually represent external reality, so all that can be done is to utilize their general incompetence and sleights of hand to show that.
I was impressed with several of jc’s posts, so I started at the beginning again, he/she has 30 on this thread, whoever you are your, you are amazing with your wit, eloquence, knowledge.
I reckon that if the WWF can spend loadsa money on glossy TV adverts asking us to save a cuddly/threatened species for only 3/5 (insert appropriate currency unit here) a month then I guess that the $50 that I just contributed MAY help KICKSTART the process of saving a whole lot more lifeforms e.g.
Citizens of many nations who may benefit from worthwhile employment, enhanced quality of life thro’ improved medication, clean water and increased investment in useful technologies brought about by sensible and focussed fiscal prudence rather than the badly-informed, panicked and profligate policies of many governments.
Flora and Fauna everywhere – the richer a nation becomes, the better it eventually seeks to improve its environment- once the bootstrap process has ended
I, like many here, have profound reservations about the ethics and findings of the IPPC but I do accept the proposition that fighting the CAGW argument on scientific grounds has degenerated into a pyrrhic trench-warfare that only provides pain without any gain.
I, further accept, that sensible debate and armistice can only be initiated when both sides face up to the reality that continued confrontation only benefits a privileged minority while penalizing the many.
I also realise that the $50 that I parted with will, very likely, achieve diddly-squat (zilch) but it might just speed up the demadnetization of our economies by a wee bit more than if I’d just spent it on adding a few more ounces of body-fat and the odd milligramme, or two ,of blood-alcohol content!
I also have the (smug) satisfaction of (hypothetically) answering my children when they ask me:
‘Daddy. What did you do in the Carbon Wars?’
‘I gave ChrisTOPHER and Christopher $50!’
Richard and Elizabeth, as I was saying, the idea that the global and national political and economic order will have to change because human activities are altering the climate in potentially devastating ways is hard for some people to accept. So hard, that they would rather either simply deny the climate is changing at all or construct elaborate explanations for why under no circumstances can it possibly be human activity, so as to hold onto the order we currently have. But human civilisation and progress has been around a lot longer than the idea of burning fossil fuels, and it will still be around long after we realised that burning those fossil fuels in ever greater quantity was just a bad idea. Human civilisation has been through transformations before as great as the one we need to embark upon now, and doubtless we will have to go through again in the centuries ahead. Meanwhile, in response to your specific points, to paraphrase Galileo: “And yet it warms”.
indigo says:
May 5, 2013 at 5:22 pm
———————————–
Today’s skeptics of the CACCA orthodoxy are the Galileos; the Warmunistas are the Church officials. Galileo was punished for rejecting geocentrism, the prevailing orthodoxy then maintained through force by those in power. Today the patently false orthodoxy maintained by force is blind faith in human-induced climate catastrophe.
By the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change Advocates’ own cooked books, Earth has not warmed for going on 20 years, despite increasing CO2 concentrations. Earth has surely warmed since the depths of the Little Ice Age over 300 years ago, but CO2 is largely a consequence of that warming, not its cause.
To the limited extent that CO2 has contributed negligible feedback warming, that effect has been beneficial, as is the more abundant plant food in the air. Alas, the Modern Warming Period will go the way of the Medieval, Roman & Minoan WPs, as Earth continues its already over 3000 year-old slide into the next big ice age.
I find many of the arguments against making this film to have entirely missed the point. We all know that the gargantuan momentum built up in the cause of climate alarmism will not – and cannot – be offset by this effort. What it is for is so that, years from now, when it becomes apparent that this alarmism is not nor ever has been to “save the planet” we can say – “I told you so.” And I do not plan on being a gracious winner. I plan on telling them “I told you so” at every opportunity.
indigo says:
May 5, 2013 at 5:22 pm
You are, in your condensing and elitist way, still completely dead wrong. My sympathies.
No one here, nor in any other skeptical forum, deny climate change is occurring. to the contrary, our world’s has changed before Co2 was introduced (it warmed over hundreds of years, it was steady over brief time periods, and it cooled over hundreds of years. In today’s world, the world’s temperature has risen while CO2 was steady, has fallen was CO2 was steady, and has been steady while CO2 concentration have been steady. While CO2 has risen, temperatures have risen, been steady, and fallen. So tell me, just what relationship have you invented between CO2 and temperature?
The recent 15 years show no change in temperature, the previous 25 a small rise in temperature, the previous 25 years a small decrease in temperature. During this entire period, CO2 was increasing. But your cabal denies the measured evidence that CO2 has little influence on climate, but GREAT influence on politics, climate funding, and fear of your Inquisition among the universities and government agencies that fund the universities and papers and computer-farms of the climate change industry.
Artificially-induced fear, but a very fear none the less.
You demand a change to mankind’s culture and civilization due to YOUR “religion of fear and unproven catastrophe” that claims that CO2 is evil and must be eliminated. Why?
Why are your “feelings” so valid as to force the death of millions and the suffering of billions from poor energy policies, forced cold, forced starvation, forced bad water, forced polluted sewage and forced death by disease and malnutrition? YOUR policies are condemning to poverty, suffering and famine, not my preference for cheaper more reliable energy to all.
Hmmmn. Is “life” a bad idea? Is “a better life” an even worse idea?
Again, my sympathies for your so-called “life”. Let us hope you grow a heart and a soul, not a pump.
Sorry, John Tillman, it’s the other way around. The proponents of fossil fuels as the natural energy of human civilisation are the Church today. One of its main denominations, Exxon Mobil, is a USD$400bn company. Climate scientists are the Galileos. Like the Church, fossil fuels have been an extraordinary triumph in the way they have fuelled human achievements for more than one hundred years. But, there is also a terrible cost to their use and it’s time to look elsewhere for the energy we need.
Wamron says:
May 2, 2013 at 5:13 am
THE TROUBLE IS…
Although we may respect Monckton (as I do ) he is well-stereotyped in the broader audience as a crank. And he comes up in line one. Perceptions matter…otherwise why make a movie?
—————-
This is the liberal’s standard tool. It’s an Alinsky tactic. Anyone who has credibility must be ridiculed until no one wants to associate with them. If we let them do this to everyone that is credible, then we’ll never get anywhere. Also, most people don’t keep track of every individual as the hard core libs. When the arguments are well presented, there is no downside. In fact, it shows how much the other side has been lying.