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
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I am most grateful to everyone who has been so very generous in contributing to the cost of the 50 to 1 video, and especially to Anthony for promoting it on his formidable website. The cost of doing a professional job, interviewing everyone from heads of state to leading academics, is substantial.
Those who are concerned that I am selling the pass by using the IPCC’s and Stern’s own numbers and methods should not be. The case will be presented ad argumentum – for the sake of argument. If it is 50 times more expensive and less cost-effective to mitigate even the IPCC’s 3 K global warming today to avoid the cost of adaptation the day after tomorrow, then a fortiori it is still more expensive and still less cost-effective if there is little or no problem to mitigate.
As Topher Field clearly explains in his video, the ad-argumentum approach cuts away all opposition on the ground that “the science is settled”, because even if it were settled there would be no case at all for spending a single red cent on doing anything about it. That is why this argument is so powerful.
Those who suggest that the argument is unsound or originates elsewhere will be relieved to know that this is indeed not only an original result (which is in line with, but more detailed than, other results in the reviewed economic literature) but also a reviewed result. I have just corrected the page-proofs and the underlying paper will appear in the 45th Annual Proceedings of the World Federation of Scientists, to which I presented the calculations last August. Aside from a suggestion from a true-believer that I should adopt a zero inter-temporal discount rate (which, though it is counter to the interests of future generations, I have done), the meeting was unable to find fault with the calculations, which I presented in detail during a 25-minute talk.
Those who say no rational argument will ever move the true-believers should not despair. If we gently but firmly persist in arguing rationally, the fact will become evident and the truth of what we say will be recognized. Have courage!
Thank you all very much again.
@jim B:
While agreeing with your point overall, I can see a reasonable budget of over $13,000 US rather than 130 grand.
Assume a lighting tech & video/sound cam operator, each at ~$100/hour for four or five hours filming & set-up. Call it $1000. Say a day to edit, for another grand. Topher’s narration & interview time the same. We’re at $3000. But double that to $6000.
Flying three or four interview subjects round trip to the Antipodes from North America & Europe, maybe another $6000, plus accommodation, meals & in-country transport, etc, up to $2000.
Total $14,000, with generous fudge factors. Since I’m liable to have overlooked something, let’s say $20K.
Please correct me, if wrong. I realize that your estimate assumed no travel & largely donated labor. Those with more video production experience than I, please also comment. Thanks.
Nevertheless, I’ll donate when PayPal is up.
@milodonharlani “Assume a lighting tech & video/sound cam operator, each at ~$100/hour for four or five hours filming & set-up. Call it $1000.” 10 hours of labour for a 7 minute final product??? can I work for you PLEASE! I thought the civil service was slow! I say again this is just a money making scam.
If you want to donate to someone Anthony Watts has done more with less, and has done it better than this guy ever could.
Anyone donating to the sad little youtube video should at least give an equal amount to Anthony for all this YEARS of service.
You know, I donated to WUWT years ago, maybe it’s time to donate again.
That’s not the impression I got from the introduction at the top. Perhaps Topher Field could tell us how he plans to structure the argument. Seven minutes isn’t a lot of time for comments by the host of interviewees he has listed, so it will have to rely on bullet points, which he could present here for discussion.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘snooty’; I’m just making a basic point. When you are dealing with ideologues, you can’t turn their heads without challenging their assumptions. I don’t think the “Even assuming what you say is true” tactic will work.
Just using the phrase ‘climate change’ is a mistake: it’s a Climatist buzzword designed to obfuscate the argument. The question is: will continuing to burn ‘fossil fuels’ (natural gas?) cause catastrophic global warming? It won’t, so there’s no problem. That’s where the argument has to start.
/Mr Lynn
Benjamin P. says:
May 2, 2013 at 12:41 pm
@JohnWho
Yes.
Really?
You got a link(s) or reference?
I’ll be interested to see who here doesn’t think the climate changes.
No matter how the climate changes, up down or sideways, the stark unavoidable reality is :
every 100 gigatons of CO2 added to the atmosphere equals 67 gigatons of carbohydrate equivalent biomass.
More CO2 = More sugar!
Now that, my friends, is how climate change Feeds the world.
I have HD video of Plimer and Monchton at the Sheraton in Sydney and a number of rallies that you are welcome to.
I feel the premise is wrong. Those who are dilligent enough to understand this issue deeply, are going to understand this(and they come here every day of course!). We are the choir. Those who don’t, which is most the public, believe we are facing certain death and this proposal will present as some kind of measly cash tradeoff. Perhaps a documentary spelling out that AGW as theorized is debunked completely and that there is nothing to worry about, or pay for, and here’s why, would have a better chance of resonating. That’s my 000.000.02c worth
It is a nice idea, but it is not a new one (the substance of the economic argument, not the idea of turning it into a video). Many economists have made the same point. For example, Bjorn Lomborg has long argued that, accepting everything the IPCC says about climate change as accurate, it still makes no sense to adopt hugely expensive measures to address it — that was the central theme of his book, Cool It! (2007), aimed at a non-technical (in econ, not climatology or physics) audience, and his many op-eds since then. William Nordhaus reached broadly similar conclusions in his book, A Question of Balance (2008), and has expanded on the theme in lots of follow-up in the economic literature since then as well.
@Lew Skannen –
Unfortunately. BIg Oil is =financing the alarmists because it expects to make more money on higher energy prices and be able to profit from otherwise uneconomic renewables projects. The one exception appears to be the Koch brothers, David and Charles. I’m not sure whether they would be open to being apoproached, as they have tried to stay out of, inter alia, the Keystone Pipeline debate. Perhaps someone shoud try and appeat to their patriotism.
Anthony, I am disappointed that you would concede the “reality” of AGW. Human activity is a statistically insignificant fraction of an infinitesimal factor in climate change. Whatever effect it does have is way too small to separate it from the thousands of other factors driving climate change. Is that a “reality”?
The Oregon Petition statement has it right: there is no discernible effect. That is what skepticism should proceed from. We have an airtight (pun intended) case, why make concessions like that? All that does is let the alarmists say, “AHA! You believe it too,” with the corollaries that “You’re lying after all,” and “SEE! We’ve been right all along.”
Sorry, but I see no good reason to leave them that kind of opening. What do other posters here think?
REPLY: and I’m disappointed that you don’t pay any attention to absorption spectra. My involvement isn’t a debate – I’m already promoting this. Please, either help or get out of the way. – Anthony
@Chad Wozniak
The Oregon Petition states: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
It does recognize the greenhouse effect and does not deny that “human release of carbon dioxide…” has any effect at all other than it will not “cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere…”.
I see no conflict with what Anthony is saying.
Chad Wozniak:
Your post at May 2, 2013 at 3:16 pm concludes by asking
Well, I am one poster who has stated what he thinks about that, and my post explained why you are plain wrong.
Had you really wanted to know what other posters think then you would have read my explanation and attempted refutation of it as part of your post. Therefore, I understand your question to be a request for your view to be supported and not a genuine call for the opinions of others.
My post is at May 2, 2013 at 12:05 pm and in the unlikely event that you want to read it then this link jumps to it
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/02/help-launch-climate-skeptic-film-project-50-to-1/#comment-1294907
Richard
In reply to Ian,
Ian Weiss says:
May 2, 2013 at 8:24 am
Thank-you Ian.
This is an interesting video of John Christy on how the cost of energy affects the life of poor people in Western countries and in third world countries.
I thought it was interesting that John Christy worked as a teacher in Africa. Christy is a ‘skeptic’ and Christy obviously cares about people, including the poor. There is a mistaken view that the so called ‘skeptics’ do not carry about the poor and third world countries. As Christy notes in video, the ‘green’ policies adversely affect the poorest people of the world. Cheap reliable energy is the key reason why Western countries have a high standard of living.
The resultant of the green scams and the carbon cap/carbon trading programs is to double the cost of energy with no significant reduction in net CO2 emitted. (An example is Germany where the cost of electrical power is roughly twice that of the US.)
For a person who has a good job in a Western country a doubling of the cost of energy will reduce our living standard but we will still be able to reap the benefits of energy in life. We do not need to carry water to our homes or carry fire wood to our house for cooking. Our homes are warm in the winter and comfortable in the summer. We have refrigeration so we have refresh food available anytime. Our supermarkets are full of fresh fruit and vegetables winter or summer. We have safe clean refrigerated meat available anytime. Each of these practical benefits is due to energy.
The anti energy stance of the green parties affects poor people more than the middle class. The ‘green’ parties are elitist; they create policy for a fairy tale world where the ‘good’ people do not use energy. In their fairy tale world the state has infinite money to spend. Engineering reality and costs do not apply in their fairy tale. They ignore massive unemployment as jobs are transferred to other countries as a direct result of their policies. For example the last refinery has closed in France.
Energy makes our life better.
Anthony, I do pay attention to absorption spectra, but regardless of these or other properties of carbon dioxide its effect on climate is nugatory. Such properties as CO2 does have do not make it a discernible factor in climate change, in the circumjstances, and with human activity representing a tiny percentage of CO2 activity, human activity is even less of a factor.
I’m sorry if you perceive this as “getting in the way.” My object in commenting here is to share whatever perspectives I have and help to rally the troops – and more personally, to support your efforts, not hinder them. You are doing a tremendous service and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of it. But I also see a need for a solidly united front on the issue, if we are to make any headway against alarmism.
Yes, do nothing to stop man-made global warming, there is so little of it, and it is good.
Standing on the sidelines accomplishes nothing. Any effort to educate the low information folks is critical to our future. Remember they vote in many different ways! Just look at the USA and how that is working out! Then take a peek at the EU and down under and see how much of the “other people’s money” is flushed away under the guide of CAGW.
Cupish?
I second the notion of trying to get Bjorn Lomborg interviewed for the project as well. Some skeptics feel he is too accommodating of the ‘climate-change-is-bad’ idea, but the concept of “even if climate change is real, we’re better off not spending money on it” is very much along the lines of what he has been saying for years. Even if he can’t be interviewed, I would hope he would still be mentioned positively, due to all his work in this area.
My last comment is stuck in the “awaiting moderation” zone,
probably because I used the “d” word.
🙁
Jim B in Canada says:
May 2, 2013 at 2:00 pm
———————————–
Agree donating to Anthony is more important, but another video is a useful tool, IMO. I use them to help educate friends & co-workers, along with links. People are more likely to play a video on YouTube than read a scientific paper. The excellent Channel 4 program was too long:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle
I’ve had luck of late with Burt Rutan’s material & the astronaut & NASA mission controllers’ anti-Hansen letter, among other references to counter the “97%” lie (usually taken to mean of all scientists, not just 77 “actively publishing climate scientists”, ie activists).
This video seems aimed at VERIFYING the false claims of bad science while weakly advocating that we have to adapt to the false claims. Its only argument is economic, and it’s pretty clear that the EU Parliament is already acting on the economic problem by canceling subsidies. So what’s the point in persuading the public of the economic problem while helping to advance the bad science?
Sorry, no support here.
Every bit helps when hacking at the blinders of true believers.
Will kick in when Pay Pal is up.
Oh dear!
Lord Monckton encourages you to make a video, but his lordship doesn’t have the cash at hand to make it happen? So he doesn’t put his money where his mouth is? Is his money tight at the moment, or does he simply prefer to let others pay for an insecure investment?
Reich.Eschhaus,
It’s not your money, so what’s your complaint?
@dbstealey
I am not complaining. 😀
Reich.Eschhaus says:
May 2, 2013 at 7:33 pm
” …………prefer to let others pay for an insecure investment?”
=======
When/if I invest, it won’t be for the return on investment (cus it’s like a donation).
Is Paypal up yet ?
@u.k.(us)
I agree, people will donate to projects they consider right, even when they don’t get a return on investment. No clue about PayPal though…