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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@ur momisugly Greg House says:
May 3, 2013 at 11:29 am
I can see your reason for concern. To even acknowledge the IPCC as something to be addressed, or to utilize any part of its doings, is to have been incorporated into its programme.
In a normal manner of conducting an argument, which is what Monckton is doing, to use points made by your protagonist to show the inadequacy of their position is effective. But that is only in the case of the rational. And most importantly, the honest. And that is not how this business has proceeded.
I agree that this is problematic for the public in the way it is perceived. Any response from the Believers will not have any relationship with rationality (except to disable it). So, it could, if not handled well, just become a shell with vindication of the IPCC left as the only (seemingly) clear point.
I can’t say I know what position to take on this. I think it may come down to execution. If, somehow, it comes across very clearly that the IPCC is untrustworthy, and that despite their machinations they can be undone on their own terms, I think it can succeed.
Personally, I think it is overtime for a tone of contempt to be adopted in dealing with these people. Their abuses more than justify it they demand it. As has been said elsewhere, ridicule is effective. When it is is without doubt justified it can be scathing – and robust on examination.
Without knowing exactly how the video is to be paced and structured, and how and what will be emphasized, its not really possible to make a judgement on the type of risk you bring up.
@James Baldwin Allison says:
May 3, 2013 at 12:09 pm
You may be right about the strength of the adherence to this orthodoxy. But you may also have become a prisoner of the propaganda yourself. We constantly hear cries that the “people” demand action on AGW from their governments. That is simply a huge f… lie.
There are a very small number of agitators, with a committed support base. Those that are religiously inviolate is not large. Those that have accepted the orthodoxy is much larger, but still, is not the majority. And they don’t all think that something should be done at any cost.
The core problem in countering this is that there has not been a coherent alternative position available. People must have something to hand their hats on. If they are rejecting a comprehensive package, it is much easier to do – maybe impossible to do otherwise – if there is an equally complete alternative. From the above, Topher seems to understand this.
I think you are assuming that this must cut through with the truly committed. It won’t and it doesn’t have to. This is a matter of getting through to those who think there is (or might be) a problem but have no where to go with this. And for those already disinclined to adhere, to give them a solid base to strengthen resolve and from which to refute.
Unrelated to the video, I found your relationship with foundational aspects of Christianity interesting. Indeed a very close fit, and perhaps not surprising. I think one thing that can be done, apart from waiting on Gaia to lose fever, is to show to people to what degree these adherents have in effect inhabited the carcass of a human religion and replaced it with something essentially non-human, devoid of human values and morality.
They can be shown to be parasites and degraders in this way. Again, it doesn’t matter what the Believers think. With a change in perception, they isolate themselves.
It seems a paid troll is intent on sniping childishly in a wearisomely familiar fashion. The latest of three or four snide comments he has made is to the effect that my results are “unproven”. Well, they were subjected first to the Fifth Los Alamos Climate Conference in Santa Fe, then to the World Federation of Scientists’ annual meeting on planetary emergencies, neither of which could find any serious fault with the method or results. A suggestion at both meetings that a zero discount rate be adopted to remove one remaining ground of potential contention has been adopted.
After review by the Federation in its customary fashion, which included a rigorous, line-by-line scrutiny of the argument by a senior member very much on the climate-extremist wing, the underlying paper is to be published in the 45th Annual Proceedings of the World Federation of Scientists, one of the oldest scientific journals in the world.
In any event, in the sciences – as anyone but a paid troll would acknowledge – proof is very rarely available. The art of science is to constrain uncertainty. If the paid troll is unable to understand the elementary calculations that are available to him, elementary textbooks of economics and of climatology are available.
Oh, and if the paid troll is a troll but not paid to be a troll by – to name but one – the ClimateWorks Foundation, why does he waste his time and ours on useless, childish points? He has never yet contributed a constructive thought to any of the discussions here. I’d tell him to grow up, but there’s only one cure for second childhood.
jc says (May 3, 2013 at 12:12 pm): “If, somehow, it comes across very clearly that the IPCC is untrustworthy, and that despite their machinations they can be undone on their own terms, I think it can succeed. … Without knowing exactly how the video is to be paced and structured, and how and what will be emphasized, its not really possible to make a judgement on the type of risk you bring up.”
=========================================================
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. So far we have only heard/read repeated claims by Monckton. At first it were references to other people, now it has become Monckton himself, but if you read the linked document they provided, you will only find a ridiculous comparison between a part and the whole.
Therefore “how the video is to be paced and structured, and how and what will be emphasized” can have some propaganda effect, right, but again, they do not seem to have a scientific point. I do not like propaganda, sorry. As I do not like supporting the core IPCC statements for no scientific reasons, what Monckton has been doing all the time.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
May 3, 2013 at 10:41 am
Let me understand this, we have one side that wants to conduct “Climate Trials” with possible death sentences, has turned public school science programs into Mao like reeducation camps on climate, burns books, refuses to disclose key data sets, refuses to discuss “settle science” and generally is promoting a Neo-Marxist global agenda wrapped in climate policy. A key instrument being the IPCC to this purpose.
You want to pander to this with some middling “adaptation” policy which seems to carry many of the false flags of Judith Curry or Lomborg talking points?
This isn’t a proportional reaction to what the rational world is up against.
.
Here in Australia, Topher has form (see TophersUnpopularView channel on YouTube). I consider him an excellent communicator and more than able to carry the argument forward. Since Australia’s Carbon Tax is being used as the prime example, it is encouraging to see an Australian pushing against it for all the world to see.
My suggestion is to make the movie, then follow up with a series of short ‘Myth Busters’ type videos that focus on individual Green porkies such as polar bears, 100m sea rise, Great Barrier Reef, etc, etc. etc.
Good luck Topher, I will be making a contribution via Paypal.
I’m with Topher on this one … as he says above:
Let’s keep our eye on that prize!
Think about it … How many of us here “migrated” from unthinking, uncritical acceptance of “science says … therefore we must” to investigating for ourselves before arriving at the skeptical position – and the realization that the “science” had become a (you should pardon my use of the word!) “proxy” (and, in hindsight, quite possibly a diversionary one at that!) for the politics?
One of the CG2 emails (2428.txt) – from the U.K.’s John Ashton, a man whose bio indicates that he is “equally at home in the worlds of foreign policy and green politics” – was, IMHO, quite telling in this regard. As I had noted in a recent post, in 2004, Ashton had written:
More recently, Ashton’s “diplomatic” rhetoric – delivered, circa April 11, to the U.K. Met Office, “a jewel in the crown, of British and global science” – has escalated to such memorable heights as:
So, let’s fight … uh … fire (and icons and images of hockey-sticks, polar bears and symbolic book-burnings) with fire, I say! It is “imperative”, it could well be “transformational” … and it is “urgent” 😉 At the very least, it is “Mission Possible”! But I digress …
Some have suggested that Topher’s pace is too fast for the Uninformed Lay Person (ULP) to absorb his message. I respectfully disagree. Any ULP with a modicum of critical thinking skills will get it! And besides, Topher has demonstrated that he is quite capable of modulating and varying his pace – as he did, for example, in “The Little Government that Could”
http://youtu.be/FXlMFWmotSU
richardscourtney says:
May 3, 2013 at 7:56 am
cwon14:
Your post at May 3, 2013 at 7:36 am displays complete misunderstanding of the existing reality.
It says
“Perhaps many of the skeptic/lukewarm warriors are living in their own false status quo? Neither peace or victory can be expected any time soon with pandering ideas like accepting IPCC meme’s.”
In reality we climate realists have won and the warmunist defeat was conceded at Copenhagen years ago.
The priority now is to limit the damage from the AGW-scare as it fades away.
Clearly, you have missed my explanation of this need to limit the damage so I will repeat it.
The AGW-scare was killed at the failed 2009 IPCC Conference in Copenhagen. I said then that the scare would continue to move as though alive in similar manner to a beheaded chicken running around a farmyard. It continues to provide the movements of life but it is already dead. And its deathly movements provide an especial problem.
Nobody will declare the AGW-scare dead: it will slowly fade away. This is similar to the ‘acid rain’ scare of the 1980s. Few remember that scare unless reminded of it but its effects still have effects; e.g. the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) exists. Importantly, the bureaucracy which the EU established to operate the LCPD still exists. And those bureaucrats justify their jobs by imposing ever more stringent, always more pointless, and extremely expensive emission limits which are causing enforced closure of UK power stations.
Bureaucracies are difficult to eradicate and impossible to nullify.
As the AGW-scare fades away those in ‘prime positions’ will attempt to establish rules and bureaucracies to impose those rules which provide immortality to their objectives. Guarding against those attempts now needs to be a serious activity.
The message of the proposed video is precisely what needs to be publicised at this time.
I find your post rather confusing. How have we won and how will this scam fade away when the only example you give is of the machinary of scams continuing and growing stronger – we’ve lost.
We’ve lost because we will continue to be penalised by the destructive policies to the poor and middle class and outside of the cartels businesses while those who think themselves the elite sitting on the top of pile will continue to use the emotional energy of the oik greenies to make sure their perch is secure by taking over control of every aspect of our lives.
The theme of this in itself is, quite frankly, too boring to warrant a short film which should be punchy and should offer some possibility of active response against this scam, but as others have noted, the only message it puts across is that the IPCC and therefore the whole global warming and demonisation of carbon dioxide propaganda it is manipulating by its unscientific models and use of data fraud is not an issue for sceptics.
It is a propaganda film for the warmists and for those controlling, or thinking they control, the show.
The damage is best limited by destroying the base on which this scam was built, it will follow naturally when the science fraud of temperature manipulations are addressed – that they at the highest levels of science have been hiding the fact that temperatures haven’t risen for nearly two decades while continuing temperature manipulations for their ever more shrill scaremongering to boost the destructive social and economic policies which they have helped put in place and which have grown like topsy in that time, is the only story worth telling as a sound bite short film, imo..
And, it shouldn’t be allowed to fade away. This is the biggest science fraud perpetrated to date, it affects most of us globally to our detriment by the policies put in place by it promotion, but, it also affects our science base globally, it has thoroughly trashed science. This should be remembered, not forgotten.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/rupert-wyndham-takes-on-paul-nurse-and-the-royal-society/
Forgot to add my real name to the above: Hilary Ostrov (memo to self … change your WP settings so that you don’t have to remember to add this!)
Is this what Agnew meant by “Nattering nabobs of negativism”? Some people have fallen into the trap of typing every stupid thing that comes to their minds. If you don’t want to play, then don’t. Harping at the players from the sidelines is not welcome.
$500 Canadian (Big Oil money) from me to you in the hope that this will be as powerful for AGW as FrackNation was for frac’ing.
Myrrh:
I read your question addressed to me. But I have learned from painful experience the difficulty of providing you with explanations. So,instead, I will inform you of how to find out how AGW was killed at the Copenhagen CoP and why that now gives us a problem.
The 2009 Copenhagen CoP was intended to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
Read the records of the massive changes that were proposed at Copenhagen, the names of the world leaders who attended, what they promised in the lead-up to that conference, and the complete failure to agree anything at that Conference.
Then read the records of the subsequent annual CoPs, how they each discussed only nonsense, agreed nothing, and were attended by no senior politicians from any country.
Then again read what I wrote and you quoted.
Richard
Contribution made.
Richard – I read your post, I’m confused by your claim that we have won because the rip off machinery is already in place, the Copenhagen set back has done nothing to stop the continued proliferation of economic and social policies detrimental to the majority of the world’s population built on this science fraud.
“As the AGW-scare fades away those in ‘prime positions’ will attempt to establish rules and bureaucracies to impose those rules which provide immortality to their objectives. Guarding against those attempts now needs to be a serious activity.”
The message of the proposed video is precisely what needs to be publicised at this time.
They will continue to win when the best defence you think possible is to tell them you’d be ever so grateful if they should see fit to limit their greedy consumption of our goods, chattels and freedoms by not creating any more perks for themselves..
We’ve lost already, the draconian measures are already in place and goverments fully behind it all, we’re the one’s running around like headless chickens.
More of the same in one variation or another is inevitable unless this science fraud on which it was all built is brought into the consciousness of all. No one likes to be conned, not even the greenie oiks who have been so easy to manipulate, as Maggie used them..
@ur momisugly dp
`’Reich – you are stating facts not in evidence. Perhaps Moncton is putting up his own money but not all the money needed. We don’t know – you don’t know. But while you can assume and suggest anything, of course, you will look less foolish if you do so quietly.
He is crowdsourcing this project which allows us all (yes, I contributed in spite of my misgivings of letting the IPCC define the playing field) an opportunity to take an active role in setting the direction of climate policy. That can’t be a bad thing, and even if he did pay in full for the entirety of this film, involving the masses is still a good idea.”
Agree, I don’t know if his lordship contributes with money. In any case others are asked for to pay to have his opinion on film.
Although the following comment may incline one to infer otherwise, I am in fact a great admirer of Lord M’s, and I wish him and his colleagues only the best in this endeavor. But what I’ve observed leads me to urge those colleagues to restrain two of his tendencies. In particular, please, please, PLEASE:
Don’t let him over-egg the pudding. Ninety-eight percent of what Monckton says is admirably adequate to make his point. Try not to let him compromise it by that debatable two percent he seems unable to help himself from throwing in.
Lose the Latin. A contemporary of his who similarly was ill-advised enough to study (in my case, four years of) that dead language, I appreciate the temptation, but I strongly suspect that to most people it more bespeaks pedantry than it does erudition.
I would leave you with this.
Interpretation in the end, is the end ,no?
“The bottom line is simple enough to understand. If it is 50 times less cost-effective to mitigate today in Australia than to adapt the day after tomorrow, then scaling up globally will give much the same ratio” -Chris
Scaling out to multi-decadal or century time scales however, will not. It is surprising that many comments on this thread can understand that costs will affect people beyond the ten-year mark but somehow nobody has realized that warming keeps going too…
I remain unconvinced an argument based on a 50 to 1 savings will win anyone over, especially given the alarmist fanatics are willing to destroy entire economies, destroy what remains of an industrial presence, and advocate for a power grid that will have rolling blackouts as a design feature. These are not people who care much for fiscal responsibility except that they are fiscally responsible for the collapse of western civilization. If this last the the hidden message that is hoped will prevail, forget it – it won’t fly in Twitter.
Popcorn’s on – I’ll watch from the cheap seats now.
Contributed – where do I make my tax claim?
,blockquote>Australian Screen Production Incentive
The Australian Screen Production Incentive is the Australian Government’s primary mechanism of supporting film and television production.
It provides generous tax incentives for film, television and other screen production in Australia and is available in three streams:
the Producer Offset, to encourage the production of Australian film and television projects. For information on this offset visit Screen Australia which administers this scheme
the Location Offset, a 16.5 per cent rebate which supports the production of large-budget film and television projects shot in Australia
the PDV Offset, a 30 per cent rebate which supports work on post, digital and visual effects production (PDV) in Australia, regardless of where a project is shot.
Maybe you can make the case that this is a good or bad thing rather than stating the obvious. Simply asking others to help fund his PSA project is not a characteristic unique to 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. I would draw your attention to public broadcasting in the US that produces a largely leftist view of world events using public support. Same with the US education system. No creating heads full of conservative mush to be found there.
Ryan takes issue with my statement that if it is 50 times less cost-effective to mitigate today in Australia than to adapt the day after tomorrow, then scaling up globally will give much the same ratio. He says scaling out to multi-decadal or centennial time-scales will not give the much the same ratio. Not only warming will continue (if the usual suspects are right) but also the costs, and in approximately the same proportion, so the ratio will remain broadly similar throughout.
Many commenters continue to struggle with the notion of my accepting the IPCC’s central climatological estimates for the sake of argument. The worst that can happen if anyone actually believes that in adopting the IPCC’s position for the sake of argument I have adopted it altogether is that my argument that even on the basis of the IPCC’s own estimates it is 50 times costlier to mitigate today than to adapt the day after tomorrow will be seen to have still greater force.
Finally, it is suggested that I use too much Latin and tend to over-egg the pudding. Well, the whole point of getting Topher to present the case is to make sure that it is in plain English; and the whole point of adopting the IPCC’s climatology ad argumentum is to under-egg the pudding. As the underlying paper for the Annual Proceedings of the World Federation of Scientists makes clear, the assumptions on which the calculations are based are conservative throughout.
I continue to be very grateful to all those who have been kind enough to contribute. To those who whine about whether I have myself contributed, I reply that I have worked more than full time, and largely unpaid, for several years on trying to get reason and truth back into science and public policy. I cannot afford to do so for very much longer.
As much as I admire the good intentions, fighting yesterdays wars is a waste of time.
YOU’RE TOO LATE.
The commies of the EU are well ahead of you in regards to the question of to mitigate or to adapt. They are already well on the way to ADAPTATION. Bureaucracies are being set up, new laws and regulations are well on the way.
http://ec.europa.eu/clima/news/articles/news_2013041601_en.htm
As much as I love and respect Monckton and Courtney et al, they have been caught in a pincer movement of mitigation and adaptation.
In the meantime, the AGW juggernaut is rolling on.
p.s. Anthony Watts..”Rational skeptics” Anthony? (May 2, 2013 at 9:14 am)
Did you really mean to write that, implying the rest of us are irrational?
Have you considered the implications of setting out in this direction i.e. negative labelling of those who don’t agree with you?
OOps not quite the right link in my comment above (though that will do as well)
here is the correct link to the EU report
http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/adaptation-in-europe/at_download/file
the campaign total to: $19,171!
At this time!