Tag Archives: climate change

Betting on Copenhagen

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Emile Servan-Schreiber comments on a New York Times opinion piece:

The idea that betting could help us gain clarity on some controversial scientific questions has first been proposed by George Mason economics professor Robin Hanson in 1992 in a paper entitled &#8220-Could Gambling Save Science&#8221- and available online here: http://hanson.gmu.edu/gamble.html

The benefits of creating prediction markets about controversial climate-change issues in particular is further developed on Nate Silver&#8217-s blog and in this presentation given at CalTech in 2004: http://us.newsfutures.com/home/environmentalFutures.html

Economist Brad DeLong has received a DMCA takedown notice from HarperCollins, publisher of Steve Levitt and Steve Dubners SuperFreakonomics.

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– Brad DeLong has received a DMCA takedown notice from HarperCollins.

– http://delong.typepad.com/files/superfreakonomics-chapter-5.pdf

– Is SuperFreakonomics author Levitt again denying the ‘unequivocal’ scientific evidence for global warming? New Yorker’s Kolbert calls book a form of “horseshit.”

– One error retracted, 99 to go. Superfreaknomics authors will, in future editions, correct their claim that Caldeira believes “carbon dioxide is not the right villain”.

– Ken Caldeira’s Carbon Solution

Intellectual Ventures wanna solve global warming via stratoshield.

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&#8220-Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) assailed the authors of SuperFreakonomics for participating in the effort to deceive the American public on the science of global warming, in particular for their &#8220-absolute deception&#8221- in their portrayal of the views of climate scientist Ken Caldeira. He criticized the book during a hearing of the House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming investigating forged letters sent on behalf of the coal industry opposing climate legislation.&#8221-

Ocean acidification:

Geo-Engineering Planet Earth – The Super Freakonomics Solution To Global Warming

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Narrator: “Every year, more and more ice must be dumped into the ocean to cool the earth, thus solving the problem forever.&#8221-

Little Girl: &#8220-But . . .&#8221-

Narrator: &#8220-Forever!!!&#8221-

– The SuperFreakonomics Global-Warming Fact Quiz

– Read all the comments there.

UPDATE: Climate Progress + AP

UPDATE: Harvard Business Review

The definitive proof that FOR-PROFIT prediction exchanges (like BetFair and InTrade) are the best organizers of socially valuable prediction markets (like those on global warming and climate change).

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Last year, I said that the BetFair prediction markets on global warming would fail.

I said:

My prediction is that the first two BetFair Global Warming prediction markets (HSBC Investable Climate Change Index and ECX CFI Futures Contract) will fail miserably.

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They failed, indeed. Remain only those two prediction markets, with ultra light volumes: Highest and Lowest UK Temperature.

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As for the InTrade prediction markets on climate change (USA agrees before end of 2009 to reduce CO2 emissions by 10% or more by year 2025), liquidity is more than thin.

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Now, ask yourself:

  • If BetFair and InTrade (which are for-profit prediction exchanges) encounter difficulties with those &#8220-socially valuable prediction markets&#8221-, why would not-for-profit prediction exchanges (like the Iowa Electronic Markets) be more successful at it?
  • Don&#8217-t you think that the American Enterprise Institute&#8217-s proposals (which would outlaw the for-profit prediction exchanges) are out of whack? I do. Let&#8217-s do something.

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