World leaders gathered in New York are being lambasted by the UN with predictions of dire climate consequences if they fail to institute costly policies against CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, 20 months ago Scott Armstrong challenged Al Gore, an advocate of the UN forecasts.
Scott Armstrong is Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he has been since 1968. Armstrong is involved with forecasting methods, survey research, educational methods, social responsibility, personnel selection, and scientific peer review.
Armstrong challenged Gore to bet the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's projection that global mean temperatures would be 0.3 degrees Celsius warmer in ten years time against the scientific benchmark forecast that there would be no change in global mean temperatures. Al Gore declined the bet but, had he taken it, he would have lost 18 out of the first 20 months of the bet.
For graphs recording the predictions and outcome to-date see the TheClimateBet.com. See also the graph showing a third-party prediction market on who will win the bet; participants favor the scientific approach to forecasting global temperatures giving Armstrong a 73% chance of winning.