The Great Climate Debate of 2024

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.
— Richard Feynman

Today, humans are spending more than $1 trillion each year on decarbonization and renewables. A recent McKinsey study claims we’ll need to spend 9.2 trillion per year for the next 30 years. Governments are spending hundreds of billions on research. This is all based on “settled science” promoted by the United Nations and World Economic Forum without proper scientific scrutiny.

Is the science really settled?

Is science ever settled?

Is, as the New York Times claims, $3.2 trillion a pittance? Should we maybe double-check the assumptions before we throw billions of people into energy poverty? Is money an influencing factor?

I propose a debate between the best scientists behind the common narrative of human-caused climate change and the skeptical scientists who do not agree. This debate will inform future research and ivestment, future taxing and spending. If it is worth the expense, this debate will help justify those expenses. If it is not worth the expense, this debate will help channel funds to where they are actually needed.

There will be opposition to even having a debate. That is precisely why we need one.

Background

The science of climate change is not settled, as evidenced by the many books, blogs, videos, and papers on the topic. I assume the reader gets most information from the popular press. To counter that, this website provides hundreds of valuable scientific resources that do not support the “consensus” narrative that humans are changing the climate. Many of the authors I feature here are former IPCC lead authors and committee members, or were department heads and high-profile academics until they were targeted, attacked, and fired from their academic jobs. Most of us have been deplatformed from social media.

One highlight is the book Unsettled, by Steve Koonin, who was Under Secretary for Science, Department of Energy for the Obama administration and is now director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University.

We live in a time of scientocracy. Peer-review is not what we think it is. Governments have corrupted scientific research. There are many more credible scientific resources at Climatecurious.com and at the CO2 Coalition website. To-date, there have been almost no debates. The only debates I know of are:

Karolly vs Happer. Dr Will Happer, professor of physics emeritus at Princeton, debated with Dr David Karoly, professor of atmospheric sciences at University of Melbourne. In the middle of the debate, Karolly dropped out and refused to continue.
Then there is Mann vs Curry and Moore — you can decide who won that for yourself.
Alex Epstein vs Robert F Kennedy, Jr and Alex Epstein vs Andrew Dessler — these are not scientific, but they are worth watching.
Steve Koonin has had several debates.

In general, the debates do not go well for those promoting alarm. See for yourself.

Proposal

I’m looking for a fair debate on the merits, on the data, on critical thinking, not on grandstanding, hyperbole, repetition, and institutional name recognition. I propose an online debate between anthropogenic global warming (AGW) alarmists and AGW skeptics. It would take place over two months along the following loose guidelines:

The debate would be made available as a set of videos on its own website.

It would be conducted in-person or on Zoom.

It would be chaired and moderated by someone independent and media-savvy. For example:

Russ Roberts, an economist, podcaster, and independent thinker.
Chris Wallace, a journalist who has worked both for Fox News and CNN and moderated presidential debates.
Kristen Welker, a journalist who moderated one of the 2020 presidential debates.
Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman?

Or another equally qualified moderator who is neutral and has at least some background in statistics and the scientific method. Possibly someone from ScienceDebate.com. Possibly someone from the Pew Charitable Trusts. Maybe we need a panel of moderators. I’d love to see Scientific American take this on, as they are one of the most biased and unscientific organizations promoting the alarm, so if they will agree, we can have a fair debate. It should be about science, not politics.

There would be a panel of experts who are trained in decision science, statistics, and critical thinking. These experts would be paid and would be sworn to render a neutral opinion without previous biases. In all, there should be about ten experts — an even number — with the same number biased toward vs against AGW and the remainder neutral. I would work with the moderator to put this panel together.

A list of potential experts:

Doug Hubbard, CEO of Hubbard Decision Research — he is biased toward alarm.
Scott Alexander, host of Astral Codex Ten, an evidence-based blog. He is biased toward alarm.
Steven Novella, a popular neuroscience blogger. He is biased toward alarm.
Anyone from the board of directors of the Decision Sciences Institute.
Anyone from SmartOrg.
Anyone from this list of distinguished women decision/data scientists.
Kevin Dick, a decision and data scientist who is a partner in a venture fund. He is biased toward skepticism.
Bryan Caplan, an economist, author, and critical thinker. He is biased toward skepticism.
Alex Tabarrok, an economist, author, and critical thinker. He is slightly biased toward alarm.
Eliezer Yudkowsky, founder of Less Wrong, teacher of decision science.
Julia Galef, a disciple of Yudkowsky and expert on Bayesian reasoning.
Lex Fridman, a popular interviewer and YouTube influencer.
Joe Rogan, a popular interviewer and YouTube influencer. Biased toward skepticism.
I would also add a few young people in their 20s. Two come to mind: 1) Maxwell Tabarrok, and Maarten Van Doorn. There are others.

There would be two committees of three people chosen to head up and organize the debate: one committee on each side. Those six people will be responsible for organization, choosing people to present, managing documentation, schedule, etc. They would also be paid for their work.

The format would be one day per week for eight weeks, where each day is dedicated to about 2-4 hours of debate on these five topics:

Paleo temperatures and climate eras before 10,000 years ago
Paleocene temperatures and climate to 1800
Temperatures and climate 1800 to 2020
The role of human-emitted CO2 in influencing climate — the greenhouse effect, tipping points, etc.
The role of the sun and cosmic elements in influencing climate — sunspots, orbital mechanics, cosmic rays, etc.
The role of heat transport via the oceans and ocean oscillations
Clouds and albedo
Complex systems and coupled system dynamics
Evidence for the global climate already being influenced by humans.
Predictions and models for the future of earth’s climate

The two committees will be given equal amounts of time for presentation and argument, generally 90 minutes each, alternating 15-minute time slots with a short break half way through. Then there would be 1–2 hours of questioning by the panel of experts. During this time, the presenters speak only to the panel, not to opposing presenters.

At the end of each day, the two sides have 15 minutes to summarize their position, taking into account the arguments they have heard from the other side.

Each week, the panel of experts will independently write up their impressions and conclusions from what they learned in that week’s debate. They will submit summaries of their conclusions in writing separately, without communication, to the chair at the end of each week.

After all eight weeks, there is a final day, in which each side has 45 minutes to present its case relative to everything discussed so far, and then 2–4 hours of questions by the panel.

Synthesis

After the eight session, the panel of experts, which includes the moderator, will each submit their overall summaries and short summaries of each session independently, without knowing the others’ summaries. They will also vote independently to answer the questions:

To what degree have humans already influenced the global climate?
How much extra global warming are humans expected to cause over the next 80 years by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere?
What are the uncertainties involved? What are your confidence intervals for all conclusions?
To what degree is there a climate emergency now?
What do they believe should be done about CO2 today and for this century?

Then, after submitting their separate analyses, the panelists will meet to discuss the evidence among themselves — sort of like a jury does. After this meeting, they will craft a joint statement with a summary that includes the conclusions reached by all experts individually and as a group. There can be majority and minority opinions. The moderator will read this document out loud in a final session, and any expert panelists who want to comment may do so. I hope this would be memorialized in a special edition of Scientific American that would be carefully guarded until the day it was released.

Press coverage

Select journalists would be invited based on their ability to be neutral, attend all sessions, maintain secrecy, and their degree of statistical literacy. We may need to hire an outside group to choose these journalists, or I can do it with the moderator. The journalists may be paid by their employers or we may pay them if they are independent. Journalists must declare their previous biases, any biases by their employers, and commit to covering both sides fairly.

There would be a press embargo during the debate, to avoid sensationalizing the weekly sessions.

There will be some kind of press event after the final session. It could be an open Q&A with the panel members and the chair.

Members of the press may interview presenters or experts on their own time after the final session.

Promotion

The sponsoring institution would commit to promoting the debate and the results as widely as possible, and ensuring fairness in reporting. This involves a website dedicated to the debate and its results. It involves hiring a PR firm to promote to the media. It also involves naming any media who openly refuse to cover the debate.

Staff

The staff would be:

David Siegel, producer
a journalist coordinator
Web team to coordinate zoom and produce website
PR team
People from the sponsoring institutions

Prize money

The prize is to compensate the presenters for their time and to help draw attention to the debate. The prize should be enough to make a splash. If we’re already spending trillions of dollars, we need enough prize money to help everyone realize what’s at stake. Something like $2 million. The money is awarded according to the results of the panel voting on the first question only, because the first question is based on data, not projections. It could be 100 percent for one side, or an 80/20 split, 50/50, etc. The winning side would choose how to deploy the money to go to groups they think are doing the most important work.

Budget

I’m happy to work up a budget for anyone who’s serious about funding. I think it would be around $1-5m:

$500k in prize money

$500k to pay for staff and logistics

The lion’s share for public relations and promotion of the results. After all, Scientific American isn’t going to just do this for the science — they are in it for the money.

The big problem

The big problem is that the IPCC, NASA, and NOAA won’t participate. These are politically driven organizations. They have refused many debate offers in the past. They are winning at the moment. A debate on the science is not in their best interest. We need to put pressure on them to get them to the table.

Once we set up the budget and sponsors, we will work with a good PR firm and our network to invite the other side. If they refuse, that message will be made public. If we can get over this problem, we should be prepared for many new revelations in the world of climate science that people didn’t know before. We should be prepared for news organizations like the New York Times to distort the results. Most news organizations make good money when they tell people the world is going to end — it sells advertising. They are not neutral. Many people make a living now on decarbonization and don’t want it to go away.

There will be opposition to a debate. That is precisely why we need one.

On the other hand, precious little money goes from fossil fuel companies to researchers and people like us at the CO2 Coalition. Almost none. We are volunteers trying to find the truth. If they win the debate, we will have to admit that our arguments were unconvincing and will need to look again at where we think the science really is. We don’t mind. We want scientific integrity to win over politics. We’ll happily change our minds when we see new data that contradicts our existing beliefs.

A second problem: this event will be attacked by fringe groups and rent seekers. We must work very hard to ensure scientific integrity. While I am qualified to produce the event, they will attack me as not being neutral. However, that is not the case. My first book was alarmist. I had to study hard to realize what the IPCC was doing and change my mind. They won’t appreciate this. They will use labels and smear tactics. We will be very open and transparent. We must work with the PR company pro-actively to make sure nothing is going on behind the scenes.

Future debates

This is strictly a scientific debate on the past and predicted effects of human-added CO2 to our climate. If successful, this debate could lead to a group doing cost/benefit analysis before spending trillions on energy and environmental issues. It could be influential on policy. More debates could be held to investigate renewable energy, fossil-fuel energy, ozone depletion, plastic pollution, ocean and rainforest health, nuclear energy, energy policy, and other topics.

Summary

If you think this isn’t important, look at the worldwide effects of energy poverty. Look at the damage the ESGs are doing to our economy and to people in poor countries. Look at energy prices in Europe.

One side is lying. One side is looking for the truth. Let’s find out which side and get to work building resilient economies that take care of their poor.

I welcome a discussion with any potential sponsors who may be interested. If it goes well, we could take on many other controversial and important scientific and economic topics.

This debate will be an important moment not just for the environment but for science.