THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH IS THAT YOU WILL LOSE ALLYOUR MONEY

At last we get to cash in on death and destruction caused by climate change thanks to an online betting site called BetUS.com which is now taking wagers on various global warming related catastrophes. For example, you can get 100-to-1 odds that Manhattan will be completely submerged under water by the end of 2011. Betting that polar bears will be extinct by 2010 will also fetch you 100-to-1 odds. The gambling site’s spokesman Reed Richards claimed that this is the only area of betting where the gambler has the advantage over the house due to the many “variables that we can’t anticipate.” But climate scientists don’t agree, claiming that the bets are designed to part fools from their money. For example, a bet that will pay 150-to-1 odds that the oceans will rise an average of six inches worldwide before the end of this year was ridiculed by Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeller at NASA. “It’s more like a billion to one,” Schmidt explained “Anyone who puts money on that would be an idiot.” And for you glass-half-full people, you can even place bets that a car that runs solely on water will be produced by 2008 (150-to-1), or that Antarctica will be able to sustain crops and become livable for humans by 2015 (500-to-1). (LiveScience.com)