A few days ago I posted about the value of prizes in innovation. Yesterday The Guardian published a story stating that the American Enterprise Institute is offering $10,000 “for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).” Later the article states that “the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.”

Now, these are two very different things, but let’s suppose for a moment that AEI is offering a prize to scientists who can refute the IPCC report. Given the recent New York Times article, isn’t this exactly the thing to do? No matter what you believe about climate change, you have to be sick of the unsupported carping by both sides. It’s been highly politicized and has become dogma for many. What we all should want, however, is to understand what can be supported by facts and research, and how credible that research is. A prize to refute the IPCC report would go a long way in doing that. Ten Thousand dollars is enough money that I don’t think (despite the article’s silly characterization of the organization) the AEI will hand it over for propaganda even if it wanted to. If a requirement of winning the prize is that the research must be accepted into a peer reviewed journal (etc., etc.), we could have an extremely valuable contest. The main problem I see is that the prize may simply not be enough. Any scientist entering the contest will be badly abused by the powerful climate change lobby and $10,000 may not be worth it. One Texas A&M prof, speaking a bit cryptically, says as much in the article. If Netflix can offer $1,000,000 for a better recommendation algorithm, can’t we find someone to offer the same amount to bring another side to the climate change debate? If you strip away the article’s righteous indignation that a) anyone could question the IPCC report and, b) that filthy lucre has been entered into the debate, you’ll see that this type of contest would go far to shed light on a subject that’s been too long in the shadows. C’mon all you dirty, filthy, corporate funded scientists - innovate your way to this prize, if you can!