LIVE Webinar: Mathematical Models and Their Role in Government Policy

Making predictions about the future is notoriously difficult. With increasing sophistication, mathematical models have attempted to capture the mechanics of complex systems and processes.

But how can we distinguish between models with genuine predictive power, and those which mislead us? And how can the uncertainty inherent in such predictions be adequately communicated to politicians?

Joining the GWPF's Harry Wilkinson to discuss these vital questions are Professors Gordon Hughes and Christopher Essex, and Dr Benny Peiser.

Speakers

Professor Gordon Hughes

Dr Gordon Hughes is an emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh. He was a senior adviser on energy and environmental policy at the World Bank until 2001. He has advised governments on the design and implementation of environmental policies and was responsible for some of the World Bank’s most important environmental guidelines.

Professor Christopher Essex

Dr Christopher Essex is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Applied Mathematics at The University of Western Ontario. He is the co-author, with Ross McKitrick, of Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming (revised edition 2007). He co-discovered the entropy production paradox, computed the first accurate entropy production rate for the Earth, the first accurate temperature for laser radiation, and pioneered the concept of computational over-stabilization, which has implications for climate models. He is the Chairman of the GWPF's Academic Advisory Council.

Dr Benny Peiser

Benny Peiser is the director of the Global Warming Policy Forum. He is a social scientist and has written extensively on climate alarmism and international climate policy. A 10km-wide asteroid, Minor Planet (7107) Peiser, was named in his honour by the International Astronomical Union.