The climate bookie

A letter in the Oz today but most of it went missing, here's the full text:

With respect to climate science Brian Schmidt claims to have "considerable knowledge of the science at hand" yet in his proposed bet with Maurice Newman he is unwilling to put a figure on the amount of warming he expects in 20 years. He would be aware that the real debate is not about whether it will warm or not, but the amount of warming, and its effect. Based on the IPCC's current report the range for future warming based on estimates of the climate's sensitivity to CO2 is quite broad and implies anything from inconvenience to catastrophe. With his "considerable knowledge" I would have thought Dr Schmidt would have been confident enough in the science to nominate a figure against which Mr Newman could bet rather than take him for a mug punter.