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The Cape Henry light houses
An online gambling service started accepting bets this week on when rising waters from global warming will submerge Cape Henry in Virginia Beach and Cape Hatteras on North Carolina's Outer Banks.
BetUs.com is offering 200-to-1 odds to anyone willing to wager that Cape Henry will be underwater by 2015 and 300-to-1 odds that Cape Hatteras will be swamped by the same date.
Phil Roehrs, a coastal engineer for the city of Virginia Beach, recommended against the bets - "they're absurd, actually," he said.
Although sea levels are indeed rising along the East Coast, Roehrs said, even the wildest scientific predictions do not come close to the levels and dates laid down by the gambling service.
"No wonder the odds are so good," he said.
Reed Richards, a spokesman for the New York-based service, said plenty of folks are plopping down dollars on global warming - 3,000 during the first three days of online booking, he said.
The most popular bet so far?
That Manhattan will be submerged before New Year's Eve 2011. "Don't ask me why," Richards said.
Wagering on global warming is an extension of what Richards calls "pop culture gambling." It started several years ago when the service took bets on who would win the TV reality shows "Survivor" and "American Idol."
It has since spun into Hollywood and its melodramas, including laying odds on certain movie stars getting divorced or entering drug rehab.
With global warming and its potential consequences dominating the headlines in recent years, it was only a matter of time before online gambling jumped into the fray. "Someone had to do it," Richards said.
Among other eco-propositions up for grabs: polar bears will become extinct by 2010 (100-to-1 odds); a car will hit the market by 2008 that runs solely on water (150-to-1 ); Florida is under water by New Year's Eve 2011 (10-to-1 ).
Good luck. |
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发表于 2007-4-14 00:06
