If you’re a 90’s kid, Bill Nye the Science Guy was basically your elementary science teacher. Now, he’s moved on to the big leagues – battling politicians, religious figures, and others on the hot button issues. One of these issues is climate change.
Before I get into the videos below, let’s get something straight.
First of all, despite any claims people may try to make about a lack of scientific consensus, 97% of climate scientists agree that global warming is caused by humans. These are the experts we’re talking about – the real experts.
So, in actuality, there is no debate, but some people need to handle the skeptics.
In this first video, Bill Nye debates “climate realist” Marc Morano:
Obviously, this is just a case of denial. Somehow, Morano has “facts” that differ from Bill Nye’s, or perhaps they’re just skewed statistics.
What bothered me the most here was that Morano claimed there hadn’t been an increase in drought in the last 60 years.
As someone from California and living in Colorado, this statement is ridiculous to me. I understand that this video is a couple years old and the California drought hadn’t happened yet, but if the following pictures don’t prove that drought has increased (both in occurrence and severity), I don’t know what else to say.
See the full gallery of images at this Daily Mail article.
In this next video, Bill Nye debates a Republican Congresswoman, Marsha Blackburn:
First of all, Blackburn claims that an increase from 320 ppm to 400 ppm of CO2 is not significant, which is just wrong. Secondly, she claims there is no consensus in the scientific community, despite that widely acknowledged 97% I mentioned earlier.
This is just another case of denial.
Now, this is where our science guy shines. He holds the congresswoman accountable and says, “We need you to change things, not deny what’s happening.”
Our politicians have the power in our government; they’re the ones capable of changing things, of fixing them. Bill Nye might not be the most eloquent speaker or what one might consider a climate expert, but that statement – holding our politicians accountable – is exactly the kind of thing this issue needs.
Next week, I will explore the different values and contributing factors to why people like Marc Morano and Rep. Blackburn might be skeptical, and why they don’t take action on climate change.
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I’ve always liked Bill Nye and it’s great to see him standing up for this issue! And good job to you explaining the misinformation–it’s not easy to write about this topic clearly and concisely.
I think it’s too rare that scientists hold the megaphone. When unqualified public figures like politicians get too much of the attention on these issues the debate becomes distorted and it affects the quality of our decisions.
This is too important an issue to risk making poor decisions. We need good information on this topic. Perhaps Bill Nye is a good balance of qualified and popular to help inform the climate change debate?