John Oliver Hosts A 'Statistically Representative' Climate Debate
So this week, Bill Nye "The Science Guy" dropped by for a "statistically representative" debate on climate change on HBO's new satirical news show "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver."
Since 97% of scientists agree that climate change is happening, here's what that looked like:
Nye has a history of taking on controversial debates. Recently, Nye debated creationist Ken Ham on evolution and U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) on climate change.
While many think it's important to publicly state the scientific explanations for evolution or climate change, critics say that giving creationists and climate-change deniers a voice in the first place is a bad idea. It seems like Oliver agrees.
Providing a platform - even as a "debate" - to promote something that's scientifically wrong can give people the impression that those wrong ideas are equally valid as the true ones, which is why giving anti-vaccine campaigner Jenny McCarthy a job as host of "The View" inspired a fury.
And in the light of recent reports, including the IPCC's Fifth Assessment, the National Climate Assessment, and yesterday's news that the collapse of the West Antarctic Sheet is unstoppable, people don't need any more false information.
As the comedian says, it's not really accurate to frame the issue by pointing to a poll that says that a quarter of Americans have doubts about climate change. It'd be more accurate to say "a poll finds that one out of four Americans are wrong about something."
Watch the video, uploaded to YouTube by LastWeekTonight: