Fresh off his debate exposing young earth creationists (leading to none other than Pat Robertson saying publicly that creationism is nuts), Bill Nye appeared on Meet the Press this morning to debate global warning denier and GOP Congresswoman Rep. Marsha Blackburn.
As most climate change deniers do, and even echoing the creationist argument, Blackburn claimed there is no scientific consensus on the subject, arguing that “you don’t make good laws, sustainable laws, when you’re making them on hypotheses, or theories, or unproven sciences.”
This prompted host David Gregory interrupt, pointing out that there is indeed such a scientific consensus.
Nye then chimed in with some simple science, saying that going from 320 to 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, something Blackburn called “very slight,” is actually a very big change in percentage terms — 30 percent according to Nye (it actually is a 25 percent increase).
“You are a leader,” Nye said to Blackburn. “We need you to change things, not deny what’s happening.”
“Neither he nor I are a climate scientist,” Blackburn noted during the debate. But as Nye observed, only one of them is a politician whose job is to use the information that we have at our disposal to better the world.
Watch:
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