Famous Cornell alum Bill Nye the Science guy made an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor recently (in case you missed it, the video is linked below). For both global warming skeptics and supporters, this is a fantastic 7-minute interview. Contrary to popular belief, O’Reilly once again exhibits his ability to retain a neutral stance as the interviewer and lets his guests go to town. Nye, a staunch supporter of the global warming theory, is met with a rather surprising volley of graphs, data, and raw knowledge from Joe Bastardi, AccuWeather meteorologist and climate change skeptic. Seemingly out of his character, Nye appears to be very defensive and has an air of arrogance about him in the video. Although this surprises me a bit after meeting him in person, perhaps it shouldn’t. Nye adheres to a tactic that often surfaces when warming theory advocates get backed into a corner: they quickly resolve to accusing the other person of willful ignorance, calculated deviance, and political motivation. Another good sign that a GW activist is in a jam is when they backtrack to ‘evidence’ from the past two decades.
4 thoughts on “Bill vs. Bill vs… Joe?”
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SPN Headlines got the scoop on climate change data:
http://stupidassnews.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/climate-change-scientist-i-used-a-ouija-board/
Keep smiling! 🙂
Not a bad debate, however it is odd that all of Bastardi’s charts were displayed and annotated full-screen, where (I think) perhaps only once did they give a full-screen display of Bill Nye’s graphics. Not a bad debate, and I myself am not too sure where I stand on the issue. However, looking at the subtleties of the situation, the argument was clearly skewed to favor Bastardi, regardless of whether O’Reilly said anything to favor one side or the other. Although displaying one person’s graphs larger than another doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal, it’s for the same reason that commercial advertisements are displayed with louder sound volume than actual programming. It all leaks into the viewer’s subconcious mind and pushes toward bias.
Just something to think about.
I wouldn’t be too suspicious, JPMITB. Bastardi is a meteorologist in his own newsroom, which makes it easier for him to provide his own graphics for the Factor to put up, and I’m sure that if Nye had asked for the same thing he would have gotten it.