Science guy Bill Nye will be on Meet the press in a minute or two to debate global warming with a reputable scientist who says there is no such thing.

Being unable to find a reputable scientist that doesn't accept global warming, Nye will debate TN Congressperson Marsha Blackburn, who is qualified because she has a degree in Home Economics from Mississippi State.

Wish Nye was doing a better job at this

Fraid Nye let Blackburn run over him on that one. Pretty disappointing

It's plain to see that Bill Nye is correct. Fact is fact. These people won't even let him finish a sentence & totally avoiding the REAL issues. They rather speak about the financial situation & how putting action to save the future of the earth will cost them money. Do these people not realize it doesn't matter how much money you gain or lose if there is no earth left there is no life. We are killing the planet. The U.S. has made vast changes in things like the battle with AIDS, it doesn't make sense why they don't want to start making changes for the futurs benefit of everyone. The U.S. ranks in the top 10 of harmful emissions so I think making changes, even if we are the only country doing so, WILL make a difference. There is no getting around the facts. Global warming is very real, & very dangerous. The ozone layer, the only thing that characterizes earth to be a habitable planet is weakening. We may very well experience the end of life within our generation if we continue in this downward spiral without making significant changes. Keep spreadin the word Bill there are some United States citizens who believe in your cause.

Didn't see the debate but I could have guessed Bill would have lost the debate even if he was right on the issues... He seems to get flustered when talking to women. That's just my observation though.

Too bad you didn't debate Blackburn, He. Sounds like you would have done a better job. Nye was embarrassingly bad. I can just imagine how much Blackburn is gloating right now.

Dancing Dave was just looking for Sweeps Month ratings so my expectations were low. I was pleasantly surprised to see him weighing in on the side of scientific consensus and reality.

The Republicans have been good at the PR side of this stuff for years. Hell, Marsha could have made the same arguments (Not definitive information, no perfect solution, I can find a scientist who disagrees, it will cost money to fix) arguing that cigarettes don't cause lung cancer.

Nye spent a fair amount of time talking to Marsha as (as if she were) a human being that actually cared about the damage that her position can cause. I think that's to his credit, but it doesn't make for good sport on TV where we're accustomed to fisticuffs and knock-out blows.

The "Lock Box" was a Social Security illustration, but I'm all for a review of "An Inconvenient Truth" 10 years later ("Producer David saw Gore's slide show in New York City [on] May 27, 2004" - WikiPedia) How long does it take?

Bill Nye seemed to be frustrated, like "This is settled science. Why are we still talking about it and not doing anything about it?"

I agree, but he should have anticipated that that was the level on which the debate would take place. Blackburn had a lot of facts at her fingertips and maybe he wasn't prepared for that.

It’s defined as a strong belief in something you can’t prove. I'm sure Nye knows this, and may play into his frustration.

Among industrialized countries, we are just above Turkey in our religious fervor.

The change in our collective science mindset has to come from the Church. The sooner the Protestant Church follows the Catholic Church in allowing that evolution can be part of creation, the better.

Bill Nye had the same look Alan Williams had during the Gordon Boyd meltdown:

(link...)

Have yet to watch the dvr of the Nye Blackburn debate. The comments here are not surprising however. Sounds pretty clear that Blackburn did a decent job obfuscating e.g., 320 versus 400 ppm CO2 is a small difference, and wasn't sufficiently called out on it.

There has been a lot of discussion in climate circles about the role of scientists in the debate. The question - how should they advocate? A good place is where Gavin A. Schmidt of real climate has been helping the discussion.

Moving forward perhaps is how to focus more on not the science itself but how to use it in debate form. I'm guessing that Nye and other concerned scientists will be setting up some more message training with George Lakoff and others...

Rhetoric: "Pragmatism" VS "Ideology and Ideologues"

The Republicans’ war on science and reason

Marsha will be the one pushing children off the boat so she can get on!

Nye's debate stunts have been disasters. As my old friend Robert Loest once said to somebody during an online debate: "I can't explain sliced bread to somebody who has no concept of fire." Nye picks on people who come armed with talking points and an ability to dodge his own points by pivoting from one nonsequitur to the next, and who dominate by pretending to know what he's talking about and putting him in the spot of having to defend his better understanding of the issues. Which causes him to go off on tangents that make him look weak, or worse - clownish.

You can't win a debate with somebody who just thinks it's a game to win. Plus, nice guys don't win debates, I don't care how much smarter they are. You have to be an aggressive asshole to take on somebody like Marsha Blackburn. Christopher Hitchens would have had her stammering inside of five minutes. That's how you beat people like her. There's a scene in that HBO biopic about Sarah Palin where Julianne Moore, as Palin, is talking to her husband about her growing insecurities during the 2008 campaign, and he reminds her about a debate she had won in Alaska against an opponent who had nothing more to offer "than a bunch of facts and figures and stuff," and Palin (Moore) grins as she recalls easily beating him because "...nobody knew what he was TALKING about."

So CBA is the big "hammer" Marsha Blackburn insists will help policymakers determine how to deal with climate change. The only problem is, CBA cannot capture the distinction between reversible and irreversible damage, as depicted by these scenarios:

1. Spend money, climate change is not really a problem. Society learns to use energy more efficiently, and has less money for the "normal" things (e.g., wars, health care, social safety nets).
2. Do nothing, climate change is really not a problem. No cost, mankind wins! Whew!
3. Spend money, climate change turns out to be REAL. Good thing we addressed the problem - mankind wins! But we may have less money for the "normal" things.
4. Do nothing, climate change is really a problem. DEATH TO THE PLANET.

Clearly the four scenarios are not equal.

I wish I could prep Bill Nye for these things. When Marsha said he was an engineer not a real climate scientist and that she was a congressman, he should have come back that she was a home ec major and not a real blonde.

While she was there they could have asked Blackburn how to build a spaceship and how to do brain surgery.

OMG - read the whole thing. Charles is as about as close as we can get to the earlier mentioned deceased Christopher Hitchens. Brutal...
What Are The Gobshites Saying These Days?

Yesterday, and I am not exaggerating a bit here, David Gregory and the Meet The Press gang presented the definitive argument not only for their mutual expulsion from the company of sentient primates, but also the single best example of why the entire elite political class of this country is one day going to be subject to a massive class-action negligence suit on the part of whatever rodents are left.