Bill Nye: Climate Change Denial Is 'Running Out of Steam,' Thanks To Millennials (mic.com)

An anonymous reader shares with us an article on Mic: Famed science educator Bill Nye has long been an outspoken critic of people who continue to doubt climate change, the main driver of freaky weather patterns, rising global temperatures and sea level rise around the globe. In an interview with Mic, Nye said that despite lingering skepticisms, there is nearly 100% scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is here to stay -- and people are becoming increasingly anxious about its effects on the planet, particularly younger generations. "Almost every person in denial about climate change is older," Nye said. "It's very hard to find a millennial-aged person that is not concerned about climate change. I think the climate denial movement is running out of steam, I guess that's a pun."

Comments

Semantics

[jbmartin6]

I know just being picky, but no one doubts that climate change is behind changes in climate. I don't think anyone doubts climate change. Now perhaps some doubt anthropogenic climate change, technically this summary doesn't mention that.

Re:Semantics

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a number of people who don't think the climate is changing at all, anthropogenically or otherwise. "Weather changes all the time!" they exclaim. One of them is running for President.

Never doubt the potential of human stupidity or denial.

Re:Semantics

[Anonymous Coward]

All of these things happen, and it's easy to find them all over the Internet:

- People saying the climate didn't change.
- People saying the climate does change, but it doesn't matter.
- People saying the climate does change, and it does matter, but it's not human's fault.
- People saying the climate does change, and it does matter, and it's (at least in part) human's fault, but we can't fix it.
- People saying the climate does change, and it does matter, and it's (at least in part) human's fault, and maybe we can fix it, but it's not worth it to try.
- People saying the climate does change, and it does matter, and it's (at least in part) human's fault, and maybe we can fix it, but it's actually a good thing.

Re:Semantics

[religionofpeas]

I don't think anyone doubts climate change.

Ted Cruz does. He's arguing that the global temperature hasn't gone up in the last 2 decades, for example.

Re:Semantics

[MightyMartian]

People used to get huge benefits from being able to flush their shit into the nearest waterway. That is, until they rendered the nearest waterway a poisonous stew.

Just because something has a short term benefit doesn't mean you can just happily ignore the long term effects.

Re:Semantics

[religionofpeas]

"It doesn't exist." to "It's not our fault." to "Well so what if it is our fault, it's not such a big deal anyway."

Followed by "it's too late to do anything about it now"

Re: Semantics

[tysonedwards]

"Scientists" say the ship is sinking. Then why is my end 200 feet in the air?

Re:Semantics

[randallman]

If by propaganda you mean 30+ years of peer reviewed scientific work, then yes. It should be enough that we've changed the composition of the atmosphere of the one habitable planet we have. But "deniers" demand 100% proof of future devastation while offering ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in legitimate scientific evidence. This is Slashdot, a website for Nerds. Of all places, people here should understand how critical the scientific method and peer reviewed is to sound science.

BTW, what exactly does Bill Nye want? What's in it for him that he would risk his reputation defending "propaganda"?

Oh, and my ID is lower than yours. I don't buy your wisdom by age argument.

Millenials

[qbast]

That's not actually a ringing endorsement.

Re:Millenials

[bluefoxlucid]

I'm more irked by the claim that it's right because of consensus. It's *probably* right because of consensus; the current understanding seems to suggest correctness; and we've got an open dialogue about the scientific community's consensus about fat, salt, and heart disease being totally backwards.

Massive, highly-publicized scientific consensus has been shown wrong plenty of times--probably because it's such an important political dialogue as to only be right by chance. The harmfulness of saturated fat and salt are the basis of many school lunch campaigns, USDA campaigns, CDC campaigns, and AHA campaigns, right up to the freaking President of the United States and his wife making and publicly speaking on the gravity of such policies. Not simply the fact, but the *extent* of human-induced climate change is a matter of international politics. We're to believe the scientific consensus on one of these was wrong, and the other can't be wrong?

Correctness of consensus about fat and salt failed *because* of its political importance; and correctness and consensus of climate change seems to have succeeded *in spite of* this political dialogue. Even then, an objective observer can't deny that the *extent* claimed seems to be all over the place, and--perhaps to the credit of the climate-change consensus in general--hasn't exactly reached stable scientific consensus. It's not hard to see how someone could be skeptical of the consensus argument; and it's *easy* to see how someone might be skeptical when, in 2007, the IPCC claimed global warming was occurring at 1/4 the speed they previously claimed, and then in 2010 claimed it was happening 10 times faster than they previously claimed--noting they intentionally shaved down the numbers because "nobody would believe the truth"--and then claimed it was just happening 10 times faster than previously predicted.

I want to hear about evidence and models, not "people are dumb for not believing this because me and my nerd friends believe it and you should trust us because we went to school for this stuff and rich people believe us." You and your nerd friends have been wrong *many* times; I believe a lot of the things you say because you insist on explaining *why* you're right in more robust terms than "I take computer science 3; I know what I'm talking about!"

Re:Millenials

[religionofpeas]

I want to hear about evidence and models

So, what's stopping you ? You can start with the IPCC reports and all of its references to supporting literature. You can download source code of the models, and raw temperature data. If you don't believe in consensus, that's your right, but don't claim there's no evidence provided, and that it's all based on trust.

Re:It's only a matter of time.

[tnk1]

Now we just have to wait 30 more years for millennials to get into positions where they can do something about it.

At which time they will act like people who are 30 years older than they are now.

Young people like to get behind causes to save the world, but burn out after a few decades of reality. News at 11.

Six of the ten biggest companies...

[Etherwalk]

Six of the ten biggest companies in the world are in the Oil & Gas Industries. The costs of global warming--literally, one planet--would bankrupt them if they ever actually had to pay for the damage in a lawsuit or under a new law.

It turns out that the dregs of those trillions of dollars buys not only protection from lawmakers, but that the lawmakers and related armies of talking heads will espouse the theories your pet "scientists" prepare as talking points, until even they no longer remember that you started those rumors. The stories about how good you are or how natural global warming is or about how government regulation of environmental protection is bad make it into the press (and your perspective jury pool) free of your fingerprints.

As a result, plenty of good people--even intelligent people who share the political beliefs of your army of lobbied lawmakers--come to believe that it's not your fault.

Poof, the anthropogenic nature of global warming and the needs for action and environmental regulation start going up in smoke. And you can keep burning your oil.

Re:Six of the ten biggest companies...

[blindseer]

Do you realize how easy it would be to bankrupt the oil and gas companies? I mean these companies are in business because people buy their products. They'd go bankrupt almost over night if people just stopped buying their stuff.

But why do people buy their stuff? Don't they know the damage they are doing to the environment? I'm quite certain that they do. Or at least I'm quite certain that they've been told numerous times by now, unless they live under a rock. I don't place the blame on the oil and gas companies, I place the blame on the people that buy their stuff. Did you buy and oil or gas lately? I'm quite certain you did since about 1/4th of the electricity in the USA comes from natural gas, and almost half comes from coal. If you drive a car, take a bus, ride a train, or fly in an airplane then you've burned oil.

Unless you heat your house with corn cobs and light it with beeswax candles then this is your fault. Unless you walk or pedal to wherever you go this is your fault. If you buy food at a grocery store instead of grow it yourself then this is your fault.

Instead of placing the blame on the oil and gas companies then I suggest you lead by example. Show me how to live a better life free from petroleum products.

You are a hypocrite. You lecture to everyone about how oil and gas companies are ruining the world while sitting in a home heated with natural gas, lit by coal, and eating food brought to you with petroleum. It is because of oil, gas, and coal you are living the life you live. If you want people to stop buying oil and gas then show them a better path. But a better path is not easy.

We've tried wind power but the wind doesn't always blow. We tried sun but it costs four times what electricity from natural gas, coal, or nuclear would cost. We tried bio-fuels but it became apparent very quickly that we don't have enough land to both fill our bellies and our fuel tanks. Algae fuels, wave power, fusion reactors, and so on are just theories right now. If we had those figured out then we'd see them as more than just science fair exhibitions.

Where can we turn? What do we have that can light our homes but not foul the air? Nuclear fission? Yes, nuclear fission. I guess you don't like anything "nukular", do you?

When I bring up nuclear power I get people that talk about Fukushima and Chernobyl while ignoring the dozens (hundreds?) of nuclear power plants that are operating safely on Earth right now. Nuclear power is the cleanest, safest, and most reliable energy source we have today. It's also one of the cheapest. Even with a reactor that blows it's top every 30 or 40 years the number of people that dies from nuclear power is orders of magnitude less than those that die from wind and sun on a per kWh basis. As safe as it is now we can make it safer. We can make it cheaper. Why don't we have more of it?

I suspect we have not solved this problem of burning oil and gas because we have hypocrites like you that demand they eat cake and have it too.

Re:Now Convince India and China to Cut Emissions

[danbob999]

are you seriously using the perfect solution fallacy?

Climate is not weather

[fyngyrz]

it seems pretty clear that with a quote like "Weather changes all the time!" that they actauly do not doubt that the climate is changing at all.

Weather is not climate. For about the millionth time.

And as stated above, yes, the climate is changing.

How much of that is caused by man, and more importantly, how much will be caused by man in the next hundred years or so, has not been established. The models that purport to be predictive disagree with one another; disagree with the actual observed climate; offer no precursor climate event that shores up their ideas; suffer from precursor climate events that contradict their ideas; and are almost certain to be massively disrupted by technological change even if they were spot on WRT today's conditions anyway.

Aside from that, the obvious sane path is to contribute the least that is practical to changes in atmospheric gas mix, particulate levels, and temperature change. Solar and nuclear power are the two technologies that offer the best shot at reducing all of those. Solar is growing and advancing technologically at a very high rate, storage (a required facet of really solid general solar power supply) is behind but changing fast in the right direction, and nuclear... sigh. Nuclear is still suffering various slings and arrows that have little or no actual relevance today. Never underestimate the power of fear-mongering. They ever want to put a nuke in my back yard then PIIMBY (Put It In My Back Yard), I'll bake them a cake and move all my stuff out of the way.