'Hey Bill Nye, How Do I Engage Skeptics in Meaningful Climate Change Discussion?' #TuesdaysWithBill

Danny Miller: Hello Bill. My name is Danny Miller. Politically, I tend to be conservative. I believe that anthropogenic global warming is real and that the Big Bang Theory and evolution are perfectly valid theories. Obviously, this puts me at odds with most people in my demographic, and I find that conversations with my peers on these topics usually develop into arguments on some other random subject entirely. My question to you is why are these topics so politically charged in the matters of science and not politics, and how do I engage in meaningful conversation? Thank you for answering.

Bill Nye: Danny. Danny. Danny. You have touched on a subject that I find fascinating, and I've spent a lot of time on myself, so I'm really glad you asked this. But when it comes to anthropogenic global climate change, or human-caused global climate change, it's politicized because of the fossil fuel industry. I’ve spent a lot of time with this; I've asked myself as a native of the United States.

I have an engineering degree in the United States; I've got my license and I practice—I'm an engineer in the United States. Why is the United States not the world leader in addressing climate change? Why isn't the United States the world leader in renewable energies, better water purification, or desalinization techniques? Better ways to provide the Internet to everyone on Earth? Why isn't the U.S. leading?

And I am satisfied it's because of the success of the denial community or the deniers. They have managed to introduce the idea that scientific uncertainty, plus or minus two percent about whatever it might be, is the same as plus or minus a hundred percent. There's doubt about the whole thing, and that's wrong.

So what to do about it? What I always remind myself, and the example I learned from or claim I learned from, was what we traditionally call skeptical thought or a skeptical point of view or clinical thinking. When you tell somebody who reads her or his horoscope every day that horoscopes are false, that there is no scientific evidence, people have tried over and over to validate horoscopes, and there is no connection between what is written on those pages and what happens in your life, none.

And even the whole idea of the full moon—that there are more hospital visits on a full moon—is false. You can show it; it’s not complicated. There are no more hospital visits on a full moon than other times. Okay. The first time someone you're having a conversation with hears these things, he or she is troubled and reacts, might push you away. But what you do, in my opinion, is you chip away at it.

The first time the person hears that the fossil fuel industry cherry-picks data, the fossil fuel industry has thrown a lot of money at conservative members of U.S. Congress in order to support their political campaigns if they will support, for example, no changes in the way coal is mined, for example. The first time they hear it, they reject it. But if you just chip away at it, after a while I think you can convince people, bring them around to your point of view.

And the other thing, just important, I think will help focus your discussions, is the word theory. The word theory is a word we throw around all the time. I have a theory—it’s raining outside. But in science, a theory is a special thing, and it's not complicated. It means you can make a prediction.

If you have a theory of evolution, you can make predictions about living things in nature based on your theory. You can make predictions about climate change based on measuring atmospheric gases and making computer models that jive or work together well with evidence in geology or in ancient rocks. If you have a theory of time, we were talking recently about relativity, you can make predictions based on the theory, and the predictions will be true.

So when you are having these discussions with people, just see what it is, see if they have a way with their point of view that enables them to make predictions. So talking some more about me, as you may know, I bet two re...