Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Bill Nye the not-really-Science Guy was on Tucker Carlson tonight. Tucker tried time after time to get Nye to say how much of the change was due to humans … and time after time, Nye refused to say what his opinion was.
So Tucker got him to agree that the climate has always been changing.
Then, in response to the question as to “what the climate would be like if humans weren’t involved right now”, Bill Nye said (according to my own transcription):
NYE: “The climate would be like it was in 1750. And the economics would be that you could not grow wine-worthy grapes in Britain as you can today because the climate is changing. The use of pesticides in the Midwest would not be increasing because the pests are showing up sooner and staying around longer. The forests in Wyoming would not be overwhelmed by pine bark beetles as it is because of climate change. That’s how the world would be different if it were not for humans”.
Oh, my goodness. Isn’t that touching? Nye refuses to say how much of the change in temperature is due to humans … but at the same time he claims that if there weren’t humans, that the climate would have stopped changing in 1750. Without humans, he says, we would have a climate which was forever the same …
… and people actually believe this guy? Tucker Carlson was scathing:
CARLSON: You’re not even a scientist, you’re an engineer … So much of this you don’t know, you pretend that you know, and you gotta believe people who ask you questions.
Another escapade in the world of pseudo-science. Anyhow, after writing this I found a YouTube video of the interview—check it out, it’s good for a laugh.
Regards to all,
w.
PS—When you comment PLEASE QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING, so we can all be clear about your subject.
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I thought the biggest news from Nye was that there will be no more ice ages – woohoo!!!!
Carlson missed a big opportunity with that lead in, if he knew the proper reply.
If Carlson had educated himself a bit more (perhaps by watching wattsupwiththat) then the most obvious shut down would have been to present the computer prognostication versus satellite data and historical sea level graphs. But knowing Nye, he would have fallen back on: “Oh no no no, it’s the satellite and sea level data that need to be adjusted to fit the computer predictions.”
That’s why Billy Nye the children entertainer guy doesn’t do these when there is an actual scientist present.
‘That’s why Billy Nye the children entertainer guy doesn’t do these when there is an actual scientist present.’
Hell, you don’t even need a scientist – Marc Morano made him look like a stuttering idiot.
.
Hey, at least Bill Nye is honest enough to admit he doesn’t give a damn about our children’s future when he says, “This extreme doubt about climate change is affecting MY quality of life..”
BUT THE OTHER LEFTEROIDS REPEATEDLY TELL US WE ARE DESTROYING OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE BY CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING & YET THIS QUESTION GOES UNASKED:
If our kid’s future means so much, how do they justify robbing future generations by spending us into $20T in debt? In Reagan’s day our debt was 30% of our GDP. Today, our debt is at 104%, PROVING it’s not about our kids’ future, it’s just a scam to redistribute wealth & destroy our economy & our country!
The Manchurian Candidate nearly doubled US debt during his term & what do we have to show for it?
Every one of these catagories has worsened:
1. Poverty
2. Education
3. Health Care
4. Cybersecurity
5. Race Relations
6. Foreign Relations
7. Global Terrorist Threat
8. U.S. Workforce Participation
9. Trust in Government and Media
Tenets of Climate Religion:
1) Global Warming
2) It’s due to mankind
3) It’s going to be catastrophic
4) The US can do something about it.
The Truth? Warming is GOOD for the planet. More CO2 is GOOD for plant life.
We have had more CO2 present in the atmosphere in earlier eras,
before industry. We’ve experienced almost no additional
warming since 1998, even though atmospheric CO2
has continued to increase in it.
Thousands of Climate Scientists around the globe disagree with the “official” conlusions. Many in the US dare not speak for fear their funding be withdrawn. Cover-ups and corruption abounds, from ‘Climategate’ at East Anglia to the current refusal by NOAA, under subpoena, to provide docs concerning GW studies! Perhaps it’s National Security Secrets they’re guarding!
Leftists are craftsmen with the English language. They know how to communicate. They understand how words impact the mind. Eg. once, Liberals were known briefly as “pro-abortion.” They decided that sounded too harsh, and for PR purposes, they changed their advocacy name to “pro-choice.” Their position on abortion didn’t change, just the name.
This has been their MO for decades. They use words to manipulate the public into forming the desired opinions. They’re not illegal immigrants, they’re Dreamers.
Obamacare won’t cause medical bills to skyrocket, it’s called the ‘Affordable Care Act.’
What do you think of when you here the word “carbon?’ I think of that dirty, black underside to carbon paper. That’s why they dropped the “Dioxide” from the “Carbon Dioxide,” so that it would sound more hideous. we’re talking about a gas that makes up approx .04% (or 400 parts per million) of our atmosphere.
The very same substance that all the flowers in the world need in order to live. And all the trees in the world, all the crops, grasses, and every other type of vegetation. We exhale it, they inhale it, then exhale oxygen that we inhale.
I sure as shootin’ would NOT want to be living in the Little Ice Age (ca. 1750). Nye just certified himself as a completely ignorant poltroon.
I agree that man-made global warming is exaggerated. The rest of your treatise about the good old days is also exaggerated.
Jim Mayer @ur momisugly 3:48 p.m.
It’s called NewSpeak. RTFM – ‘1984’ by Orwell.
I must have been watching a different interview, I saw a rude, smug loudmouth shouting Bill down while dismissing his simple answer to his simple question thereby providing a wonderful example of cognitive dissonance.
Bill needs to have an eyebrow artist flown in to do some remedial infrastructure work.
I thought I heard Nye respond at one point that 100% of climate change was man made. Of course when one defines climate change as man made climate change then 100% of man made climate change is man made. Of course nobody can come up with our real contribution but 100 % of man made climate change is man made. He also slipped up and claimed we would be in another ice age if it wasn’t for our contribution to climate change. If he is right about that, then I am sure glad we are contributing. I love the climate we have had for the past 20 years so I hope we keep contributing enough to avoid that ice age. If the climate and CO2 level were like it was in 1750 a bunch of people would be going hungry.
Hey WTF! “I saw a rude, smug loudmouth shouting Bill down”
Well, yeah, actually that is true.
On the other hand, Nye is still an idiot. So how did scientific discourse come to this? My observation is that discussion of CAGW has devolved to rudeness and shouting because the alarmists have forced it to be that way. It was not sceptics who began using shouting and rudeness as weapons. For decades, sceptics politely asked for REAL scientific discussion on the subject. The response from the alarmists was that “the science is settled!”, claims that sceptics were “deniers” and the equivalent to antisemitic purveyors of genocide, threats against scientists who spoke out with questions, and even talk of charging sceptics with war crimes. The alarmists are the ones who equated scientific discussion with war crimes.
You wanted a war — you got it. Quit whining.
Apparently you watched a different interview. I saw a smug, complacent, ignorant clown in a bow tie posing as an expert on climate change, who could not answer a simple question about what amount humans were contributing to climate change. It was embarrassing to watch. I feel sorry for Nye.
Mr. Nye;
“It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so” -Mark Twain
Sad.
Nonono! Bill Nye is the best thing we can wish for. Sanders is the second best.
Thousands of Climate Scientists around the globe disagree with the “official” conlusions. Many in the US dare not speak for fear their funding be withdrawn. Cover-ups and corruption abounds, from ‘Climategate’ at East Anglia to the current refusal by NOAA, under subpoena, to provide docs concerning GW studies! Perhaps it’s National Security Secrets they’re guarding!
Leftists are craftsmen with the English language. They know how to communicate. They understand how words impact the mind. Eg. once, Liberals were known briefly as “pro-abortion.” They decided that sounded too harsh, and for PR purposes, they changed their advocacy name to “pro-choice.” Their position on abortion didn’t change, just the name.
This has been their MO for decades. They use words to manipulate the public into forming the desired opinions. They’re not illegal immigrants, they’re Dreamers.
Obamacare won’t cause medical bills to skyrocket, it’s called the ‘Affordable Care Act.’
What do you think of when you here the word “carbon?’ I think of that dirty, black underside to carbon paper. That’s why they dropped the “Dioxide” from the “Carbon Dioxide,” so that it would sound more hideous. we’re talking about a gas that makes up approx .04% (or 400 parts per million) of our atmosphere.
The very same substance that all the flowers in the world need in order to live. And all the trees in the world, all the crops, grasses, and every other type of vegetation. We exhale it, they inhale it, then exhale oxygen that we inhale.
Jim Mayer……..finally, someone that understands how the liberal left uses words, its effect, and how much smarter they are to organize and execute.
Yes, people within their org, they do make mistakes.
Bill Nye the Séance Guy.
cliamte change DEENYER !
Bill Nye the Séance LIE.
Nye is a TV children’s clown , not a scientist.
Just like Pee Wee was…
Just not as optimistic about his “world”.
And…here is an example of where and what Mr. Nye was at and was doing back in the 1990’s. He started as bit-part cast member of a local Seattle comedy-skit show called ‘Almost Live!’, that aired IIRC Saturday evenings either before or after the nationally-syndicated program Saturday Night Live (Local Western Washingtonians such as Janice may recall…my kids were small back then, and I usually did not catch the show as an as-aired performance). A kitschy cameo piece on ‘Almost Live!’, that eventually morphed into a Public Broadcasting System (PBS) kids’ show – where he finally made it into the greater USA public eye. PBS is also where he developed his ‘legitimacy’ with at least youngsters – and parents. I would think his PBS program is where he is remembered as a legitimate “Science-type’ guy. A clip of some of his ‘work’ back then:
So, a comedy troupe actor, come PBS ‘Science’ program star, and eventually developing (devolving?) into one of the spokesmen for the Warminista cabal.
What a Curriculum Vitae, I say.
Food submitted for thought,
MCR
That footage of Bill trying to crush the drum is so like the climate propaganda. the experiment doesn’t show what you said it would, so you have to fiddle with the results……..
“Whatever Bill does, Don’t do that at home!”
That’s an adage worth more than its weight in CO2 credits.
Weren’t grapes grown as far north as Hadrian’s Wall in Roman times?
Yes. Funny that.
British vineyards in 2014
http://www.winestats.info/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/UK-Regions-Map-with-vineyar-266×300.gif
http://www.winestats.info/growth-english-vineyards/
Where ever you see road names like Vine Street, it is probably the case that there was, in olden days, a vineyard nearby.
There are many old streets in the North of England named Vine Street. In fact even in Scotland in and around the northern borders.
I’m missing something and I think Carlson missed it as well.
If Nye doesn’t know how much of ‘climate change’ is due to human influence, how can he logically claim that, without human influence, the climate would be just as it was in 1750? Isn’t that a ‘back door’ claim that ALL ‘climate change’ since 1750 is due to human influence and human influence alone? It’s an absurd claim to begin with.
Would have loved to see Carlson point that out.
You are absolutely correct, Bill… It takes as much knowledge about the subject to do subtraction as it does addition, and B. Nye is obviously clueless about both.
That said, the take-away was obvious when Nye launched into some inane, irreproducible argument that tied all science into a knot and left us with the joyful feeling that CAGW apologists are more desperate now than they’ve been in decades.
Maybe it has something to do with the position President Trump is taking by un-funding this frivolous, unscientific endeavor by pink-slipping an army of has-been charlatans that, like B. Nye, laughingly call themselves “scientists”.
History of Winemaking in the UK: Roman Britain
Exactly. Carlson missed a perfect opportunity to point this out and, therefore, contradict the notion that “natural climate change takes tens of thousand or millions of years” to take place. Critics of AGW dogma should focus more of their rhetoric on the 1500 year cycle.
Mann et al’s claim that the MWP and LIA were regional events is poorly substantiated and rings of a convenient “truth.”
I thought Mann said the LIA started in a regional sort of way.
Those claims may be debunked later. You don’t often see a dude such as this face public scrutiny. Tucker got him to show some cards, particularly that final OT rant.
It is funny really since we have no worthwhile data on the Southern Hemisphere. Even today, it is too sparsely sampled to know anything useful about the temperature change over the past 70 years, let alone circa 1,000 years ago.
In my opinion, it entirely unscientific to suggest that we have any handle on temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere, or globally.
We have data on the Northern Hemisphere, which if it was not corrupted, could tell us something about temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere since the late 1700s.early 1800s. Thus we should only be viewing the Minoan, Roman, Medieval Warm Periods against what we know about the Northern Hemisphere.
I seem to recall that the MWP shows up in the Quelccaya ice cap cores in Peru, ice cores from Dome C in Antarctica, and some speleothems from somewhere in southern Africa, all below the equator.
Richard,
The SH isn’t as well sampled as the NH, but well enough to see the same cooling and warming cycles.
There are good paleoproxy data from ice and ocean and lake sediment cores and from land evidence in Asia, Africa, South America and Australasia.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/09/evidence-of-the-medieval-warm-period-in-australia-new-zealand-and-oceania/
CO2science.org has good info on the global (though not exactly synchronized) Medieval Warm Period, here:
http://co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
If anyone reading this is not already familiar with http://co2science.org/ then please do yourself a favor and look at it now. It is an incredible resource. Sherwood, Craig & Keith Idso are Great Americans.
i enjoy watching Carlson, but he really could have had some help with that interview.
From Woods Hole Institute, “A new 2,000-year-long reconstruction of sea surface temperatures (SST) from the Indo-Pacific warm pool (IPWP) suggests that temperatures in the region may have been as warm during the Medieval Warm Period as they are today.
The IPWP is the largest body of warm water in the world, and, as a result, it is the largest source of heat and moisture to the global atmosphere, and an important component of the planet’s climate.” http://www.whoi.edu/main/news-releases/2009?tid=3622&cid=59106
And the Little Ice Age was found to be as apparent in South America as in the US or Europe https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141119204521.htm
Chimp, The Northern and Southern Hemispheres used to be in sync, but that change around 1997.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4nh/from:1960/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1960/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4nh/from:1960/to:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1960/plot/hadcrut4sh/from:1997/trend/plot/hadcrut4nh/from:1997/trend
Mark There are several studies that suggest that climate changes in terms of decades or even years are as fast or faster than today. “As the world slid into and out of the last ice age, the general cooling and warming trends were punctuated by abrupt changes. Climate shifts up to half as large as the entire difference between ice age and modern conditions occurred over hemispheric or broader regions in mere years to decades.”
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/4/1331.full
“Researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg have shown in the latest edition of the journal Nature Communications that the temperature changes millions of years ago probably happened no more slowly than they are happening today.”
https://phys.org/news/2015-11-global-fast-today.html
Also the apparent glacial change that is purported by people like Nye today, is in fact an artifact of the measuring technique.
https://phys.org/news/2015-11-ancient-climate-underestimated.html
And they can now by this really cool thing that a “non-scientist” discovered, hybridization.
The traditional wine grapes won’t grown in the SE US. But that is because of a fungus (so most grapes are scuppernong and muscadine hybrids.) But NY state was considered #2 behind CA for wine when I was involved back in the late 70’s.
NY is still a very distant second to CA, at about the same as WA. CA, OR and WA together produce about 93% of all US wine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wine#Largest_producers
And also the highest quality and most expensive, of course.
Number Five PA produces a little more than half as much as #4 OR, followed by OH, KY, MO, NJ and TX.
I work at a winery on the St Lawrence River, on the border with Canada. We grow hybrid grapes developed by the University of Minnesota. They grow well here, and are cold tolerant to -40 degrees C. So some of the movement northward of grape production in the United States, is due to new varieties being developed. European grapes do not survive the winter here. They taste better than the Vitis labrusca, which are the American foxy native grapes!
I grew grapes in Michigan, European varieties too, not fox grapes. That was back during the cool spell from the 1970’s when the Alarmists were whining about a looming Ice age.
Yes, when it was WARMER than today. They works have great difficulty browsing there now.
Nye is your classic snakeoil salesman, and a blithering idiot who cannot even look at his history book.
Argh! Mobile autocorrect attack!
“They would have great difficulty growing them there now.”
Nye strikes me as genuine. He believes what he is selling, so I wouldn’t write him off as a snake oil salesman. He’s just a product of a very effective marketing campaign by the alarmists.
To a large portion of the public, the alarmists have successfully painted the CAGW issue as just another pro-science versus anti-science controversy. The undereducated see global warming “deniers” as little different than fundamentalists arguing for young Earth theory. I think this campaign worked on Nye and I think that combined with his passion for science, he is doing what he thinks is right.
No they weren’t.
“No they weren’t.”
Yes they were.
There are at this moment grapes growing as far North as Castle Bolton, Leyburn. North Yorkshire at 54.3 degrees North.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Bolton+Castle/@54.3221009,-1.9516587,17.06z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x8f3528cb47cbcaa7!8m2!3d54.3221419!4d-1.9495147
Hadrian’s Wall is very little further North, here for example:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.9904156,-2.6064345,14.64z
During the Middle Age “Climate Optimum” the French vineyards were suffering from English competition.
(Of course though, that must be a misunderstanding since the AGW “Science Guys” claim that the Medieval Warm Period didn’t really happen….)
I believe it is impossible to know what the climate (in any particular location; there is no global climate) would be right now without humans. What I know is that 1750 would not exist as “1750” and right now would not be 2017 without humans.
Climate Science has never ever defined what the ideal climate is. The most glaring of their long streak of inconsistencies….the one which their precious “change” is founded.
…the one UPON which…
Climate Science has never ever defined what climate is.
Mike @ur momisugly 11:23
Yes, that’s the weak link. Whenever you ask them just what is this lost Nirvana we’re supposed to pine for…what is their ideal temperature, CO2 level, etc. They can never answer that one properly.
I think Tucker nailed the central question – which you are touching on – but only came close to getting it out with full impact. His question was this: how can you say humans have caused a (CO2-driven) deviation from normal climate variation, without a scientific baseline of what that climate variation would look like minus the claimed deviating influence? Nye couldn’t answer it, and neither can any other “CO2 global warming” advocate. That means the claim of human-caused, CO2-driven climate change is scientifically baseless.
1750 was still the Little Ice Age. So Nye believes humans are responsible for the end of the Little Ice Age? What does he think caused it, or the Dark Age cold spell? He also seems to be denying the Mann et al hockey stick graph, by the way.
I hear the Little Ice Age ended ~1860 as warming pulled us into a period of time where plants would grow where they otherwise hadn’t for some time.
Apparently B. Nye would like to live in an Ice Age and use his questionable engineering skills to survive.
I wish him luck although I strongly suspect he’d fail.
We are still in an ice age, just the abnormal part of the ice age with less ice.
As an engineer I can say I am nor impressed with Nye’s engineering accomplishments.
And Rocky you are welcome. My engineering skills at power plants helped you not live in a cave on cold winter nights.
What a stupid,messed up man,Mr. Nye is.
Ahh, but an elite man he is!
Anthony did a wonderful job a showing how Bill Nye faked a high school science experiment. I would like to see him have to account for that on national news.
I had a real problem with this statement by Nye
“The forests in Wyoming would not be overwhelmed by pine bark beetles as it is because of climate change”
I would point to just one study that explains the Mountain Pine Beetle problems ( and BTW there are many different beetles in our forests that attack all species of trees) It is largely cyclical and caused by aging old tress that weaken and get attacked, forest fires used to then regenerate the next stand of trees , largely every 100 years. It has been mostly human fire control methods that have broken the cycle of natural regeneration
Nye please read this: http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/projects/63
Nice dodge, Mr.Nye. “The climate would be like it was in 1750” And how was that, now? Please, Mr. Science Guy, define that climate. Not by how it WASN’T, but by how it WAS. Let’s face it, you scowling manteufel, you don’t have a CLUE what that “ideal climate” is. Not even the best climate scientist IN THE WORLD (Whomever that is) can define that ideal climate state. No UNFCCC hack can, either (she defines it as a time where capitalism isn’t). The IPCC cannot. Theirs is a balancing act between the “Summary for Policymakers” and the agonizing convolutions of uncertainty in their AR’s.
Nice little deflection, Bill. But now that the Holdrens and Obamas of the world are sidelined, your support network for blowhard intellectualism is crumbling, and you sir, will appear as an arse from now on. Your selfie-taking days are over.
Weren’t the French passing laws in the 12/13th century to ban English wine. You know, wine made with English grown grapes…
They tried that trick with Australian wine. When it didn’t work they tried a different tack – Buying up the Australian competition and vinyards.
The Australians bought some French ones too, in Pays D’Oc. This was done because the Romans valued wine from there above all else in their empire, but the French used it for cheap wine in large quantities.
Love the interrupt app. 6.22 seconds?
Did it work both ways.
got to get one of those.
I could scarcely believe that Nye would have the temerity to do that. It was such an inane statement to make.
It was all pretty much a pile of gobbledygook from B. Nye, the “science guy”.
Nye said it was considerably less than 6 seconds whilst holding up a timer showing *more* than 6 seconds. Hey, alarmists, amirite?
“The forests in Wyoming would not be overwhelmed by pine bark beetles as it is because of climate change.”
Not so. This is my area of expertise. It’s true that warmer weather will help the beetles, but not that much. The big reason for the beetle epidemic is that the trees are old. Young, vigorous trees push invading beetles out with sap flow but old, decadent trees have a much slower metabolism and can’t do that. We’ve been way to effective in fighting forest fires for the last 100 plus years, and the forests are much older than they used to be.
+1 How very interesting.
So pretty much every claim he made is wrong then.
(My original comment here disappeared…)
AP: Pretty much everything he didn’t claim was wrong. He hasn’t a clearly thought out idea in his head.
Harry,
Nye is an engineer and therefore has the mental capacity to follow scientific arguments. Can Nye afford to think clearly about the things he said? He makes a great deal of money from his publicly advocacy of those claims.
Had Bill Nye explored each of his claims, he would have found himself on the wrong side of the truth. What a dilemma! His growing anger as Tucker Carlson pushed the conversation towards the truth spoke volumes.
At some point in past, Nye chose agenda over truth.
Apparently, Nye assumed he could mau-mau Tucker Carlson with his “scientificness”, just like the big boys (Mann, etc) claim to do.
Wrong assumption (even against a somewhat weak Carlson).
Nye needs to return to the back of the warmest pack and stick to tasks for which he is qualified (e.g.: emptying & cleaning chamber pots).
Yea, I apologize to WUWT readers for the ad hominem, but “Science Guy” offers little else than his naivete.
I’ve also read that because of fire fighting, the forests haven’t been thinned as they usually are. The result is more trees fighting for the same resources, so all trees are more stressed, making them more vulnerable to the beetle.
Exactly. The claim is made that the pine beetles took off because of the lack of extreme cold. However, near the “icebox of the nation”. Frasier ,Colorado there is massive beetle kill. South into New Mexico and Arizona where it is warmer, similar forests are in much better condition.
Apparently Nye, lacking experience with mountain pine beetles, didn’t know the larvae produced an natural antifreeze (glycerol) that protects them to 30 F below zero. So, cold winters don’t slow them much. (An extreme early freeze can slow them down a bit because the beetles only start producing glycerol at the first sign of cool weather.)
Thank you Art, I think the biggest environmental problem in North America is forest heath issues associated with too much wood in semi-arid forest.
Engineering solutions include using waste wood for energy. Beatle killed lodge pole pine make beautiful log homes.
This is followed by control burns which rejuvenates the forest floor without creating a hard pan.
“The forests in Wyoming would not be overwhelmed by pine bark beetles as it is because of climate change.”
Well, that is a testable statement. Here’s temp data from Grand Teton Forest in Wyoming from 1910-now
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/broker?id=480140&_PROGRAM=prog.gplot_meanclim_mon_yr2014.sas&_SERVICE=default¶m=TMEANRAW&minyear=1896&maxyear=2014
Looking at data rather than just guessing as Nye does, I see the mean temp INCREASED 3 degrees between 1910-1940 BEFORE we added much CO2. Then as we emitted MORE CO2, the temps DECREASED 3-4 degrees for 30 years! Currently the temperature is no different than at many points in the last 100 years.
Dear Bill Nye, you are losing because thanks to the internet, Joes like me can verify your statements with real data in 2 minutes. Nothing makes people more upset than being lied to.
PS When I compare observation to a hypothesis, that is what actual science looks like Mr Nye.
I wonder if this Hollywood professor realizes how easily the “unwashed” common sense crowd can recognise his spin and check his facts?
I was reminded of Dr Happer’s words “glassy eyed and chanting”.
“We’ve been way to effective in fighting forest fires for the last 100 plus years, and the forests are much older than they used to be.”
Yep. That, and the hippies don’t want us to do ANYTHING that isn’t “natural” to a forest.
So smoking pot and playing loud music is why hippies go camping in the mountains.
Ecomentalists both want to save the trees yet at the same time want to burn then for energy instead of coal. Wow, are they confused or what?
“The big reason for the beetle epidemic is that the trees are old”.
Outside (South east) of Prtince George BC is an area of about 100 squre miles of what were once vigorous young 25-30 year old pines (I talked to the guys who planted them). The devastation from those beetles was incredible. Nothing left but dead sticks and some random young fir poking its way up through the snow.
The beetles ate young and old. They may have at one time preferred the old ones, but it sure seems they have acquired a taste for the young.
“They” also said that pine bettles would never go for the lodgepole pine of the northern boreal forest. Tell that to the guys fighting the invasion of the beetles in northern Alberta.
Perhaps the beetles adapted… perhaps they evolved… but please do not leave the impression that they would have been happy only eating southern Wyoming geriatrics
“The forests in Wyoming would not be overwhelmed by pine bark beetles as it is because of climate change”. According to Nye. I made a similar comment up thread a few minutes ago.
Read this one and there are a few more regarding BC http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/projects/63 Confirmed by this study,
Great point Art.
IIRC, low rainfall some years back (when the beetles invaded) made it hard for the trees to create enough sap to overwhelm them.
The real alarm with the “science guy; Isn’t he paraded at many K-12 schools in “science” videos? No wonder our public schools are falling behind globally. The man is a blight on society! His grey matter is obviously infected and is infecting the unsuspecting students.
I told my kids if they see Nye or Suzuki that what they are hearing is probably wrong.
Exactly. My family now knows that whenever Billy Nye, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, or David Suzuki appear on TV – I have to fight my gag reflex.
When my son was in high school, I had to have a discussion with his “science” teacher about my son’s skepticism. It wasn’t as polite as I had hoped it would be…
Yes, many years ago, when I was teaching science, I ordered a video that Bill Nye had produced and had to send it back with a scathing letter describing how Bill Nye had gotten the science concept presented exactly backward. I knew from that moment to keep away from anything in which this dolt was involved. He doesn’t know his backside orifice from a hole in the earth.
Bill Nye is the Pee Wee Herman of CAGW cause. This video is kind of like Pee Wee Herman squeezing his bicycle horn for skeptics to get our of his way. What a nerdy clown!
This guy is a scientist ? He says settled science and yet he cannot answer presise scientific questions. Pffft….another charlatan.
The Fake News MSM represented Nye as a scientist, Forrest. You’ve heard of the long-running program “Bill Nye the Science Guy”, right?
Bill Nye is a mechanical engineer, so he has a firm background in science.
Rocky Road: That’s “science guy”, not scientist.
Your explanation, Alan, is like slapping the license plate frame for a Corvette onto a Volkswagen Bug and claiming it’s a performance car.
I didn’t see demonstrable engineering or scientific skills come out of Bill Nye last night; instead, he was condescending, nasty, divisive, and brought up inane talking points to avoid basic questions from Tucker.
I seriously doubt you watched the interview.
Science is defined as the total of physics, chemistry, biology, geology and astronomy. It makes use of mathematics in observations and experiments.
Engineering, on the other hand, applies the principles of engineering, physics, design, construction, maintenance, and many other disciplines depending on the specialization (mechanical, civil, structural, genetic, electrical, and so forth).
You’d be surprised how little “science” is involved in most engineering degrees, Alan.
And you’d be surprised how little “engineering” is involved in most science degrees.
How do I know? I have a BS and MS in geology and a BS and ME in mining engineering. Most of the mining engineers I worked with (and these were very bright people) could care less about the scientific aspects of their world.
Conversely, the scientists I’ve worked with (also bright people) couldn’t build a proper bag in which to put their samples.
I’ve read a lot of comments here that maintain that science = engineering but I disagree. While they both work with similar aspects of the world, their viewpoints come from different perspectives and objectives.
Which brings me back to Bill Nye: He’s such a terrible engineer and such a lame excuse for a scientist I would never take his opinion about global warming; it’s just more alarmist trivia masquerading as truth.
He’s sold his integrity for money and popularity and can be considered dangerous.
@RockyRoad-
Please see my earlier post, here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/27/bill-nye-loses-the-plot/#comment-2438797
As to your response to me… You are correct about Nye’s response.
However, your assertions about engineers not having a science background are flawed. When I took all that chemistry and studied physics of the atom and so forth, I thought that it was a fairly detailed look at science. All engineers have the same background.
Most, if not all of them, will do as I did and have enough math background to intuit solutions to problems beyond their training and to be able to see how explanations for everything boil down to the physics.
That’s the science background of Bill Nye and as I stated in the given link, Nye has made his choice.
Ps to RockyRoad:
Apparently, you took my reply to Forrest Gardener as some sort of endorsement of Bill Nye.
Instead, it was an indictment. Bill Nye should know better.
By his statements and actions in the interview, it is apparent to me that he does know better, yet chose the path of the paid propagandist.
@Franklyn Durilla
While mining engineers may be mostly concerned with digging holes in the ground, they should still have learned all about geology in their education. They should still have enough knowledge to be skeptical of a doomsday theory based on dubious geology. If they do not, they are technicians, not engineers.
As a mechanical engineer, Nye should have a solid footing in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, measurement, error analysis, and other concepts relevant to climate science. He’s chosen to ignore science in favour of his own celebrity. That makes him one bad apple. Doesn’t spoil the whole bunch.
@Forrest
Nye doesn’t understand science because your thermo and fluids courses were offered by the math department instead of engineering?
There must be a joke in there, but I don’t get it.
Fair enough, Forrest. I wish I learned more pure science too. However, I think you’re over complicating the scientific method. It takes very little time to teach. It’s little more than the assumption that our universe has physical laws, and when combined with observation and critical thinking, the notion that we can improve upon what we know and disprove falsehoods we thought we knew. Critical thinking is ultimately what it’s all about, and I don’t believe that can be taught.
Anytime we smell bullshit and follow it up with research we’re practicing part of it. An astute second year mechanical engineering student would look at the confidence range for climate sensitivity and smell something wrong. It spans nearly half an order of magnitude and inspires no confidence.
Nye has the right tools in terms of education, it’s either intelligence or integrity that he lacks.
You’re right. Students are allowed to coast for fart too long, as they do, not contributing to the body of science until they get to grad school. I say grade schoolers should be required to submit theses if they expect to progress beyond kindergarten. Putting the cart before the horse means giving the kids a leg up.
“The climate would be like it was in 1750.” ?? So he wants Humanity to be permanently living in the “Little Ice Age” ? …N.U.T.S. !!
But IGPOCC says humanity’s CO2 didn’t affect the climate until 1950.
Engineers are fairly good at sifting technical (scientific even) evidence.
The advantage engineers have is that there are consequences for being wrong.
The trouble with climate science is that there are no consequences for being wrong. Well except for economic and environmental consequences. But those are diffuse (relatively).
Engineering is just applied science.
No, science is engineering explained.
Science explains all sorts of things that aren’t engineered though.
Holding an undergraduate degree in engineering does not make someone an engineer.
AP: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/27/bill-nye-loses-the-plot/#comment-2438627
As in my B.Ap.Sc. in Water Resources and Pollution from University of British Columbia Engineering. (Bachelor of Applied Science). And yes, I do differentiate science from engineering. Too bad BN didn’t/doesn’t. An actor on the stage pretending to be a scientist?
(Wonder how those 747 dampers he worked on are working? I think I stick to flights on smaller aircraft. Just kidding.)
“But those are diffuse (relatively).”
More to the point, they are paid for with Other People’s Money. Climate “scientists” can be wrong again and again, and the compliant media will simply give them more publicity. They will never call them out on their failures. This interview with Bill Nye is a very rare exception.
if that guy is an engineer Im a lamppost
What does he claim to have made? a spoon with a hole in perhaps (to thwart warming)
Venus
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye
Note: This is a guy who claimed a patent on using a plastic bag full of water as a magnifying glass. Good grief, Charlie Brown!!!!
I apologise on behalf of engineers. If its any consolation, I’ve always thought mechanical engineering degrees lacked a certain something.
@AP: Please. such ad hominin deflections weaken your own otherwise brilliant life’s trajectory. (see what I did there?). Notice to twitter: I’m no fan of the Bee Nee either, but not because he is a graduate mechanical engineer.
Watch the interview. Funniest I’ve seen in a long time. Bill Nye the clueless guy grasping for straws.
W
Tucker Carlson was right to back Bill Nye against the wall but Tucker made a mistake in using the term “engineer” in a derogatory manner as if Engineering is somehow inferior to Science. Engineers are trained academically just as intensively or even more so than scientists but with a different focus. Scientists observe the world and attempt to model it. Engineers start with those scientific models to build something useful. If a scientist gets the model wrong it is simply embarrassing. If an engineer gets it wrong, people get hurt. The difference in attitude concerning the real world is stark. Engineers always begin a project with the assumption that the starting models are at best +/- 50% accurate or probably worse. Most engineers would naturally be skeptical of any claim to a 98% consensus. I find that formally trained scientists give the benefit of the doubt to any paper if it has been published, the old peer review thing. Most engineers I know just shake their heads at mere mention of the climate controversy.
Correct you are.
I’m an engineer, and I didn’t take offense or feel belittled. Unless you’re a “climate engineer” (Note to self: The Next Big Thing!) you’re never going to be asked or expected to shed light on global climate. But as an engineer, I’m perfectly capable of applying the sniff test to the CAGW hoax, and to spot the obvious failures of climate models.
An engineer: someone who does precise calculations to multiple decimal places based on empirical guesswork using suspect data collected by people with questionable knowledge while under the influence of … and then applies a nice round safety factor based on …
(or any one of the many variations thereof)
My wife and my best friend’s wife used to post shared engineering jokes on the refrigerator for us as they perceived them to be closer to the truth than we would have liked to admit.
I think Bill Nye missed out on the engineering appreciation of humour. On the other hand, watching him …
Thank you. I too believe Tucker should not have gone there.
I might add that a number of engineers have spent a good deal of their careers in research and development and have more than a few published papers in scientific journals… the line between “engineer” and “scientist” is a blurry one.
Carlson wasn’t well equipped to debunk Nye’s propaganda.
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Nye @ur momisugly 7:06: “uh,, people who plan to run ski resorts would still be able to do it in Europe”
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Tell us, Bill, how many ski resorts have closed down in Europe due to lack of snow?
Are snowfalls now just a thing of the past, as reported in the Independent UK in 2000?
Or are heavy snowfalls and colder winters now a sign of global warming, as reported in the Independent UK, October 2014?
When climate Scientologists advance two or more contradictory narratives, how do we know which one to believe?
* * * * * * * * * *
Climate change threat to alpine ski resorts
By Graham Tibbetts
Telegraph UK, 21 May 2008
[…]
In some years the amount that fell was 60 per cent lower than was typical in the early 1980s, said Christoph Marty, from the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos, who analysed the records.
“I don’t believe we will see the kind of snow conditions we have experienced in past decades,” he said.
* * * * * * * * * *
The Alps have best snow conditions ‘in a generation’
Heavy storms this week mean that skiers will enjoy records amounts of snow in Alpine resorts this Christmas.
By Peter Hardy
Telegraph UK, 19 Dec 2008
* * * * * * * * * *
The Alps sure didn’t have the best snow and ice conditions during the Roman Warm Period.
And the historically recorded facts substantiate that claim simply because, ta dah …….
Hannibal lucked out when he decided to march his army and herd of elephants across the Alps to attack the Romans in 218 BC because there surely could not have been many glaciers or heavy snowpack blocking his route since documented history proves he accomplished that feat.
Read more @ur momisugly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal's_Crossing_of_the_Alps
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/images/Figure4.jpg
Love it.
Yes’ and those dinosaurs would not be extinct either, it was us pesky little humans that caused their demise!
It’s appalling that the interviewer clearly knew more than then bogus “science guy”
And when I look at the Central England Temperature record I see plenty of change. As this correlates well with global temperature, it is therefore a good proxy for global temperature. AND CET shows absolutely no unusual change in the modern period.
http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/IrishFamines.png
Look at the rapid warming between about 1700 and 1730.
Such a rate of warming and change would have modern ‘climate scientists’ having a fit.
What manmade event led to that rapid and significant warming?
Until we can explain our past climate, there is no prospect of properly assessing how climate might in the future change.
Richard: That warming from 1700-30 is extremely similar to the late 20thC arming. It would have been a good trick to have shown Nye just that 1700-30 rise (without dates) and get him to comment on it. He would probably think it was the 20thC warming and start putting it all down to FF and GW. I’d pay to see the ‘reveal’.
“warming from 1700-30 is extremely similar to the late 20thC”
is not only similar but also at a faster rate,
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET1690-1960a.gif
Notice the volcanic eruptions in 1739 and 2010 affecting following years temperature, but also that the temperature was already falling during previous 3-4 years. So what might be the reason war this almost identical behaviour?
It coud well be the tectonics of the far North Atlantic (NAT), as the spectral composition coincidence of the tectonic data and the CET is far to close to be a accidental
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NATspec.gif
I have only eyeballed it, but it appears to me that the warming between 1700 to 1730 is faster than the warming of the late 20th Century.
The temperature (smoothed) appears to have risen from about 8.25 to 9.75 degC in just 30 years, This is a rise of 1.5 degC in just 30 years, or about (if extrapolated on a linear basis as is the want of ‘climate science’) 5degC per Century!!
By contrast, the late 20th Century warming shows warming of a little over 1 degC in about the same 30 year period.
Perhaps more remarkable is that within the 1700 to 1730 warming, 1 degC of this warming took place in about the first 15 years, so again on a crazy extrapolation basis, as is the want of ‘climate scientist’ that is a rate of more than 6degC per Century!!
CET has no doubt been compromised by UHI and land change such that the 20th Century record is not as pristine as the earlier 18th Century data.
The point is that there is much (natural) variation, and we have seen similar many times before today. there is nothing remarkable about the late 20th Century.
Nye: 1750: No More Ice Ages. Check out 1790s to 1850s “Bill”.
We are approx half way through an oscillating 42000 year cycle. Approx 21000 yrs for science guys a la Nye. The entry point to the cycle would have been about the time that Woolly Mammoths were becoming extinct during the Great Thaw. Mankind traversed ice bound seas and eventually ended up in Bronze Age – when populations began unprecedented growth. Come on Bill – we have peaked out for a couple of thousand years at the “warm period” and will next be on the down-slope approaching the next Big Ice Age (10000 years or so before it gets really desperate. The signs are already there since cooling, overall has already started. Science Guys for Guy Fawkes [At least one way to keep warm].
Why do many people mess up on the words,ICE AGE ending and starting?
We are currently in a INTER GLACIAL time frame,while we are in the long running 2.6 million Ice Age epoch.
Glaciation = Advancing snow and Ice fields,Cold. Last around 70,000-90,000 years.
Inter Glacial = Declining snow and Ice fields,Warm. Last around 12,000-18,000 years.
Sunsettommy,
I believe Prof Nye meant that quite literally. If it were true, that would indeed be good news, huh?
He says that without humans, the climate today would be like it was in 1750. But there was global warming between 1750 to 1800 as we emerged from the Little Ice Age. There was little human activity which could account for that. So why would today’s climate by like 1750 rather than 1800?