John Oliver and Bill Nye shows why climate debates are ridiculous

When mainstream media covers various topics they often do so by having a “balanced” coverage – that is when the media gives equal time to both sides of a story. When it comes to climate change this usually takes the form of “debates” where a climate skeptic debates the topic with a global warming “believer”.

But this balanced reporting is totally inappropriate when it comes to climate change. It only gives the viewer a false idea of the state of climate science, while reducing global warming from the complex question it really is to a simplistic debate topic about whether or not it really exists – resulting in easy answers, populist views, quick fixes and confused viewers.

It’s no wonder that this makes people question global warming despite the fact that, in reality, there is no debate. The scientific support for anthropogenic climate change is massive and unquestionable.

That’s why this climate segment from Last Week Tonight - John Oliver’s new show on HBO - is so great and spot-on. Oliver first explains why there really should be no climate debate, at all. He continues by demonstrating, with the help from Bill Nye the Science Guy, what an appropriate TV-debate should look like if the mainstream media followed the science behind climate change. His “statistically accurate” climate debate then pits three global warming skeptics against Bill Nye and 96 scientists. The result is simply hilarious!

The science behind John Oliver’s “statistically accurate” debate comes from a study made in 2013. The study examined over 12000 peer-reviewed climate science papers and came to the conclusion that 97 percent of those papers supported the view that humans are responsible for climate change.