The Benshi

Bill sets the record straight with a climate skeptic.

BILL MAHER. He seems to be developing a zero tolerance policy for climate skeptics. Which is nice.

spaceghost

FIVE INVESTIGATIONS LATER

A couple years ago I wrote about Bill Maher making a significant blunder on his HBO show “Real Time” when he said, in reference to the Climategate email mess, “… and some of the scientists, yes, were caught fudging a few facts.” Wrong. With the help of climate scientist Mike Mann, we sent the word that there were five investigations that showed there was zero wrong-doing by the scientists. Then last year I ended up backstage at the show and mentioned it to Bill — who held his hands up, saying, “I know, I know, thank you Mister Science,” as he walked away to speak with some beautiful women (classic Bill Maher).

But he heard the message, and last Friday on his show he had a numbnut conservative guest who rather stunningly tried to use the old pseudo-scandal to discredit climate science. In reference to predictions of global warming the numbnut said …

NUMBNUT: “… that has been discredited by the number of emails we’ve seen over in England …”

BILL MAHER: “No, that’s totally discredited bullshit, there are five different commissions that have looked into the East Anglia thing and they all said, ‘nothing there’ it was a fucking typo — this is what you’re hanging it on?”

Bill then proceeded to put his head down on the table, as if ready to bang it in disbelief. It was wonderful, but also very important. He has a large audience. He doesn’t need to know the science of climate change, but it’s important he’s well versed on these basic “talking points” of the climate skeptics. This time he did a great job of putting out the fire immediately and effectively. Progress.