Bill Nye says that 70 degree temperatures in February prove global warming, and anyone who doesn’t accept that is suffering from cognitive dissonance.
According to Bill Nye, the answer is simple: cognitive dissonance.
“People have a certain worldview; [then] they’re confronted with evidence that conflicts with the worldview, so they have dissonance, conflict in their minds,” Nye says. “[So] instead of changing your worldview, which you may have held your entire life, you dismiss the evidence—and along with that you dismiss the authorities that may have provided the evidence.”
Bill Nye Says Climate Change Deniers Have a Bad Case of Cognitive Dissonance | WIRED
Had Bill ever actually looked at the data, he would have known that the frequency of February 70 degree days has actually declined since 1920. The warmest February was 1976, which came immediately before the three coldest winters on record in the US.
Less than one year after the warmest February in 1976, it was snowing in Miami
20 Jan 1977, Page 3 – Valley News
The warmest February temperature on record in the US, was 104 degrees at Rio Grande City, Texas on February 26, 1902. The average warmest February temperature at all 1,218 USHCN stations is 78 degrees.
It is painfully obvious that Bill is unfamiliar with both the data and the authorities he claims to represent. He is a junk science guy, and because of his influence on trusting children, his disinformation campaign is a threat to both science and civil society. He is a modern day Goebbels.
