A few days ago on Twitter, I invited Bill McKibben to choose any catastrophic global warming believer he wanted and debate me and Dr. Eric Dennis at Duke University on the topic of “the morality of fossil fuels.” We would pay him $10,000.
@billmckibben Duke will host a debate between you+anyone and me+Dr.-Eric-Dennis on the morality of fossil fuels. You’ll get $10K. Deal?
McKibben did not respond.
In case he was unfamiliar with our work and doubted our intellectual seriousness, we prepared a systematic one-and-a-half-hour presentation on how to detect pseudoscience. We illustrated our points using McKibben’s celebrated Rolling Stone article, “The Terrifying New Math of Global Warming,” exposing it as the antithesis of science. We then exposed the false philosophies and corrupt incentives that lead Bill McKibben and others to propagate destructive ideas under the mantle of science.
One of McKibben’s most destructive ideas is that we should publicly condemn and humiliate producers of fossil fuels–that is, 85% of the world’s energy. Hence our desire to debate him on both science and morality.
No one can watch our presentation and deny that we have, at the very least, an extremely powerful case against McKibben. As “world’s leading environmentalist,” he should be willing to defend his beliefs, especially if he gets to pick any partner he wants.
Will Bill McKibben rise to the challenge? I suspect that depends on whether enough of us pressure him to.
Watch the video and spread the word.