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title: Bill Nye Makes $20,000 Climate Change Bet
description: Meteorologist Joe Bastardi has yet to accept the bet
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author: Melissa Locker
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og:title: Bill Nye Made a $20,000 Bet With a Climate Change Denier
og:description: Meteorologist Joe Bastardi has yet to accept the bet
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twitter:description: Meteorologist Joe Bastardi has yet to accept the bet
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# Bill Nye Made a $20,000 Bet With a Climate Change Denier

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by 

[Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/)


## Melissa Locker


Apr 20, 2016 6:37 PM UTC

by 

[Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/)


## Melissa Locker


Apr 20, 2016 6:37 PM UTC

[Bill Nye](http://time.com/4109865/12-questions-with-bill-nye/?iid=sr-link10), who is at least [as much of a scientist as Sarah Palin](http://time.com/4296191/sarah-palin-bill-nye-climate-hustle/?iid=sr-link1), is ready to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to climate change—$20,000, specifically.

The TV scientist—who holds a mechanical engineering degree from Cornell, [is a visiting professor at the university](http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2003/12/bill-nyes-cool-interplanetary-sundial-heads-mars), and has several patent—is tired of people denying climate change despite the overwhelming evidence of [global warming](http://time.com/7975/bill-nye-global-warming-marsha-blackburn/?iid=sr-link5). 

Nye has now challenged meteorologist Joe Bastardi, who is one of Nye’s most vocal critics and wrote a scathing [opinion piece](http://patriotpost.us/opinion/38793) about him last year, to a $20,000 bet that 2016 will be in the top 10 of hottest years on record and that this current decade will be the warmest ever recorded. Nye and Bastardi have [sparred in the past](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/23/bill-nye-joe-bastardi-deb%5Fn%5F473370.html), and there appears to be no love lost between them. In the video, Nye goads Bastardi into taking the bet: “Come on, champ,” he said. “Show us how tough you are.”

In the video, Nye also implies that Bastardi is being paid by coal and oil industry to use his platform to deny climate change. “I can’t help but think about Upton Sinclair, who said, ‘It’s hard to get a man to believe something when his salary depends on his not believing it,’” Nye said in the video.

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