“Science Guy” Bill Nye argued on Tuesday that there is a link between people skeptical of climate change and those who insist that the Earth is really 6,000 years old.

“It’s not a coincidence that the creationists also deny climate change,” Nye told CBS News. “It’s a really important thing. Just look at this morning’s stories.”

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According to Nye, people who say the Earth is relatively “young” are likely to mistake weather for climate, and seize on the news of snowstorms in the Midwest as proof that the planet is not getting warmer.

In a new book dealing with his debate earlier this year against creationist Ken Ham, Nye said he went through with it in order to call attention to Ham’s worldview for the sake of younger viewers.

“If we raise a generation of people, of science students, who don’t understand the fundamental idea in all of life science, then they are not going to be productive members of society,” Nye said. “They’re not going to be critically thinking voters, and they won’t contribute as much as they could. And it’s not a coincidence.”

While saying that for him, religion and science need to be kept separate, Nye did call it “helpful” that Pope Francis said that evolution “does not conflict” with creationist thinking.

“There’s so many people comforted, get so much out being in the community of Catholics, that to have their head guy say we’re going to join the mainstream of scientific thinking is good,” he said.

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Watch the interview, as aired on Tuesday by CBS News, below.