Bill Nye: We Can Still Save the Planet –– Paris, 2015
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The world was able to completely revolutionize warfare between the start of World War I and World War II. Who’s to say we can’t replicate that sort of rapid change over the next 20 years, except with a goal of improving the environment?
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BILL NYE, THE SCIENCE GUY:
Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life. In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate. While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.” Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country. Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby. Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Bill Nye: My grandfather went into World War I on a horse, on a horse. I don’t know if you’ve ever ridden a horse, but if people are shooting at you, it’s just not the best place to be. You’re high off the ground; they shoot the horse and you’re now immobile and you may end up underneath the horse and it’s all very bad in that regard. Twenty years later, when both of my parents got involved in World War II, nobody who was fighting a war did it on a horse. Everything changed in transportation in just 20 years, so let’s do it again. Let’s make all-electric cars. Let’s make all the electricity from wind and solar.
Just that world leaders all showed up in Paris this year is a fantastic thing. Furthermore, the United States president showed up there. The president, whether you like him or not, is the most influential single guy in the world, single person in the world and he went to the trouble to go there, committing the United States to reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next few years. And they all agreed to get together every five years and check on each other, see if the other countries are holding to their commitments. Now the trouble is if a country is making more carbon dioxide than they agreed to in 2015, than it agreed to in 2015, there’s not too much anybody can do about it, except world opinion is very important. World leaders are very interested in what people think of them and us — or their country.
And as I say all the time, if the U.S. were leading, if the U.S. were out in front on energy technology, everybody in the world would be following the same way everybody in the world knows who Mickey Mouse is. If we had a culture of renewable energy, people would embrace that culture and use renewable energy.
The biggest news in science this year for me was the U.S. — which is the world leader in all this energy burning, fossil fuel burning, and using a lot of energy per person — the U.S. now has 53 percent of our population who believe that humans are causing climate change. So 53 percent is enough to get elected president…….
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