‘Hey Bill Nye, Is There a Conspiracy to Cover Up Agricultural Climate Change?’ #TuesdaysWithBill

‘Hey Bill Nye, Is There a Conspiracy to Cover Up Agricultural Climate Change?’

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Is there a conspiracy to hide the truth about cow belching from the public? That's the question put to Bill Nye this week by, um, Batman.

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BILL NYE :

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:

Batman: Hello Bill. I’m Batman and I’m a big fan. My question to you is why isn’t the agricultural sector especially with the cows being addressed with global warming with as much media attention as oil companies seeing as it is actually the biggest factor affecting global warming. At this day and age do you believe that there is a conspiracy? Thank you.

Bill Nye: Batman. Thank you for your question. I hardly recognized you. I really appreciate you introducing yourself. So there is actually a lot of attention being drawn to the effect of agriculture on climate change. And I want to emphasize that’s really cow belches coming out the mouth where most of the methane comes from. They have four stomachs. They do things a little differently than we do. And people are studying ways to make cows less belchful. I don’t know how effective they’re going to be but there is actually a lot of attention being drawn to it. As far as there being a conspiracy I really wouldn’t call it a conspiracy. We’ve been doing it this way for so long, 250 years, burning fossil fuels, burning the material of ancient swamps or wetlands that it’s a hard habit to break. When it comes to agriculture keep in mind that there are 7.3 billion people around today. But by 2050 there will be at least 9 billion people. There may be 10 billion people. And so those people are going to have to eat and it’s very reasonable that all of us will move increasingly toward a plant based diet and it will not be economical to raise cattle and sell meat.

That it may go that way just with market forces. All this aside or all this included or think about all this at once. What would be great I will say as a science educator, a voter and taxpayer, what would be great is if we had a tax. Or we cannot ever use the word tax, if we had a fee on the production of greenhouse gases. So if you have a dairy farm, if you have a meat ranch, a cattle ranch, a pig farm or ranch or farrowing operation what have you. If the farmer or the rancher were required to add the cost of putting methane into the atmosphere into the cost of his or her products then consumers would make different decisio...

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