Bill Nye on Climate Change: We Could Engineer Low-Methane Cows — or Eat Less Meat| Big Think

Bill Nye on Climate Change: We Could Engineer Low-Methane Cows — or Eat Less Meat

New videos DAILY

Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danny Miller is at odds with many of his friends; they don’t believe in climate change, but he does. It’s a predicament Bill Nye can lend some guidance on; science skeptics and climate change deniers have been one of his longest uphill battles in the public sphere.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT:

Danny Miller: Hello Bill. My name is Danny Miller. Politically I tend to be conservative. I believe that anthropogenic global warming is real and that the Big Bang Theory and evolution are perfectly valid theories. Obviously this puts me at odds with most people in my demographic and I find that conversations with my peers on these topics usually develop into arguments on some other random subject entirely. My question to you is why are these topics so politically charged in the matters of science and not politics and how do I engage into meaningful conversation? Thank you for answering.

Bill Nye: Danny. Danny. Danny. You have touched on a subject that I find

fascinating and I've spent a lot of time on myself so I'm really glad you asked this. But when it comes to anthropogenic global climate change, or human caused global climate change, it's politicized because of the fossil fuel industry. And I've spent a lot of time with this, I've asked myself as a native of the United States. I have an engineering agree in the United States; I've got my license and I practice - I'm an engineer in the United States. Why is the United States not of the world leader in addressing climate change? Why isn't the United States the world leader in renewable energies, better water purification or desalinization techniques? Better ways to provide the Internet to everyone on earth? Why isn't of the U.S. leading?

And I am satisfied it's because of the success of the denial community or the deniers. They have managed to introduce the idea that scientific uncertainty, plus or minus two percent about whatever it might be, is the same as plus or minus a hundred percent. There's doubt about the whole thing and that's wrong. So what to do about it? What I always remind myself, and the example I learned from or claim I learned from was what we traditionally call skeptical thought or skeptical point of view or clinical thinking, when you tell somebody who reads her or his horoscope everyday that horoscopes are false, that t...

For the full transcript, check out