“Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.”
—Bill Nye the Science Guy
Most people know about Bill Nye the Science Guy. He’s helped to educate many kids about scientific issues with his Disney / PBS television program that ran during the 1990s entitled “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” (I think many adults learned from that show as well; I for one car tell you it was very entertaining.)
Bill Nye continues to educate and advance science in many ways. One that’s particularly meaningful to me as an astronomy buff is that he is connected to the Planetary Society, an organization co-founded by Carl Sagan and of which I have been a member for nearly thirty years. From 2005 to 2010 he served as vice president and then for the last two years as its Executive Director.
I found a short video that Bill Nye narrates called Climate Change 101. In just four and a half minutes he touches on many important aspects of the problem of climate change. There’s even a simple yet elegant experiment showing the impact of carbon dioxide on increasing atmospheric temperature that helps make the point clear: carbon dioxide is a major player in global warming.
Watch this video and see how well and how eloquently Bill Nye defines this important issue, making it very clear that the time for us to act is now.
Bill,
Given your distinguished career as a mechanical engineer you should know that most of the claims in this video are false. Anyone who suggests that present weather is somehow “extreme” clearly has a poor grasp of history and physics.
PBS has given you a soap box and you are using it to spead nonsense. In a better world people who claim to understand what is controlling Earth’s climate would be accountable for the economic harm that follows when their ideas are implemented.
Given your background you should be able to understand Burt Rutan who has drawn quite different conclusions about Earth’s climate:
http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
Currently I am wading through the IPCC AR5 WG1 science. Much of it is pretty sound with not a hint of catastrophe and yet the “Summary for Policy Makers” published in September 2013 will sound just like you.
Probably you can’t find the time to read all the WG1 chapters but I ask you to at least read this one as it bears directly on some claims in your video:
http://www.gallopingcamel.info/Docs/WG1/WG1AR5_ZOD_Ch02_All_Final%20observations.pdf
I communicate with some of these guys by email and they are all too well aware of the uncertainties in the issues that you claim are fully understood.
Thanks for posting. I’m sure BIll will get back to you with a reply as soon as he sees your comments.