Science guy Bill Nye endorses President Obama

By Stephen C. Webster/Raw Story

Children’s television host Bill Nye, better known as “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” has formally endorsed President Barack Obama for reelection in 2012.

Appearing at a press conference this week with Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) at the Seacoast Science Center, Nye told a reporter for Foster’s Daily Democrat that the 2012 presidential election is “the most important election of my life,” and emphasized the president’s commitment to not cut public education budgets. “I believe we’re at a crossroads, a turning point,” he said. “We can either move forward, especially in education, or backward. I think voters have a clear choice, so I’m supporting the president.”

That’s opposed to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), who supports the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). An analysis by The National Education Association predicted the Ryan budget would trigger tens of thousands of job losses and push over 200,000 kids out of the Head Start program, a community welfare initiative that helps young students living in poverty — vital to keeping the dropout rate down in poor communities.

“If you fund public education, your society will innovate better and faster,” Nye said. “Scientific discoveries will create technologies that will improve the quality of life. People want those technologies, so money will come in to the U.S. rather than out.”

Nye has emerged in recent years in the national media as an unabashed advocate of climate science, once drawing the ire of a Fox News guest host for allegedly “confusing” the viewers with science. He even once insisted that science-deniers are “unpatriotic,” but until now Nye has never gone so far as to outwardly endorse a candidate.

President Obama has insisted upon investing more in the clean energy sector, but he’s also taken a balanced approach to other sources like coal, offshore oil and nuclear energy. Romney’s views on whether climate change even exists, however, have undergone something of an evolution; after supporting climate initiatives and promoting renewable energy in Massachusetts, he now claims that nobody really knows what is influencing the climate.

Or, as CBS News put it: “The longer he runs for president, the more doubts Republican front-runner Mitt Romney seems to have about the science behind global climate change.”

This video is from Foster’s Daily Democrat, published to YouTube on July 18, 2012.

Bill Nye to CNN: ‘The two sides aren’t equal’ on climate change

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Science educator Bill Nye on Monday told CNN that they weren’t doing the public any favors by giving climate change deniers equal airtime because “the two sides aren’t equal.”

“There are a couple of things that you can’t really dispute,” Nye explained to CNN’s Carol Costello. “Sixteen of the last 17 years have been the hottest years on record. That’s just how it is.”

“I appreciate that we want to show two sides of the stories — there’s a tradition in journalism that goes back quite a ways, I guess — but the two sides aren’t equal here. You have tens of thousands of scientists who are very concerned and you have a few people who are in business of equating or drawing attention to the idea that uncertainty is the same as doubt. When you have a plus or minus percentage, that’s not the same thing as not believing the whole thing at all.

The Washington Post noted on Sunday that scientists had been warning for years that because of warming weather and severe droughts, Colorado’s “table was set” for monster wildfires like the ones currently sweeping through the state.

“It is because of the heat ultimately,” Nye told Costello. “Just two years ago, it was was wet in Colorado and there was a lot of growth in forests. And then you can say they should have responsibly cleared that growth — it’s a difficult thing. So then two years later when it’s especially dry and the forest flora gets especially dry and then there’s a lightening strike, the fire is that much more intense than it would have been.”

“But the people who are politicizing this issue, they seem to be winning because not much is being done on the issue of climate change,” Costello pointed out.

“If you’re a voter consider taking the environment into account as well as the economy,” Nye advised. “I think the two candidates running for president right now have different views about the validity, for example, of science and the importance of it and what you would do about climate change in the coming years.”

“We in the science education community chip away at this problem all the time. We have an enormous population of people in the United States that don’t believe in evolution, the fundamental idea in all of life science. It would be like saying, I don’t believe in earthquakes or something. The analogies are disturbing.”

Earlier this year, a Media Matters analysis determined that coverage of climate change had dropped by 80 percent on U.S. broadcast networks between 2008 and 2011.

Watch this video from CNN’s Newsroom, broadcast July 2, 2012.

Fox Business host accuses Bill Nye of ‘confusing viewers’ with science

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Bill Nye “The Science Guy” found himself in the tough position Monday of explaining science to Fox Business guest host Charles Payne.

Payne began the Freedom Watch segment by pressing Nye to prove that Hurricane Irene was caused by global warming.

“I don’t think the word proof is what you are looking for,” Nye told Payne. “Evidence or result of? Yeah.”

“Here’s the thing though, Bill,” Payne said. “Ever since Katrina, we heard that the hurricane season is going to be more devastating and it was apocalyptic and the end of the world. And the reality is we haven’t seen that. So, how can Newsweek say this is a new normal? Is this irresponsible or is there any science behind that?”

“Well, there’s a lot more science behind it than saying it’s not,” Nye flatly stated. “But that aside, that’s only six years. In geologic times or in terms of climate events, that’s not very long.”

“The world is getting warmer, everybody. The world is getting warmer… Do we not agree the world is getting warmer?”

“I have no idea,” Payne admitted. “Someone told me it’s one degree in the last hundred years and I’ll take their word for it.”

The Fox Business host then changed the subject to Al Gore’s suggestion that climate change deniers need to be confronted just as racists were confronted during the civil rights movement.

“[Gore is] very passionate about it,” Nye explained. “As the world has become smaller — this is to say that as communication has become better and better, and we get to know each other better, we all travel all over the world. It’s routine to get on a plane and go to Asia and come back. As we get to know each other, we realize we are all one species; we are all the same human. But in tribal times, the importance of your tribe was so great that you were afraid of other tribes.”

“If someone from New England has sex with someone from Papua, New Guinea, you get a human. You don’t get anything else. So, racism is scientifically not especially compelling. If you learn the science of it, you let go of it. And when you learn the science of climate change, in my opinion, you will find it quite compelling and you will want to do something about it rather than pretend it doesn’t happen.”

“We brought you on because we knew you could connect the dots,” Payne interrupted. “Although the route you’ve taken is still confusing some of the viewers.”

Watch this video from Fox Business’ Freedom Watch, broadcast Aug. 29, 2011.