Nye appeared on CNN Friday and used the opportunity to compel voters to support only those candidates who believe man-made global warming is worsening natural disasters around the world.
The Science Guy tied the recent Texas and Oklahoma flooding to man-made global warming and said that it’s past time to talk about climate change in the media at the level of Ferguson and Baltimore. He also called attention to how expensive monetary relief can be for areas affected by natural disasters and urged more effort to combat global warming.
Speaking to Carol Costello, who seemed unconvinced at times, Nye made his pitch:
I just want to remind voters, that suppose you have someone running for congressional office in your district, who insisted that there’s no connection between cigarette smoking and cancer. Would you vote for that person? I mean, you might. But if this person were adamant — ‘No, the scientists who studied cigarette smoking, they don’t know..’ — If they were adamant, would you vote for them? And so in the same way, the connection between climate change and human activity is at least as strong as cigarettes and cancer.
Nye then made the connection to the recent flooding:
And so I just want everybody to keep this in mind, that it’s very reasonable that the floods in Texas, the strengthening storms… these things are a result of human activity making things worse.
Though he noted the awful reality that people have died in Texas from the flooding, Nye complained that it would be him and other taxpayers who foot the bill for this disaster and others like it if something isn’t done to fight climate change. He said:
This is very expensive business. When you flood the fourth largest city in the United States, somebody’s going to pay for it, and it’s you and me! And so the sooner we get to work on climate change, the better. And people say to me, Carol, Bill — they say, Nye — What can I do about climate change? And what I say nowadays is talk about it. If we were talking about climate change the same way we talked about the stuff that’s going on, let’s say, in Ferguson or Baltimore, if we were talking about it — these are very serious issues to be sure — but if we were talking about climate change in the same way, we’d be doing something about it.
Nye indicated, as he has in the past, that he desires the U.S. to be the leader in the fight against climate change, which will include “new technologies and new regulations.” When speaking with President Obama on climate change, he said pursuing the science behind it is his “constitutional duty.”
However, Nye denies ever politicizing the topic. But at the beginning of the segment, Costello reminded Nye that he tweets about climate change after extreme weather events “all the time.” His most recent was one reason he appeared on the program:
Billion$$ in damage in Texas & Oklahoma. Still no weather-caster may utter the phrase Climate Change. pic.twitter.com/9J10deVQ7S
— Bill Nye (@BillNye) May 26, 2015
Costello had previously interviewed Nye with much more tenacity and skepticism in blaming everything on climate change. In the 2012 clip below, Costello pressed Nye on his politicizing climate change and even poked fun at the Google result when searching for Bill Nye. “You’re the kooky guy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she said. “I mean, you’re not a climatologist,” she added.
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