Bill Nye’s blowtorch talk on climate change

Posted on by

Science popularizer Bill Nye told viewers of a popular American late-night show that Earth is “on [expletive] fire”, while lighting a globe with a blowtorch!

During his appearance on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” on May 12, Nye used frank language to talk to millennials about the impacts of global warming on Earth.

“By the end of this century, if temperatures keep rising, the average temperature on Earth could go up another 4 to 8 degrees,” Nye said to Oliver. (Nye was referring to degrees Celsius; the equivalent change in Fahrenheit is roughly 7 to 14 degrees). “What I’m saying is, the planet’s on [expletive] fire.”

He explained that addressing climate change means making tough choices in our daily lives to reduce carbon emissions, which are caused by activities such as driving vehicles or burning coal. These emissions produce greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere — warming the planet up, causing ocean levels to rise as glaciers melt, and increasing the severity of hurricanes and storms.

Nye, adding a few more expletives in his explanation, said none of these options to address global warming come free. So, he urged his viewers to grow up and make tough choices. “I didn’t mind explaining photosynthesis to you when you were 12, but you’re adults now. This is an actual crisis — got it?”

Nye is best known for more family-friendly content, such as PBS’s “Bill Nye the Science Guy” in the 1990s and, more recently, the Netflix series “Bill Nye Saves the World.”

[Space]

This entry was posted in , by Grant Montgomery.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.