Parenting

Bill Nye Dropping F Bombs Urging Us Get Our Sh*t Together On Climate Change Is A Must See

by Sarah Aswell
Alex Whitcomb via Twitter

Bill Nye is serious as hell when discussing how important it is for the United States to act on climate change

We all remember the bowtie-clad Bill Nye from simpler times in the 1990s, when “The Science Guy” taught us all about the wonders and joys of the natural world around us. But more recently, he’s been in the news for being a champion of environmentalism, as he spreads the word about the truth and the dangers of climate change. Yeah, he used to be a chipper, easy-going guy. Now he’s a chipper, easy-going guy who is dead serious about saving our planet.

Most recently, he was featured on Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, where he dropped a series of F-bombs in an attempt to wake us up to what we are doing to our one and only home.

“By the end of this century, if emissions keep rising, the average temperature on Earth could go up another four to eight degrees,” Nye said, in his lab coat and safety goggles.

“What I’m saying is the planet’s on fucking fire,” he continued, as he sets a globe on fire with a blowtorch.

“There are a lot of things we could do to put it out,” he said, pointing at solutions that include a fire extinguisher, a bucket of sand, and a blanket. “Are any of them free? No, of course not. Nothing’s free, you idiots. Grow the fuck up. You’re not children anymore. I didn’t mind explaining photosynthesis to you when you were 12. But you’re adults now, and this is an actual crisis, got it?”

“Safety glasses off, mother fuckers,” Nye said, before ending his segment.

“I think we’ve all broken Bill Nye,” declared Oliver. “And I for one am absolutely on board for his new gritty reboot.”

Nye was on the show originally as part of a larger, 20-minute segment of the show that discussed the Green New Deal and the importance of carbon pricing to reducing carbon emissions and fighting back against global warming.

Nye had some things to say to that, too.

“I’m going to explain the complicated logic behind carbon pricing,” he says, putting his safety glasses on. “When something costs more, people buy less of it… That’s it.”

When asked to expand, he gave another simple explanation behind why we need to tax carbon usage, like they already do successfully in the U.K.

“When we release carbon, say by burning coal or driving an SUV, all of us pay for that in the form of things like fires, floods, and crop failure. Putting a fee on carbon creates incentives to emit less carbon. And more importantly, it also incentivizes the development of low-carbon technology, which is huge, because that’s vital to reducing emissions globally.”

It seems so straightforward and easy to understand – which is what Bill Nye has always been good at delivering, since we were kids.

If you want more Bill Nye in your life, you should also know about his Netflix show, Bill Nye Saves The World, in which he discusses current event science topics like climate change and alternative medicine, ending misconceptions and sharing facts. He doesn’t swear quite as much, but it’s worth the watch.