At this point, it would take outright denial to not realize how much climate change has put our world in crisis. Although projected increases in global temperature tend to sound small, the differences those few global degrees make can be devastating.
Between the UN report that at least a million different species are facing extinction and the way we’ve seen natural disasters get both more severe and more frequent, we’re definitely closer to the endgame on this than we may have thought.
And as Bill Nye himself makes very clear in the full video, it’s a game we can’t afford to lose.
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On an episode on ‘Last Week Tonight,’ John Oliver discussed the potential ways to address climate change.
As Newsweek reported , this involved discussion of the Green New Deal stimulus co-sponsored by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and how it seeks to, among other things, put a price on carbon emissions.
As Oliver said, “We’re going to need a lot of different policies working in tandem and we have to take action right now.” To drive that home, he then deferred to Bill Nye to do “one of his enjoyable, light-hearted demonstrations.”
However, from the beginning of his clip, it was clear that it wasn’t going to be so light-hearted.
Sounding fed up with everybody’s crap, he said, “Here, I’ve got an experiment for you. Safety glasses on.”
He began by looking towards the end of the century.
“If emissions continue to rise,” he said, “the world’s average temperature will increase by another four to eight degrees.”
As we’ve discussed, that doesn’t sound big, so he made it clear what that means.
And anyone who was wondering why he has a fire extinguisher next to him soon got their answer.
That’s right, he took a blowtorch out, set his globe ablaze, and spelled it out for us: “What I’m saying is the planet’s on f***ing fire.”
He then addressed the fire-fighting tools next to him, saying, “There are a lot of things we could do to put it out.”
But, of course, he took away this brief flash of hope with the kicker.
“Are any of them free?” he asked rhetorically. “No, of course not. Nothing’s free you idiots!”
And if that weren’t enough, he followed that up by going straight for our childhoods.
He said, “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?”
With that said, he finished with us with what I’m sure is a soon to be classic line.
With that, he made an attempt to blow the globe out before giving it a dismissive wave and leaving.
If that’s not the perfect way to encapsulate how we’ve dealt with climate change thus far, I don’t know what is.
Of course, a play-by-play can only capture so much, so here’s the full clip for yourself.
Come for the fury, stay to hear how awesomely surreal it is to hear Bill Nye the Science Guy swear repeatedly.
