Bill Nye: Science will survive Trump
Bill Nye the “science guy” blasted President Trump’s “anti-science” views in a new interview, but said he has hope for the future.
In an interview with Time Magazine, Nye said he thinks the Trump administration is engaged in an “anti-science movement,” but that it is temporary.
“As what I hope is the last gasp of the anti-science movement, we have this extraordinary administration with extraordinary people heading up the Department of Education and Environmental Protection Agency [EPA],” he said. “But that’s going to pass.”
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EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has publicly questioned climate science and is one of many Trump officials who has expressed skepticism about global warming. The U.S. ambassador to Canada said she believes “both sides” of climate science, and another Trump nominee to an environmental post once said global warming was a “kind of paganism” for “secular elites.”
Trump himself said during his campaign that climate change is a “hoax” created by the Chinese.
The EPA has also removed references to climate change from its website.
In April, Nye called Pruitt and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos the “least qualified people on the planet” to run their agencies.
Though Nye’s fame was built on his science show for kids, he is now a popular science commentator among adults and focuses his career primarily on spreading awareness about and combatting climate change.
A new documentary on Nye describes him as a “science statesmen.”
Nye told Time that he is especially concerned about the growing sentiment that “one’s own opinion is given the same weight as what’s scientifically understood.”
Still, Nye said he has hope for future generations, and said that directly taking on climate skeptics is the best way to change their views, particularly with people in positions of power.
“If we were talking about climate change the way we discuss whatever happened in Niger or the president’s extraordinary tweet of today,” he said, “we would be doing something about it.”