Episode 14 - Bill Nye Talks About Energy and More
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For our contribution to Earth Day, we had the opportunity to\nchat with Bill Nye about his new show on the new Planet Green channel called\xa0Stuff Happens.
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\n\nI\u2019m\ndoing this other thing called \u201cStuff Happens? for the\nDiscovery Channel.\xa0\nIt\u2019s strictly for a new channel Discovery is re-purposing \u2013\nthey\u2019re calling it "Planet Green".\xa0 So all the programming\nis green, or about environmental\nissues and stuff.\xa0 And so this show is about consumer choices that\nyou can\nmake to live a more environmentally responsible life.
\n\n\n\nI\nam a serious hobbyist.\xa0 I have four kilowatts of solar panels and I have a\nsolar water heating system that I, if you will, designed \u2013 along with a guy\nwho\u2019s worked in solar in southern California\nfor many, many years\u2026I hired him, and two very good plumbers, and these guys\nwho were good with gas mains, and we re-rigged the whole house.\xa0 So now I\nhave solar hot water that pre-heats the water before it runs through two\ntankless hot water heaters.\xa0 So my gas bill in the summer is less than\n$10.
\n\n\n\nThere\u2019s\nan old supply chain from the South\n American Western\n Coast to North American\nfarmers.\xa0 And what is supplied is fish feed made from anchovies.\xa0 So,\nAmerican bacon pigs are fed fish from South American oceans.\xa0 And so many\nfish are fished so aggressively that penguins are going out of business.\xa0\nThe penguin ecosystem has been devastated, and penguin populations have been\ndecimated by this practice.\xa0 So we encourage you \u2013 the listener, the\nviewer \u2013 to buy\u2026organic, grain-fed bacon.\xa0 That\u2019s what we want you to do\nto reduce the market for this anchovy feed.\xa0 And it\u2019s just something that\nhumans are kind of doing by accident, but on such an enormous scale that\u2019s it\u2019s\nscrewing up an entire ecosystem in the south western Pacific.
\n\n\n\nThe\nbaby steps are important.\xa0 The hardest thing for everyone to understand\nabout the environment is that every single thing you do affects everybody in\nthe whole world.\xa0 And the reason, nominally, is that we only have one\natmosphere.\xa0 We can only breath from one source of air \u2013 we all share the\nair.\xa0 So this is a fundamental idea that\u2019s hard to get; it just doesn\u2019t\nseem possible.\xa0 I throw out this magazine and instead of recycling it, yeah \u2013\nyou\u2019re lowering the quality of life of everyone on earth.
\n\n\n\n\n\nSo\nyou go to the store and you buy one [compact fluorescent light bulb].\xa0 Ok,\nbut if you replace every lamp in your house, or every lamp in the main rooms\u2026\nReplace every one of those lamps, and you will see your power bill go down\u2026 Now\nthere are some whining, unbelievable-freakin\u2019 whiners out there who tell you\nthat we can\u2019t change to compact fluorescents because of the mercury - "there\u2019s no\nway to get rid of the mercury that\u2019s in those lights and it\u2019s gonna kill\neverybody."\xa0 So let\u2019s keep in mind that it was the year 1951 when American\nindustry went to buying more fluorescent lamps than incandescent lamps.\xa0\nThat is to say, if you work at any sort of factory anywhere, they have fluorescent\nlights \u2013 \u2018cuz it\u2019s so much cheaper.\xa0 And so those lights are required by\nlaw to be recycled and the mercury recovered.\xa0 And there are services that\nrecover the lights and recover the mercury.\xa0 So we just gotta do the same\nthing for domestic consumers \u2013 for people that buy \u2018em for their houses.\xa0\nFor cryin\u2019 out loud \u2013 this is not, if I may, rocket surgery.\xa0 This is\nactually a little more complicated that: trying to motivate everyone to do the\nright thing with regard to their old lamps.\xa0 And of course it can be done;\nit\u2019s a metal.\xa0 Who doesn\u2019t want to recover a metal?\xa0 It\u2019s valuable,\nit\u2019s shiny, you can see it \u2013 of course you can do it.
\n\n\n\nPolitically,\n[a scientific debate] is an unsophisticated idea. \xa0None of the three\ncandidates remaining would ever consent to a science debate. \xa0None of them\nare scientists. \xa0None of them would admit to being experts in any way\nabout anything about science. \xa0So of course they're going to say no; they\nhave to say no. \xa0This pursuit of science debate is an exercise in futility.\n\xa0Instead, we need to rephrase it - in my opinion. \xa0My best idea so\nfar, is to rename it something else - the "nondependence on foreign\noil" debate, the "health" debate, the "energy" debate,\nthe "competitiveness" debate - that's pretty good... \xa0But naming\nthis thing the "science" debate sabotages it from the get-go.\n\xa0And of course I support the idea, but the best correction I can think of\nit to rename it. \xa0The "competitiveness" debate - yes.
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