Bill Nye Tweets about Global Warming's Effects on Texas Floods
COSTELLO: The rain continues to fall in Texas. Watches and warnings in place across most of the state. In the meantime, Bill Nye the Science Guy starting a storm of his own, posting this tweet chastising meteorologists for refusing to tell people that climate change plays a major role in the flooding across Texas. On Thursday the president added his voice warning Americans to be better prepared.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The best climate scientists in the world ar telling us that extreme weather events, like hurricanes, are likely to become more powerful. When you combine stronger storms with rising seas, that's a recipe for more devastating floods. Climate change didn't cause Hurricane Sandy but it might have made it stronger.</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): Even the pope is on board. Later this summer, Pope Francis is expected to send a letter to all of his bishops warning them of the effects of climate change on the poor. Bill Nye the Science Guy is here ready to fight the haters.</s>COSTELLO (on camera): And before we begin, I just want to say 97% of scientists say climate change is real and much of it is driven by man, so let's go on. You tweet about climate change after extreme weather events all the time, and each time it makes climate change deniers freak out. Is this your strategy?</s>BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": Well, I just want to remind voters that suppose you had somebody running for a congressional office in your district who insisted that there's no connection between cigarette smoking and cancer. Would you vote for that person? You might, but if this person were adamant, no, the scientists who studied cigarette smoking can't - they - they don't know - if they were adamant, would you vote for them? And so, in the same way the connection between climate change and human activity is at least as strong as cigarettes and cancer. And so, I just want everybody to keep this in mind, that it's very reasonable that the floods in Texas, the strengthening storms, especially the president was in Florida, these things are a result of human activity making things worse. Now, it's very bad. I get you this that people have died in Texas, but I'm reminding you what else, this is a very expensive business. When you flood the fourth largest city in the United States, somebody is going to pay for it, and it's you and me. And so, the sooner we get to work on climate change, the better. And people say to me, Carol, Bill they say, Nye, what can I do about climate change? And what I say nowadays is talk about it.</s>COSTELLO: Talk about it?</s>NYE: If we were talking about climate change the same way we talked about the stuff that goes on, let's say, in Ferguson, or Baltimore, if we were talking about it, those are very serious issues to be sure, but if we were talking about climate change in the same way, we would be doing something about it. I, you know, was born in the</s>U.S. COSTELLO: Right.</s>NYE: I'm an engineer from the U.S., my engineering license is in the U.S. And so, I want the U.S. to lead the world, I don't want the U.S. to let - to wait for other countries to start coming up with the new technologies, the new regulations that we're going to need.</s>COSTELLO: Let me run this by you. Some of the ire, you know, that surround your tweet came from a conservative blogger, Michelle Malkin, her site "Twitchy," an article called you "alarmist" blaming every single weather event on manmade global warming, no matter what. Except that's not exactly what your tweet said. So, can you explain it?</s>NYE: Well, I just pointed out that in your business, the media business, no weather caster on any major network is allowed to say the phrase climate change, and so there's -- to me that's management. There's something going on where everybody is afraid of losing viewers and so they're reluctant to use the expression climate change. Meanwhile, the scientific consensus on this is overwhelming and the problems like the flooding in Texas and Oklahoma are very serious and expensive, so I want us to get to work on it, that's all. So, I just -</s>COSSTELLO: The term has become politicized, right?</s>NYE: I guess I'm talking to media management. Let your weather casters say the phrase "climate change" and then we'll be talking about it, and then we'll doing something about it, and we'll be leading the world, and I hope leaving the world a little better for our succeeding generations.</s>COSTELLO: Yes, but I think the term has become politicized. For example, Senator Ted Cruz who appeared at several weather-related pressers in Texas, he said, quote, "It's wrong to politicize the weather in this time of tragedy." So, I would like you to respond to that. [9:50:07]</s>NYE: Well, on the scientific community, we don't feel that we're politicizing it. Was it a political issue when people insisted that cigarettes cause cancer? Was that politics? I mean, sort of, in certain congressional districts the tobacco supports sort of, but in my view, on our side, the 97% of the world's climate scientists and me, we feel that the other side is politicizing it, not our side. The consensus on climate change is overwhelming, to deny it is remarkable and unique to the United States. So - almost - almost unique to the United States. There's a couple places in Britain where there's strong denyers. But the sooner we get to work on this the better. And by the way, who's the guy - who is the strongest environmentalist? The person who just build his log cabin. Who is the most adamant anti-smoker? The person who just quit. Right? So it the deniers on the other side, change their minds, we - let's all work together. We're in this together. There's only one planet. We're not going to go live someplace else. Let's get to work.</s>COSTELLO: Couldn't agree more. Bill Nye the Science Guy. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.</s>NYE: Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Thank you.</s>COSTELLO: Absolutely.</s>COSTELLO (voice-over): Still to come in the NEWSROOM, he may be the most powerful sports figure in the world and this morning we'll learn whether a breathtaking corruption scandal will cost him his job.