Bill Nye, The “Science Guy,” threw a temper tantrum in a video played Sunday night on HBO’s “Last Week with John Oliver,” hysterically proclaiming, “The planet’s on f***ing fire!” and ranting, “Grow the f*** up! You’re not children anymore!”
The video of Nye and his expletive-laden rant was prompted by Oliver, who asserted:
However bumpy its rollout was, to its eternal credit the Green New Deal has succeeded in getting people talking. But that won’t mean anything unless that talk now turns to actions, and putting a price on carbon could potentially be one of them, although let me reiterate, it will not be enough on its own by a longshot. We’re going to need a lot of different policies working in tandem (sic) and we have to take action right now. But you don’t have to just take that from me; instead, I’m happy to say that Bill Nye has actually agreed to help drive the urgency home at this point by actually doing one of his enjoyable lighthearted demonstrations. So Bill, please, please, do you have a fun experiment for us?”
The video of Nye showed him in his lab coat accompanied by a globe, a blanket, a fire extinguisher, and a pile of sand. Nye stated, “Here, I’ve got an experiment for you. Safety glasses on.” Donning glasses, he continued, “By the end of this century, if emissions keep rising, the average temperature on Earth could go up another 4 to 8 degrees.” Yanking out a blowtorch, he then announced, “What I’m saying is, the planet’s on f***ing fire!”
Nye torched the globe, then pointed to the sand, blanket, and fire extinguisher on the table with the globe, saying, “There are a lot of things we could do to put it out. Are any of them free? No, of course not, nothing’s free, you idiots!”
Nye yelled, “Grow the f*** 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?!” Removing his glasses, he snapped, “Safety glasses off, motherf*****s!”
Nye made a vain attempt to blow out the burning globe, then walked offscreen.
As noted by National Review’s Ian Tuttle:
William Sanford Nye’s scientific bona fides consists of an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell, and a stint at Boeing. But you can be anything you want on television, and in the late 1980s, hard at work pursuing a career in comedy, Nye landed a recurring bit as Bill Nye “the Science Guy” on Almost Live!, a Seattle-area sketch-comedy television show, and a role as Christopher Lloyd’s laboratory sidekick on Back to the Future: The Animated Series.
Even the founder of The Weather Channel, John Coleman, told Climate Depot. “I have always been amazed that anyone would pay attention to Bill Nye, a pretend scientist in a bow tie. As a man who has studied the science of meteorology for over 60 years and received the AMS (American Meteorological Society’s) ‘Meteorologist of the Year’ award, I am totally offended that Nye gets the press and media attention he does.”
Video below: