I was a little anxious going to an evening talk about climate change. I wondered in advanced what elixir of melatonin, Benadryl and CBD gummies would be required to get me to sleep after 90 minutes of recounting how screwed we are.
My worries were unfounded. It turns out that a conversation about climate can be entertaining — funny, even. At least it can be when performed by Bill Nye.
Nye, who rose to fame in the 1990s with his Emmy-winning TV show “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” has always served up serious science with a comedic shtick — and despite its weightiness, he did the same for climate Tuesday at Seattle’s McCaw Hall.
Billed as “Change the World! Ideas on Fighting Climate Change,” the show married Nye’s personal and professional journey as a comedic science educator with information on our warming world and its place in the universe.
It wasn’t trying to convince people that human-caused climate change is real and happening, but served more as a pep rally for those who accept the overwhelming scientific evidence and are eager to understand the challenge and solutions for the crisis.
For me, it offered a welcome “you are not alone” moment: Nye knows the situation is dire, he’s fighting the good fight, and he’s calling on you to do the same.
“I say all the time, you have to be optimistic, or you’re not going to get anything done,” said Nye, dressed in a navy blue suit and his signature bow tie.
“You’ve got to think you’re going to win the game in order to play well. I mean, come on people,” he continued. “But then hope is not a plan. We can’t just hope things will get there, you’ve got to make them better.”
Highlights from the show included his many references to his deep Northwest roots. Nye recalled his introduction to comedy as a contestant in a 1978 Steve Martin look-a-like contest in Seattle, which he won. Nye, who came to Washington to work at Boeing, kept his day job while doing standup in the evenings. He ultimately landed a role on Seattle’s beloved sketch comedy show “Almost Live!” and later launched his eponymous science show for kids and adults alike.
Nye wove stories from his own life with the unfolding of the climate crisis.
He shared Exxon’s infamous documents revealing how the oil giant understood back in the 1970s that burning fossil fuels would toast the planet, even predicting a pace of warming that was confirmed by climatologist Michael Mann’s famous hockey stick graph.
Nye celebrated humankind’s scientific achievements and its pursuit of climate solutions. He called out Helion Energy, a company in Everett, Wash., that recently announced plans with Microsoft to begin producing energy from fusion by 2028, potentially harnessing a form of clean, renewable energy that has been sought for decades. Nye also talked about the potential of geothermal power, sustainable aviation fuels and carbon removal to benefit the planet.
And he spent a good deal of time on astronomy, one of his central passions. Nye addressed the criticism about putting resources into space exploration while the Earth faces severe threats.
“I’m still a human. I still have aspirations, I still wonder about everything,” he said. And that includes the fundamental question of whether there’s other life in the universe.
“With our brains we can know the cosmos and our place within it, and we can know our place in space,” Nye said. “We can understand the science that’s going to make it possible for billions of us to have an extraordinary quality of life here on Earth.
“Working together my friends, we can, dare I say, change the world!”
