Bill Nye entertained and enlightened more than 1,000 people to kick off the Jasper Dark Sky Festival, Oct. 14.
Nye, best known for his popular television program “Bill Nye the Science Guy” had the crowd laughing Friday night as he shared his infectious passion for all things science from space exploration to the threat of global warming.
In true Bill Nye the Science Guy fashion he also managed to squeeze in some of his favourite catch phrases like “it’s not rocket science” and reminded folks that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth.
“There are about 100 times as many stars as there are grains of sand on the Earth,” said Nye.
“From a cosmic perspective I’m just another speck, like sand, and the Earth is just another speck. I’m a speck, standing on a bunch of specks, which make up a speck, which orbits the sun, which is an unremarkable star. I’m a speck, on a speck with a bunch of other specks, orbiting a speck, with billions of other specks in the middle of specklessness. I suck! My life has no meaning!” said Nye, as the crowd roared with laughter.
During his presentation he also spent a significant amount of time talking about climate change and ridiculed prominent climate change deniers, including American presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“I’ve been in Canada just for a day and once again the first thing people start asking me about is our buddy Donald Trump who is a climate change denier,” said Nye.
“The Earth’s temperature has been about the same over the last 1,000 years, but over the last 200 years it’s gone up very suddenly,” said Nye, pointing to the famous hockey stick graph that shows the dramatic rise in global temperatures.
“It’s not that the world didn’t use to be warmer, it’s not that there didn’t use to be more carbon dioxide, it’s the speed, the rate that it’s happening, that’s the problem.”
While on the topic he also took aim at Alberta’s oil sands.
“If you haven’t been there, it really is weird. No seriously, as a guy from the U.S. it doesn’t look like Canada,” said Nye. “What they do is scrap off ancient forest and then dig up this tar. The oil companies are trying to promote the idea that we call it oil sand instead of tar sand, but I’ve seen it and it is tar.”
He urged the audience to end the practice.
“I love you all, but it’s not cool. The sooner you guys can stop doing this the better.”
A significant part of his presentation also focused on green energy solutions to reduce the amount of fossil fuels people use and implored the audience to embrace science as a way to mitigate climate change and ultimately change the world.
“With your brain you can understand the cosmos and our place within it. With our brains we can understand the Earth, we can understand climate systems, we can understand energy systems and with our brains, dare I say it, we can change the world.”
Paul Clarke [email protected]
