Bill Nye: Trump a Bigger Threat than the Public’s Lack of Knowledge About Science

RUSH EXCERPT: 
REID: "And, you know, I’m glad you mentioned that sentence you saidcience is political.” There has been a back and forth, one person who wrote a piece, Arthur lambert, who said he won’t March because he doesn’t want science bound up in politics. And countered by someone saying it’s already political. And Arthur lambert saying what you’re doing is a bad idea. But the Trump Administration has done some things that are notable. They revoked the stream protection rule, the clean water rule back. Funding for noaa and EPA and on and on and on, backed out of the Paris agreement. Is the Trump Administration a unique threat, in your view, or is the public sort of general — I guess not — lack of knowledge about science and what it does for the country? Which is a bigger threat?"
NYE: " Oh — well, if I have to pick, the administration is a larger threat. You know, the environmental protection agency was put in place by Richard Nixon. By any reckoning, he was a very conservative politician. And he did that for the betterment of the citizens. Not for a specific fossil fuel interest group. Anything but. So rve — it was not the good old days when rivers were polluted and the air was so polluted you couldn’t see the mountains in Los Angeles where you are today from anywhere in the valley. Those were not the good old days. Instead, we established regulations that have improved the quality of life for everyone. Regulations are like a machine. You want all the regulations you need, but no more. You can’t walk up to a machine and start taking pieces off of it. You can’t walk up to an airplane and start taking pieces off and expect it to fly properly. And the same way, the regulations that we have in place are a result of 40 years of negotiations of politics. This is not a good or bad thing. It’s a thing. Politics are in the U.S. Constitution. From 1786. If I may, for crying out loud. So let’s work together, and make the environment clean, and have renewable energy so we don’t have to have a military on the other side of the world and we don’t advance or make things worse with respect to global climate change."