Bill Nye
Bill Nye did not have much to do with politics during the 1990s, when he was making his celebrated Bill Nye the Science Guy TV series on PBS. But Nye has grown increasingly vocal in his objections to changes, budget cuts, and firings at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and elsewhere under the Trump Administration. Now he's using his millennial celebrity to speak out.
'If the U.S. is to lead the world, science cannot be suppressed,' he said at the Stand Up For Science rally in Washington, D.C., in March, where he urged people to make their feelings known to lawmakers. In addition to inspiring action, Nye has attracted the ire of the Administration's supporters, including Elon Musk, who criticized him on X. But Nye is not inclined to go quietly. 'Scientists are citizens, and science has always been political,' he tells TIME. 'Where do you apply your intellect and treasure? How do you make decisions on how to spend government resources? What do you require of private industry, of vaccine labs? You need informed policy makers, and they're going to get that information from scientists and engineers.'
Write to Jeffrey Kluger at jeffrey.kluger@time.com.
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New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Blame Canada: How Trump can help us from being smoked out of our summer
DETROIT — Smokey Bear famously said, 'Only you can prevent forest fires.' But because Canada has not put in an ounce of prevention — the smoke from its wildfires has invaded Michigan and other American skies for three straight summers — it will take a pound of cure to Make Michigan Summer Again. So it falls on the best dealmaker the White House has ever seen to make our northern neighbor an offer it can't refuse: Either Canada puts out the wildfires ASAP. Or the US military will, perhaps en route to Canada's annexation as the 51st state. Since the time of James Monroe, America has been jealous of the events within its hemisphere. Usually any problems emanate from parts south, whether it's fentanyl in Mexico or nuclear weapons in Cuba — not Canada. 4 With Canada not working to prevent wildfires, America's friend to the north has become a bad neighbor. AFP via Getty Images Any one summer of smoke can be understood, even excused. Things happen. Perhaps the second was a coincidence. But the third, as Ian Fleming would say, feels like enemy action. In just three years, America's friend to the north has become a bad neighbor. The Canadian Wildfire Information System shows moderate-to-high threats of fire danger in Ottawa, north of Michigan. In eastern Canada, above New England, the threats range from high to extreme. Esri Canada's map of active wildfires shows a problem from sea to smoke-covered sea. BBC calls 2025 Canada's second-worst wildfire season on record. Conservative member of Canadian Parliament Michelle Rempel Garner has joined the blame game, declaring an 'utter lack of action from the federal government' created the problem. 4 A haze of Canadian wildfire smoke blankets Detroit and creates poor air quality this month. AP Smoky summers were not a fixture of my childhood and cannot become a new normal for Michigan's children. Nobody in Lansing has any answers. I asked a friend at Michigan's environmental department what was being done about the wildfire smoke. I was told it had issued air-quality alerts. That's not exactly the proactive response we're looking for. 'In recent years, Michigan has seen unprecedented levels of wildfire smoke drifting across its communities and much of the rest of the country,' reads the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy website. 'In addition to pollutants like fine particulate matter carried in the smoke, there are gasses containing the chemicals that — when combined with sunlight — form ground-level ozone. These chemical reactions contribute to elevated ozone levels seen in areas across Michigan.' 4 Canadian wildfire smoke practically erases Detroit's skyline this month. UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has thoughts on everything from tariffs to the impact of the Big Beautiful Bill to the price of back-to-school gear. But she's been oddly silent on the smoke that falls on the Traverse City Democrat and the Midland-area Republican alike. Whitmer spent one-fourth of last year traveling abroad, and she is keeping a similar pace in 2025, according to her public calendar. Perhaps too many of her travels this year are to foreign lands and too few within Michigan, to take up the plight of the pleasant peninsulas. Whitmer met with President Trump this month at the White House. She apparently left her folder at home this time rather than hiding behind it. Reports say Whitmer spoke about the $50 million in disaster relief Trump already granted for a northern Michigan ice storm — from months ago. There is no evidence Whitmer spoke a word about the current problem. The Michigan and Wisconsin Departments of Natural Resources have sent waves of firefighters to Canada, but it's not enough. Whitmer doesn't want the smoke with Canada. And why would she? She's just a governor. She's not looking for an international incident, especially when playing on the perception that Trump and Canada are at odds due to tariffs. 4 There's no evidence Whitmer even mentioned the Canadian problem to Trump when they met recently. AFP via Getty Images Michigan Republicans haven't done much better. Rep. John James, who's running in the 2026 governor's race to replace Whitmer, sent Canada a strongly worded letter. Then he got the other six Republicans in Michigan's congressional delegation to join him in a second letter. But Canada is the wrong target. James doesn't need to send a letter up north. He needs to call his friend the president. Trump has an affinity for Michigan and finished all three presidential campaigns there. It would break the man's heart to know we are being smoked out of our summer. Canada can't be trusted to put out the wildfires. The provinces Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have banned camping and hiking rather than fight fire with water. Canada has taken an active disinterest in managing its problem. And now its problem has become our problem. When Trump gets involved, there won't be a problem. The wildfire smoke Canada treats as a gateway to authoritarian rule, offering another chance to order people to 'stay home and stay safe,' is a threat to our lives and livelihoods in Michigan. This aggression cannot stand. President Trump, it's time to make Canada an offer it can't refuse. James David Dickson is a podcaster and independent journalist in Michigan.
The Hill
3 hours ago
- The Hill
The EPA's know-nothing assault on climate science
Soon after he began his second term, President Trump — who has referred to global warming as 'a make-believe problem' and asked oil executives to contribute $1 billion to his 2024 campaign — issued executive orders expanding coal mining and offshore drilling of oil, blocking enforcement of state and local laws restricting carbon emissions and slashing the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In July, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin moved to rescind the agency's 2009 'endangerment finding' that pollutants from burning fossil fuels constitute a threat to public health. Officials indicated that the decision was based in part on a report of five climate contrarians commissioned by the Department of Energy. Committed to ending regulations on automobile emissions, reducing limits on power plant emissions and releases of carbon dioxide and methane, Zeldin denounced 'people, who in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country … and basically regulate out of existence a lot of segments of our economy.' The Interior Department is now conducting 'consultations' that cause lengthy delays on permits for wind and solar projects (which produced 16 percent of U.S. electricity in 2024). The Trump administration's assault on what Zeldin called 'climate change religion' is based on demonstrably false assumptions and assertions. Global warming is not 'a hoax.' Temperatures on the surface of the earth and ocean are increasing at alarming rates. The ice sheets are melting, sea levels are rising and catastrophic weather-related events are more frequent. The benefits of addressing climate change, moreover, outweigh costs to the economies of developed and developing countries — and to the welfare of hundreds of millions of people on the planet. Hundreds of studies conducted throughout the world confirm that human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are having an adverse impact on the climate. About 97 percent of climate scientists agree. According to one expert, no new evidence has emerged 'that would in any way challenge the scientific bases of the endangerment finding.' A National Climate Assessment report presents 2,000 pages of evidence that rising temperatures are injurious to health. Research indicates that each increase of a tenth of a degree Celsius moves about 100 million people into 'unprecedented heat exposure.' In the U.S., extreme heat already kills more people than any other 'natural' disaster. Bill McKibben reminds us in his new book 'Here Comes The Sun' that many factors are often omitted when measuring the economic costs of various energy sources. Consider, for example, insurance. Wildfires, hurricanes and floods have caused many insurance companies to stop offering policies for homes in vulnerable areas. The number of homeowners in the U.S. with no insurance, according to a Senate Budget Committee report, increased from 5 percent in 2019 to 12 percent in 2024. Premiums for Americans lucky enough to get a policy are going up 40 percent faster than inflation. A British actuarial society estimated a 50 percent loss of global GDP and dramatic declines in 'critical services' by 2070 if temperatures continue to rise. Far from bankrupting the country, solar, wind and battery power now present cost-effective alternatives to fossil fuels. Noting that oil and coal produce wasted heat and send pollutants into the air, McKibben praises renewables as 'the Costco of energy, inexpensive and available in bulk.' A solar panel produced in 2024 will generate electricity for decades, whereas oil and gas will have to be replenished every few months. In 2024, 92.5 percent of new electricity around the world and 96 percent in the U.S. came from carbon-free energy. California is now using 44 percent less natural gas than it used in 2023. 'In a red-state cocktail party fact,' McKibben reveals that the largest solar panel factory in the Western Hemisphere is located in Marjorie Taylor Greene's Georgia congressional district. Texas, 'the spiritual home of fossil fuel,' will add twice as much clean energy in 2025 than California and Arizona put together. McKibben also cites evidence that renewables are producing more jobs than the more dangerous and dirty jobs lost in coal, oil and gas industries. China, it's worth noting, has seized the moment, and is now 'the Saudi Arabia of sun.' By 2024, seven Chinese companies were producing more energy than the oil industry's once-fabled Seven Sisters. In the last two years, China spent $329 billion on clean technology supply chains, while the U.S. and Europe spent a total of $29 billion. China also dominates the global market for electric vehicles. America can become a worthy competitor. Polls in 2022 indicated that 70 percent of Americans favored renewables over fossil fuels. But it's also possible, McKibben acknowledges, that the U.S., with Trump behind the wheel, will slide backwards into an 'island of internal combustion' and 'global irrelevance.' McKibben — a sometimes optimist who has written 20 books about climate change — concludes that we have one last chance to stop the increase in global warming and 'restart civilization on saner ground, once we've extinguished the fires that now both power and threaten it.' 'It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble,' a saying attributed to Mark Twain goes, 'it's what you know for sure that just ain't so.' With that in mind, here's hoping that with a push from better informed American voters and from the rest of the world, the U.S. will do a 180.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Coastal communities restoring marshes, dunes, reefs to protect against rising seas and storm surges
In San Francisco Bay, salt ponds created more than a century ago are reverting to marshland. Along the New York and New Jersey coasts, beaches ravaged by Superstorm Sandy underwent extensive restoration. In Alabama, a rebuilt spit of land is shielding a historic town and providing wildlife habitat. Coastal communities nationwide are ramping up efforts to fend off rising seas, higher tides and stronger storm surges that are chewing away at coastlines, pushing saltwater farther inland and threatening ecosystems and communities. The need for coastal restoration has been in the spotlight this month after Louisiana officials canceled a $3 billion project because of objections from the fishing industry and concerns about rising costs. The Mid-Barataria project was projected to rebuild more than 20 square miles (32 square kilometers) of land over about 50 years by diverting sediment-laden water from the Mississippi River. But work continues on many other projects in Louisiana and around the country, including barrier islands, saltwater marshes, shellfish reefs and other natural features that provided protection before they were destroyed or degraded by development. Communities are also building flood walls, berms and levees to protect areas that lack adequate natural protection. The work has become more urgent as climate change causes more intense and destructive storms and leads to sea-level rise that puts hundreds of communities and tens of millions of people at risk, scientists say. 'The sooner we can make these coastlines more resilient the better,' said Doug George, a geological oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Gulf Coast In the U.S., perhaps nowhere is more vulnerable than the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast. Louisiana alone has lost more than 2,000 square miles (5,180 square kilometers) of coastline — more than any other state — over the past century, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Historically, sediment deposited by the Mississippi and other rivers rebuilt land and nourished shore-buffering marshes. But that function was disrupted by the construction of channels and levees, along with other development. The dangers were magnified in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina breached flood walls and levees, submerging 80% of New Orleans and killing almost 1,400 people — followed closely by Hurricane Rita. Afterward, the state formed the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority to lessen risks from storm surges and stem land loss. Most of the almost $18 billion spent in the past 20 years was to shore up levees, flood walls and other structures, the authority said. Dozens of other projects are completed, planned or underway, including rebuilding marshes and other habitat with sediment dredged from waterways and restoring river flow to areas that have lacked it for years. On Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands, a barrier island chain, the state will pump in sand to help rebuild them, which will dampen storm surges and benefit sea turtles and other wildlife, said Katie Freer-Leonards, who leads development of the state's 2029 coastal master plan. The authority is digging a channel to allow water and sediment from the Mississippi River to flow into part of Maurepas Swamp, a roughly 218-square-mile forested wetland northwest of New Orleans that has been 'dying for over a century' because of levees, project manager Brad Miller said. Sediment dredged from elsewhere also has been pumped into thousands of acres of sinking marshes to nourish them and raise their levels. The same is happening in other states. In Bayou La Batre, Alabama — a fishing village built in the late 1700s — The Nature Conservancy built breakwaters offshore, then pumped in sediment and built ridges, now covered with vegetation. That created a 'speed bump' that has helped protect the town from erosion, said Judy Haner, the Alabama Nature Conservancy's coastal programs director. The conservancy and others also have been creating miles of oyster reefs, and are acquiring tracts of land away from the coast to allow habitats to move as seawater encroaches. Such efforts won't prevent all land losses, but in Louisiana, 'cumulatively, they could make a big difference," said Denise Reed, a research scientist who is working on Louisiana's coastal master plan. 'It could buy us some time.' Pacific Coast On the West Coast, communities vulnerable to sea-level rise also could see more flooding from increasingly intense atmospheric rivers, which carry water vapor from the ocean and dump huge amounts of rain in a short period of time. So tidal marshes and estuaries drained for agriculture and industry are being restored along the entire coast, both for habitat and coastal protection. Habitat restoration, not climate change, was the primary consideration when planning began about 20 years ago to restore marshland along the south end of San Francisco Bay, destroyed when ponds were created to harvest sea salt. But as sediment naturally fills in ponds and marsh plants return, 'we're realizing that ... marshes absorb wave energy, storm surge and the force of high tides,' said Dave Halsing, executive project manager at the California State Coastal Conservancy. That helps protect whatever is behind them, including sea walls and land that otherwise could be inundated or washed away, including some of California's most expensive real estate, near Silicon Valley. Projects also are underway along Alaska's coast and in Hawaii, where native residents are rebuilding ancient rocky enclosures originally intended to trap fish, but which also protect against storm surge. Atlantic Coast Thirteen years after Superstorm Sandy swamped the Atlantic coast, communities still are restoring natural buffers and building other protective structures. Sandy began as a fairly routine hurricane in the fall of 2012 before merging with other storms, stretching for a record 1,000 miles and pushing enormous amounts of ocean water into coastal communities. But the threat of future storm surges could be even greater because sea levels in some areas could rise as much as three feet within 50 years, said Donald E. Cresitello, a coastal engineer and senior coastal planner for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps rebuilt beaches, dunes and human-made structures from Massachusetts to Virginia and now is turning to areas farther inland that are increasingly vulnerable to more powerful storm surges, Cresitello said. 'If there's a river coming to the coast, that storm surge has the potential to just ride up that river," depending on the storm, he said. A 'phenomenal amount' of the U.S. population lives and works along its coasts, so protecting those areas is important to the U.S. economy, said George, the NOAA scientist. But it is also important to preserve generations of culture, he said. 'When you think about why people should care ... it's a whole way of life,' George said. ___
