Bill Nye Saves the World

Hi, folks. I'm Bill Nye.

You may remember me from The Science Guy show.

Oh, I'm back, talking science again with a new show and a new lab.

I'm loving me some Netflix

on the electric Internet machines that all the kids are using.

I've got some new friends.

A handpicked team of brilliant correspondents

who've traveled the globe to bring us some astonishing stories.

As you probably guessed,

we're not really making a kids' show.

It's for you grown-up kids all over the world.

We're gonna be talking about important, perhaps, even controversial issues

from scientific points of view.

And we're gonna make it a lot of fun along the way. I know, I know.

A lot has changed.

But one thing hasn't:

the process of science,

how we know what we know.

And there's still so much we don't know.

See, for me,

curiosity is part of what makes us human.

It's what drives us.

The joy of discovery.

It's the essence of science.

- Are you with me? - Yeah.

- Are you excited? - Yeah.

Let's get going.

See, you, me, we're in this together.

If we think together and work together, good things are gonna happen.

Let's get started.

Bill, Bill, Bill!

Ooh...

Ahh...

Ohh...

So...

as I hold the bulb of this thermometer...

the liquid metal inside is expanding.

That's what things do when they get warm.

And so as it expands,

the liquid works its way up the thermometer, too,

in exactly the same way

that when heat is applied to this liquid,

it works its way up the much bigger tube.

Let me tell you something.

The ocean on the Earth is like a planet-sized thermometer.

And when it gets just a little bit warmer,

it's expanding and getting just a little bit bigger.

And the little bit bigger means floods

in Miami, Pensacola, Galveston. These are all U.S. cities.

Portsmouth.

All these exotic places like Norfolk, Virginia,

are gonna have this much water on the floor all the time.

So, people are gonna leave.

Where are they gonna go?

What are they gonna do?

We got to address this problem, people.

It's not magic.

It's science.

How was that?

Why do we keep hurting the Earth's environment

and causing climate change?

Maybe we don't value the amazing things we are already losing.

But as the rapper Desiigner found out,

with a little help from our correspondent Karlie Kloss, we're about to.

Just that.

What the...? Karlie.

It's climate change, D.

Soon the regions where most cacao is grown are gonna be too hot,

making chocolate scarce.

Suck, man, my chocolate.

Tell me about it. I need my chocolate chocolate chip.

But, you know, there's no shortage of black jelly beans.

What? No, man.

I know, right? Here's the deal. Warming waters, overfishing,

and ocean acidification are destroying all the fish supplies.

- All the fish? - Like, all the fish.

- That's terrible, man. - Black jelly bean?

Desiigner?

Higher temperatures, long droughts punctuated by intense rainfall,

more resilient pests and plant diseases,

have significantly reduced the coffee supplies in recent years.

It's all right.

Sorry, panda, we got no coffee, but at least we got friendship, man.

I'm sorry about your friend.

Climate change threatens China's bamboo supply,

which is basically the only thing pandas eat.

- I know. - Thanks.

Sorry.

Listen, people. The world is getting warmer...

because of us.

What, you thought...?

You thought I was gonna get a new TV show and not talk about climate change?

Come on, for crying out loud.

We've had world wars, pandemics,

we've even had reality television.

But global warming and climate change are way worse.

Paraphrasing my colleague Jay Z...

it's not one problem, we've got 99 problems.

And they're all...

difficult.

Our factories, cars, trains and planes, and electric power plants,

almost all run on fuel made of ancient living things.

Coal, oil, and natural gas. And they contain carbon.

And when they burn, they produce carbon dioxide,

which chemists like you call CO2.

And carbon dioxide has a remarkable property.

As light from the sun goes through the Earth's atmosphere,

it passes right by CO2 molecules.

When sunlight reaches the surface,

it warms the soil, the seas, and the plants.

And some of that warmth

returns right up into outer space as heat energy.

Well, you've probably heard that we call CO2 a greenhouse gas.

It's not a perfect nickname,

but here is where the expression comes from.

When I point this small and happy infrared camera

at my hand,

my hand glows with infrared light.

But then watch what happens as I dip it

into this glass aquarium.

Like, dude,

my fingers are, like, totally cut off.

It turns out that glass blocks infrared light.

It's one of the ways that greenhouses work.

The glass lets light through,

but prevents a lot of the heat, the infrared, from escaping.

The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does the same thing.

"But, Bill, there is no big glass dome over the Earth."

I know, I know. Okay.

But there is a big gas dome.

A big gas dome, get it?

Glass dome, gas dome. Are you with me, huh?

So, because CO2 acts like the glass,

the nickname "greenhouse gas" has stuck.

And the heat is held in the atmosphere.

Our world has always been kept warm by what we call the greenhouse effect.

But as far back as we can measure,

it's never gotten this warm this fast.

It's the rate. That's the problem.

And it's making our Earth...

a hot mess.

Ice at the poles is melting,

CO2 mixing into the ocean is making the ocean acidic.

Ocean life is dying.

And the warming ocean is expanding,

so sea levels are rising.

More heat in the air means more energy,

more storms, more droughts, more fires, and more floods.

This sucks.

I guarantee you people that 2010-2020...

will be the hottest decade on record...

and not just because I'm on TV again.

Places all over the world are already being affected.

I'm serious.

So...

we sent Karlie Kloss to Venice, Italy,

where engineers are on the frontlines of a battle against the rising waters.

For over a thousand years,

Venice has been known throughout the world as the City of Water.

But now, in an age of global warming,

that water has become a big problem.

Every year comes flooding.

Fifty centimeters, 60 centimeters, even more.

- There is a bath there. - Oh, wow.

- Because of the high water. - This is how you protect your books?

Yes. And we have about ten bath.

- Ten bathtubs? - Yeah.

The water don't stop. It come, come, come.

Look, look, look.

- You see? - Wow.

We repair for the damage for the salt.

Venice was built on the water.

Unfortunately, this is one of the major problem that Venice has.

The tide here actually rises two times a day.

It's part of the natural flow of water

from the ocean to the lagoon that the city is built on.

As our planet has gotten warmer, those tides have risen higher,

increasing the threat of floods when a storm moves in.

Enter Project MOSE,

the Venetians' answer to rising tides, and the city's main defense

against future flooding and destruction.

The idea is rather simple.

- It's, uh, buoyancy, you know? - Yes.

We have these gates standing on the bottom

and in case of need, we inflate air inside.

And that cause the tilting up till the surface

- and they will protect the lagoon... - Yes.

From the high tide.

The system is designed

to hold back a high tide of up to three meters.

We got to see some of these massive gates up close

as they were arriving at the dock for installation.

This is a rather delicate situation

- as you may understand. - Yes.

After three decades of planning,

the construction of MOSE is now in its final stages.

The system will be fully implemented in 2018.

- Be careful, Karlie. - Okay.

Once installed, this is full of water, and the air is entering into the red pipe...

- Through these red pipes. - Yeah, this pipe.