Man, what's hand him?
Man?
You got Marshaw Besmall Lynch, Doug Hendrickson.
And Gavin Knewsome and you're listening to politics.
You're known to be, you're known to.
Be well, got I gotta be honest with you.
I'm really kind of sick and tired of people talking negative about some places in California. I just did the drive from my office in La down to beautiful San Luis Obispo to see my daughter uh and the great cal Poly volleyball team. And let me tell you something, it is God's country. And then I drove from there all the way back home today.
Are you just trying to get Father of the Year? Is that what you're trying to really communicate?
Well?
Truth be told.
You're you're not allowed to have your car as a freshman on campus, and so because of that, I was told to go pick up her car, and so I made the little quick tray chip down there, took it a nice little dinner, had coffee this morning, and then got on my way, but spent about five hours enjoying the beautiful coastline of California.
It is it's spectator.
There's no easy way to get down to cal Poly though from the Bay Area, so that was again you get extra brownie points.
For being that of the year.
Shout out to United There's three flights a day, so there's that as an alternative. By the way, what is it they don't let freshmen can't have cars now on CSU campuses or is that just a cal Poly issue.
I don't know if it's a CSU. I know it's cal Poly.
So if you're a freshman, you cannot have a car on campus, which is not the worst thing in the world for a father to not have your daughter have a car.
So I'm not that bummed up out it out.
And you're just saying cal Poly like people use the word Harvard and Princeton, because you're proud of the fact your daughter got into cal Poly San Luis Obispo, by the way, which has a lot of people that were also accepted into Stanford rejecting Stanford go to cal Poly. San Luis Obispo one of our best state schools, one of the best state schools in the country.
No, it's great.
And by the way, Gavin, on a brighter note too, since our co hosts be joined us today, they did come out today with the first time the list of the Hall of Fame entries, and of course our partner in crime, beach Mode, is on the initial list. Now they whittle that down to twenty five semi finalists in about a couple of months, and then to fifteen and then they announce the final five. I believe it's super Bowl. So the next six seven months it's gonna be pretty interesting.
Here we go here with him.
Well, so on a, is this like these Hall of Fame things for sports? Is it like you know the Oscars and Saga? I mean where everybody's like you're hustling and your lobbying and your marketing, you're promoting or is this thing that's already sort of figured out? Or is are you're able to influence folks?
No, nothing to promote.
They figured out the writer's vote and so there's nothing to promote. There's nothing to It's not like an Oscar and Emmy. So it just comes down to how many people that let in. But he should. He should be one of the guys and it would be a fun.
Ride for us.
How many people are on this first list?
There's like fifteen new guys that would make sense. There's eighty five guys, there's fifteen people that make sense.
And how long you stay on the list is it roll over if you don't get it?
Ten years?
Ten years and then you're kicked out because you're kicked out. Just so this first year of eligibility, he's on there.
Big deal, Big deal.
What are the running backs? Any new ones on the fifteen?
Well, the last two running backs to get in were Ega and James and I think Fred Taylor in.
Twenty and twenty one.
There hasn't been a back in four years that have gotten in, so he would be, you know, one of the first.
Who are the other ones on the list that have been rolled over?
His former former Seattle great Shawan Alexander, Remember Sean Alexander?
Yep, Well done, Marshall, Gavin.
How's your week on what's going on in your life?
Is we bill signing?
Bill signing nine hundred and ninety one bills, nine hundred and ninety one bottle and nine hundred and ninety one bills one of the Yeah, I think there were twelve hundred bills we got. This legislative session started the week with nine hundred ninety one left to go, tons of AI bills, tons of social media bills across the spectrum, you name it, there must be nine or ninety one problems to solve. So I got to review all of these. They'll probably, you know, be dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds
of vetos. We're gotting through the vetos right now. But that's the week that's consuming me.
Well, got Well, I got a question, if I, as a person wanted to create a bill, how does someone create a bill for someone to get it signed.
Well, you saw that, you saw that. You know exactly how the schoolhouse rock.
It's just a bill on Capitol Hill, exhausted trying to walk up the steps.
You remember that growing up, right?
I missed that week in school? So can you edify me?
You don't even know how it works now.
The only thing missing with a bill on Capitol Hill schoolhouse rock or the lobbyists that was the only thing they didn't tell you about back in the day. Now, bills come in many different shapes and forms, but fundamentally they flow through either by the author meaning the legislatword themselves. So if you're assembly person why or your senator Z, you introduce it because you solve a problem you want to fix it, or you read a constituent's node, or
you had someone call complaining. You said, you know what, Madam Smith, I'm going to fix this for you. I'm going to introduce a bill in the next legislative session. Or they come often through groups and organizations that try to find an author and they basically go out and shop an idea and say here's something we want you to fix, or here's a loophole we want you to close.
And that's where you start getting the lobbyists. That's where you get all the special interest and that's where people oftentimes are sort of protecting their own interests and locking out other people's interests.
And that's what I always have to keep my eye on.
Is this about incumbency protection or is this about what's in the best interest in California and our innovation. So it's a to which you look positively, but also oftentimes with little cynicism as well.
Well. Is there any bills, Gavin, Like a mother who has an issue with something or whatever and decides to write a bill. It doesn't have a lobbyist, doesn't have votes, and just presents the bill to you.
Not only that, we've got some heartwarming ones this year there's an intern, this young girl that interned for one legislator and literally came up with an idea through her internship and got her boss introduce it and got it through both House of the Legislature. It's on my desk, and she keeps sending me these amazing videos. And then her parents reached out saying I'm proud they were of
their daughter, which of course got me teared up. But I love that, like an intern coming up with an idea, and it's like one of those I don't know, that's what it should be about. You know, real people doing real things to solve real problems. And now she's just hoping I don't screw it all up and send it back unsigned, which is another way of saying.
Veto, I love it.
Okay, good, but it's me and it's you know.
Look, remember California is the size of twenty one state populations combined, so there are all kinds of issues from every GM.
How many in comparison, how many bills in my dad's great state of North Dakota, or they think on the desk, I don't know.
But I mean, yeah, these legislators are all across the country active, They don't meet every year a lot of states, and they don't have sessions that last as long as ours. I mean, i'll give you example. In Texas, they have a session every two years. In California, we're just basically full time every year. So we're active and we're busy. But the other big thing that's animating us right now is not just nine on our bills.
But I'm in the middle of.
A special session, which means I extended the legislative calendar with one issue, and that's issue deal with the issue of price gouging and oil companies and what's going on with gas prices here in California that impact gas prices across the Western United States, particularly in Nevada and places like Arizona. And so it's a big deal, high stakes and uh, and we're going to battle with our friends at big Oil good And I just I was. I was in a hotel last night.
I was watching some Oprah's out there stumping for Kama right now, did.
Some big special with a bunch of a list people.
Correct. Yeah, we're flooding the zone. I mean, this is this is it.
I mean, this is the sprint We're going to get early voting now nationally across the country. Uh So we always say about we talk about elections in November, that the election ends in November election Day in many states as well as a month before.
Uh election ends.
That first week of November, so early voting, absentee ballots. And I'll have opportunity to make your case now.
Now, outside of Taylor Swift, is Oprah probably the second most powerful and of course Obama and Clinton in them, I.
Was always Oprah was the dominant. She's still in many respects. Is Taylor Swift maybe right up there with her. But yeah, those are the two biggest gets in polat and uh that's why Trump was still taken aback by it and got so bent out of shape not getting Taylor Swift. But Oprah is still a force, next level force in American politics. And as she said at the town hall with Harris yesterday, she's she's an independent. I mean, she's she's not. And I know I've got to know her
pretty well, Sarr. Last week in fact, in New York we were both on a CBS morning show. She's fabulous, she's tough, and she's incredibly bright and studied on all things politics, and she doesn't just dial it in if you're a Democrat. She tends to vote Democratic, but that's on their social issues and uh, and so she's all in for Kama Harris.
And that was a big deal yesterday. They raised a.
Ton of money, but more poor than they got, a lot of new eyeballs meeting, a lot of people tuned in and a lot of people that have been tuned out of politics tend to tune in to politics when Taylor Swift talks about it and when people like Oprah Winfrey can understate, uh, the importance of those those those influencers that celebrity support. But it's a little more than just celebrity support with Oprah because she's earned a different relationship of trust with the public over decades.
And so it was a big day.
Well in the reality, Gavin is like we talked about, people just need to go out and vote, and that's the thing that's going to change things at the local level, the state level, in the national level.
And just go vote.
If you want to vote for Trump, vote for him, you want to vote for comm to vote for it, But go vote.
Yeah, and do a voice and do the research.
Don't just be I mean as important as celebrity endorsements are, right, I think it's more important. I mean, at least that wakes you up to All right, there's a campaign in it, and there's a candidate, but it's critical that people look at the issues and see if they match where the candidates.
Are and issues that you care about.
I mean, we're going to be talking to Bill nine a moment, the science guy, and it's all about science and sciences, discovering critical thinking.
It's not about being an idy log.
It's about being open argument, interested in evidence, and it's about dealing with issues of our time like climate.
And Bill and Bill is in the room right now, let's bring Bill on.
We could talk about importance of voting we don't even have to be political about it, and the importance of science and whether or not science is on the ballot this year as well.
What I want to do, Gavin and uh and for our partner Morshawn here is to welcome literally an icon in his field in the world, a graduate of the great Cornell University, Gavin something you and I could not get into.
No, who has written dozens of books.
I wish I had them when I was a kid because all my kids grew up on it with Bill nine. In terms of his education, he's a former mechanical engineer for hosting the unbelievable TV show of Better Understanding and Appreciation for the ruld around us, a legendary science educator, the great, the Great Bill Nye.
Welcome to Politic and Bill.
It's so good to be here. And let me just say, Marshawn Lynch is out here right somewhere.
Yeah, he's he's he's literally finishing up filming. He's gonna jump on as soon as he possibly can.
But I know you're a Seattle kid exactly.
Man, I'm a Seahawks fan. This. I saw him play. I was in the stadium a half dozen times. I saw him play on the TV countless times countless.
Yeah, he'll be joining us, and Bill.
He was so excited to know you're coming on and uh and going back to We'll break We'll save that. But I know that seismic run he had in the Beast quake is something you probably looked at and studied as well.
Correct, because I'm looking for his moves, you know, I mean the way I'm built. You know, I think he's really a model for me.
There you go.
Guys, with my physique, I just do I could do what he did.
I think, Bill, Yeah, I've always I've looked at you and I've always saw you know, you and him or him and you.
I mean, it's yeah, I know. Yeah. So we're going to talk about science and governing and these wonderful things, all.
These wonderful things.
And you know, Doug and I were talking before you got on a little bit about you know, what's what's going on, not from a partisan perspective or lens in our body politic with elections coming up, not just presidential elections but elections in every state, local school board races, et cetera. But we seriously were talking about critical thinking. We were talking about being open argument, interested in evidence,
not being ideological. And what a great segue to your career and the work you've done looking at data, looking at facts, looking through the lens of science, and maybe we can just take it from there on some of the issues that define our times now, least of which the most important issue for me that we battle every day, and that's climate change in California.
Climate change in California. And let me say congratulations, Governor. I believe I have this number right, one hundred consecutive days with some fraction of the grid running on renewable power.
It's I mean, it's remarkable that you even know that we got to one hundred and six days in this calendar year. This is unprecedented, running the fifth largest economy in the world on a carbon free engine for at least, as you say, some part of the day proving bill not just asserting proving, we can get this done.
Absolutely. And you know, my thing is the US Constitution. And I met many people, as I like to say, you can get it in paperback now, many people. As a CEO of the nonprofit, I have gone to Congressional offices many times, Senate offices many times. I've met senators, members of Congress who know the Constitution, took an oath to it, and so on, and they're generally familiar with Article one, where we're going to have a Senate and a House of Presentatives the way they do in Britain
with their household lords and their Commons. But I've met a lot of people who don't know Section eight, Clause eight. Clause eight Congress shall promote the progress of science and useful arts. Useful word science is in the Constitution, peoples, and useful arts. To me, Governor Doug is using science to make things engineering. What would we do in seventeen eighty six, We build a bridge, We'd make a plow, some harness for a horse. We might have the elements
of a steam engine. We'd be doing that, and that would be the useful arts of science. So the founding fathers, whatever else one might say about them, realize the value of science for the health and well being of citizenry and for our international competitiveness, even in seventeen eighty six.
And Bill, it's interesting and I love that you bring that up.
I mean, the idea that science is in the Constitution is something that vast majority of us are unfamiliar with.
I mean, what were you? I did? Was this intuitive?
Did you grow up and then you were reading at sixth grade that the Constitution and sol the word science are even you, mister science guy?
Did you come to this later in life?
Oh no, it was pointed out to me a long time ago. But the guy who really drove it on for me is John Morris. You know Laurie Leshan?
Yeah, why do I know that name?
She's head of the Jet proportion lamp.
That's it.
The first woman to head the famous JPL in Pasadena, California, where they make spacecraft that land on Mars, and her husband is a big fan of that. John Morris is a big fan. He's a heliophysicist, senior of Stars and he is a big of that passage. He pointed it out to me twenty five years ago and it stuck with me ever since.
I love it. It should stick with all of us.
And just you know, before Doug jumps in, Bill, I mean, you talk about that passage twenty five years ago, the passage of time?
Did you.
I know, your parents obviously outsized influence, as they are on all of our lives. But where this passion for science? Did that come at an early age? Nature nurture?
Oh? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I say all the time. I've told this story many times. But let's say I was four years old and we were playing cards, and I'm going to claim we were playing Crazy eights, and so maybe I was six years old, but I got stung by a bee sitting on the front porch of the house in Washington, BC. I got stung by a bee, which was traumatic, and then my mother resourcefully put a ammonia on it. Now, this is back in the day.
Everybody ammonia. If you don't know what it is, it's what you smell when you smell wind decks and so hardcore window cleaners such as my mom would buy. You still can't buy a bottle of ammonia and dilute it and clean windows, clean glass. But the thing is the bottle has skull and crossbones on it. As my mother's trying to kill me. And I was a rambunctious young boy. I can understand where she'd want to do. That be interesting, but yeah, yeah, she talked about it my whole life. Anyway,
it was fascinating. It denatured the venom somehow. And then in Ripley's Believe it or Not in the Washington Post newspaper it said one week. Actually they published a version of it many times really over the years. According to aerynamic theory, bees cannot fly. And I remember, wait, wait, the bees, the bees are flying. There's something wrong with this theory of yours. And it really did give me a lot of pause for thought. And then bees are fascinating.
I had a fascination with helicopters. I love bicycles. So I became a mechanical engineer. And uh, Doug, I think you read from a very very nice intro. But I'm not a formal formal mechanical engineer. I have a licensee.
You are mechanical engineer.
Well, yes, Well what's interesting, Bill is Gavin I around the same age, and so it's in Gavin's probably the same way yours high school as well. In high school, science wasn't cool. It was like you skip science class, you skip wood shops, and no one cared about.
Some mass inside. I'll add math to that, Doug. And at least I skipped them. Yeah.
And then and then.
Bill, you come along, you leave boeing, you do your own science show. And now you're the hippest, coolest thing in the world, where all these kids now want to go to science class, they want to learn, they watch your stuff.
We didn't have that back in our day at all. And I'm kind of upset about it.
But the cool thing, Bill is that you've not taught these kids that science is cool.
So have you seen that evolution as well?
Like going back to thirty years ago today for these young kids, which I think are the most important kids to teach and learn from that. Now they look at science like this is something you've always looked at like being cool versus you know, we didn't have cool science teachers. We didn't know learn about it when I was in high school.
So well, I said all the time, you guys, I'm serious. I try to get it. I try to understand the influence of the Science Guy show. But it was huge. People come up to me every day say the reason I'm a physician, the reason I'm I'm McCann. And I met some people in the lobby of a big building in New York over the weekend who said, hey, I'm an industrial engineer because I watched your show, and I'm an environmental scientist because I watched her show. It's really amazing.
But you guys, what happened to me was I had parents who were really into science. They weren't full time scientists, but they appreciated it. And we had a show called Mister Wizard, and Mister Wizard was his name's Don Herbert. I met him, I had lunch with him, I went to his memorial service. He was a very influential guy on television. But since that show, rather when we did my show, and I say, we the producers and the crew and I made the show. We had the benefit
of research. So are you of an age where you remember Beakman's World? Oh yeah, yeah. So Beakman's World did a very reasonable thing, which was, look at this cool thing, look at this cool thing. Here's another cool thing, look at this and it jumped from topic to topic. And if you're interested in science, you enjoy it, but you don't get what educators call that, they have a technical expression for it. You don't get lift. You don't really increase your knowledge unless you come to it with an
interest in it. So we had the benefit of this research back in the twentieth century, back in the nineteen hundreds, and we made every show about one thing, and everybody talks about the arc. So each show, each half hour, is about one thing. So it's dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, it's structure, structure, structures, erosion, erosion, erosion,
and you get more lifts. And this week, you know, we had, how to say, very compelling research sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Educational organization National Science Teach studied it and it's very as compelling. So thank you. We put our hearts and souls in it. We arrived in the universe at a time when the Children's Television Act had been created and so station television stations were required to have two three hours of educational programming every week.
To destroyed TV and entertainment.
Networks had to print money. And then all of a sudden.
But so, Billy, it's interesting.
You know, I'm a big believer, so is the governor here that you know, life is short and we got to live it. So you pivot from probably making great money at Boeing to say, I want to start my own science TV show.
I had a Volkswagen bug I did.
Hey, those were hot back in the day.
So seriously, guys, when you got out of engineering school you could in those days, you could get a job. It was not you know, there was demand. I mean it was like, as I say, it was a vocational school where you learn to do homework problems. I got paid to do homework frogs. I love math, Governor, I love science. Anyway, I was also I was a new
guy in Seattle. I got a job in Seattle. I was really interested in mountain climbing, and I got a job in an area where you can drive to glaciers in the Seattle area in those days, so I climbed a bunch of local peaks and this and that, and I was new in town, so I was a United Way big brother, you know what I mean. And I volunteered at the Pacific Science Center, which is still there, a venerable institution built in nineteen sixty two for the Seattle World's Fair. And I'd wear a vest and I
would pour liquid nitrogen around in the Senate. And after winning in seat only in Seattle, I won the Steve Martin lookalike contest. I started doing or trying to do stand up comedy, and I met these guys and it's rosschef for John Keister, and they asked me to submit jokes to this comedy show. So I did, and then eventually I quit my day job October third, nineteen eighty six, roughly, and tried to pursue this comedy full time. But what
was gnawing at me was the kids. The kids today, it's we have to get young people excited about science, that's the deal. And so we had also in those days, we had research that ten years old is about as old as you can be to get what they call the lifelong passion for science, and I think it's as old as you can be to be the life want to get the lifelong passion or anything? My governor, when did you want to run stuff when you were a little kid? Right? You wanted to be a leader? Uh?
And then Doug, when did you want to tell stories? Probably from the giddest of get goes? And so we had made the Science Sky Show deliberately at people in fourth grade, ten years old and younger, because that's what the research indicated would be the most effective age at which to aim. So we had benefit of research, we had these these things came together, and I went for the car, as we say on the game show, Well you went.
You went for the car, and you not only got the limo, you also got the yacht. So I appreciate what you've done, Bill, because has been very impressive.
That's incredible career.
And by the way, everybody, I'm in two unions, all right, and we want to make sure I'm screen actors and I'm writers and writers that's right. Yeah, So you guys, we want to make sure we keep production in California.
You know.
That's that's we couldn't agree more with that.
By the way, we also want to keep writers writing and actors acting. What about the science of artificial intelligence? How are where are you on the AI spectrum?
Well, I've messed around with it, so everybody. What we want is to have you mentioned this earlier. We want everybody to have what nowadays is called critical thinking skill. When I was in school, it might have been called logic or logical reasoning or something like that. But you want people to be able to evaluate evidence too. I have met in the twenty first century in the United States, I have met people who asked me, or ask somebody to ask me if I thought the world might be flatted.
And that I mean, but it was a sincere question.
It wasn't just too people who were graduated from high school in the United States asking me.
And I just remember Kyrie Irvy lasted that in playoffs a couple of years ago.
Oh I know, yeah, and he started he was. He knocked it on or made it bigger than it might have been before that, but he was. He didn't come to it as you, attorney say, dey novo. I mean, he had heard it from somebody else and really got the question.
So you're here to break the news to tell us if its round.
You know, there's a great T shirt you can get with the NASA logo, the meatball logo and the Earth is on it. It's round. We checked, We checked good.
But Billy, you gotta be worried.
I mean, every sing you, I don't want to get in sort of the darkness that was the pandemic, et cetera.
But it does feel like we it set us back.
I mean, is that you're feeling around science and facts, conspiracies, and.
So, you know, I met many people who and family members who didn't get vaccinated at first because of this pseudoscientific notion that vaccinations cause autism that has been debunked six ways to Sunday at the old saying goes. And so there's really troubling because one of the reasons our quality of life is so high here in the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea what have you is because of vaccinations, because of public health. I I'm so old. How old are you?
I went to elementary school with a guy who in polio. You do not want polio, people, No, no polio. I grew up in Washington, d C. In the summertime, in English units, it's ninety nine degrees fahrenheit and ninety nine percent humidity. You're a little kid, all you want, but this is every I'm not your can you guys? This is before air conditioning was everywhere. We did not have air conditioning. And you wanted to go swimming. That's what
you wanted to do, is jumping community pool. And we weren't allowed to go because polio is somehow a water born virus. So then when I was five, polio virus was developed and distributed. We went to the big middle school in those days, it was called the Junior High school and took a sugar pill, a sugar cube with
red liquid in it, and I don't get polio. And so this thing with COVID and the vaccines and people not getting vaccinated and having it mutated and infecting more and more people and everybody freaking out, and people didn't if you're a parent, you did not want your kid in school. But those other sick kid hypothetically other sick kids, and just la la la. And so if we had, I say, we humankind had jumped on the idea that vaccines work and everybody got vaccinated, we would have had
kids back in school in six months instead of two years. Yeah, it's just crazy making.
So how do I mean?
I mean, you know, having experienced this, and I mean I imagine with all of your work, I mean, it feels like a big setback. I mean, what, what's what's the diagnosis going forward? How do we start to get people back on track recognizing all the progress humankind has made? Uh? And how science and research and folks and your profession and disciplines are the guiding light in terms of that progress.
Well we we What is it about your favorite teacher that you liked? It doesn't matter what subject, it was his or her passion. Yeah, And so what you want, governor, what we want is for people who come out of let's say, four year liberal arts college, who have a general knowledge of the world and have developed through four years of getting socratic interrogation from professors and teachers, that they have critical thinking skill. We want them a fraction
of them to choose going into the teaching profession. And for that, they need to be able to make a living. They need to be able to choose between going to work at middle school or going to work at Google in some level. And I maybe exaggerating a little, but we want it where teachers make a good living so we can attract passionate good teachers to the profession. And what has happened here in the United States, and what in my idea is, we have tied property taxes to
schools and teacher sellers. And this is just yeah, you know, the at risk kids get more riskier, and the really nice neighborhoods get nice teacher good teachers and good facilities. And this, I know is a soluble problem redistributing wealth. But it's a challenge, man.
No, And we're I mean, you're you're in the epicenter of that, the history that we made Proposition thirteen in the state of California, which in so many ways the original sin in that space, and the tax revolt movement back in the seventies. But it's you know, built the issue of I mean it is, I've got to imagine it's got to be somewhat demoralizing to you just to see all that progress run into this sort of new reality. And there's almost a I mean, you know, people are
celebrated for not believing in science. People seem to be venerated. Careers are made money is made.
Well, we fight the fight, Governor, I mean, we fight the fight. Look, you can't. You've got to be optimistic. If you're not optimistic, you're not going to get anything done. And I'll stayed categorically to everybody. As speaking of government employees, you mentioned Bill Clinton. Does anybody remember Barack Obama?
He was a federal employee for anyway, he pointed out a cool thing, he said, I if you're as we say in law school, you can't argue with my hypothetical.
If you could, through some science fiction way, give a person a choice to be born when in human history or where on Earth you'd want to be born. Now, if you can't pick where you'd be born on earth, this is the most exciting time for more people than ever in human history. More people are better off than ever in history because of science and technology, because we now feed over eight billion people on less land that
used to feed fewer than two billion. It's because of our agricultural technology and our infrastructure we're able to distribute food and refrigerate food and make sure food is safe to eat. Then that is and more. As troubling as the housing situation is, there are more people with a place to live than ever. So you, guys, we can do this. We can do this. You've got to be optimistic or you're not going to win the game. But
you do have to work. And everybody people say to me Bill nine Science Guide, what can I do about climate change? And what do I say? Two things talk about it. If we're talking about climate change, we're talking about a bunch of other stuff we'd be getting or done. And then the other thing is vote, got to vote.
Well, speaking of the climate change bill, it's interesting.
You know, my son and I we watched The Animal Planet and those things like three times a week. But the great thing now is that in those shows, twenty minutes of the hour is talking about how the glaciers are going away, the land's going away.
So now my son and daughters are looking at this. Back in our day, you just watched lions kill zebras. Now you're seeing the.
Effects of if the if the glaciers fall off, the polar bears have noe, they got to go longer to get.
Food, blah blah. So these kids are learning more and more, which is a really cool thing. And guess we have here, We have mister Basco Wake, We get a.
Climate change, speaking a climate change.
Marshawn meet Bill Nye. Former Seattle residents.
You know, Marshaw and I lived in Seattle. I watched you play a lot. I was on the field in October. I raised a twelve man twelve man flag.
How you get to praise the flag before?
I don't know. Is it clerical or I guess? And in the front of the office anyway, it's great to see you.
And then must be John Snyder over there doing that because raise the twelfth man flag.
Yeah, well, if you went back, they might you know, it takes a lot of strength. I don't know.
I might not be able to know it. I was just there not too long ago.
It was cool. It was it was quite an honor. It was cool. Uh, se Hawks, Pete, the Browns.
Marshawn. We were talking about polar bears right when you got on.
Oh yeah, that's me. I'm a polar bear. Yeah.
Doug's just worried about he's worried about climate change, and he's worried about sort of the you know the realities of ice sheets melting, polar bears being displaced.
No, but the cool, the cool thing, and Marshawn you can get the story. But I was telling, uh, Bill, I was telling Marshawn you were coming on, and I think Marshawn has been trying to talk to you for a long time and get with you for a long time.
So more Shawn, you can tell him that story.
But Marshawn kind of grew up more in the science ear than me and Gavin did.
Thankfully.
I think to you, Bill, that was more Shawn's heyday back in those days.
Yeah, for sure. Man, it's a pleasure to meet you big.
It's cool. It's cool or electronic. Hey, let me ask you a technical thing. How many plays do you guys memorize? Is it forty two dozen?
It's a lot more than that.
And it depended because I played with so many different teams and it's different type of offenses. So you got to learn, I mean, depending on your offensive coordinator and what kind of offense you'd like to run.
It could be upward of somewhere in the hundreds, one hundred down.
All right, it's complicated. I watch you guys. It's complicated. Bill.
It's interesting you've tried to sort of deconstruct it's interesting. I'm just watching your career as well back to sort of science and sports. That's been an area of interest for you. You, I mean talked about the baseball and you've I think, do you have a patent?
And that's yeah, I have. Yeah, you guys, So, I don't know if you know do you know this expression hitting a fungo? Fungo practice?
Absolutely, I remember the old fungo.
Well, you still throw the ball up and hit it. Well, I have a thing that goes on the end of the bat. You poke it under the ball and you can pick it up like those tennis ball pick up things. And so I I thought it would take over the world, but it hadn't. You know. A way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. That was the so's it's something that a company, this company
no errors baseball and now I was manufacturing. We'll see if I can finally retire over the two dozen of those I'm going to sell.
Did you grow up You've been a big sports fan for most of your life.
Well, I grew up with the Washington Senators, and when I was a real little kid, before I really remember, they were traded became the Minnesota Twins. Then when I was in high school they became the Texas Rangers, which was heartbreaking. But all through that, marsh On, I was an R word fan because that's what we had here in DC. And then when I got a job at Boeing in nineteen seventy seven, I was an instant Seahawks fan man back in the zoo.
So you really you really are like a scientist scientist.
Well, I worked at Boeing, Yeah, and I tell people I worked on seven forty sevens. If you're ever on a seven forty seven, don't worry. I was very well supervised what I tell people. And I got to tell you everybody, Uh, Marshawn Governor. Culture has changed, man, whatever is going on there was.
What is going on? A bing the places was going on.
When I was there. So speaking of being in unions, you know they got they have a strike there right now.
Part of it.
Part of it is I think that workers are just concerned about the decisions management is making. You guys, I don't want to. I know we're talking about California, we're talking about renewable energy, we're talking about science. But they got a different company making the fuselage, you know, the tube, Like what if you make airplanes. What else do you make besides the tube? And so it was a different culture for sure. And I know there's wages. I'm sure
there won't. Everybody always wants more money, but there was an expression when I lived in Seattle. I lived there for twenty six years, and I was there, you guys, I was there weekend Marshawn, did you watch Almost Live?
I said, well, then we I think we probably just missed each other because I was there for for the home opener when they played.
Against Oh yeah, well yeah, but I was. I went to the Museum of History and Industry where we had the fortieth anniversary of the comedy show I started out on. You know Joel McHale. He came from this show. He's an old Seattle guy, Joel McHale.
Oh, Joel's great. Hey, So Bill, Bill.
During when the beast quake run hit, it was interesting because that created a whole, you know, craze with that seismic activity and whatnot. So I'm sure you've been asked about that, and you obviously were you out that game.
Bill, No, but the stadium is made to be earthquake worthy.
Yeah.
They showed me these little.
These little uh, these machines that they put I think, like outside of the stadium to I guess to record the seismic activity. Oh yeah, go back to uh what is it, Pete Pacific Northwest.
Uh.
What's the place that they got over at at.
The seismic uh, Seismic Lab University.
I went to visit that place and they showed me, like the the diagram of all of the Yeah, they showed me the diagram of where they put all of those earthquake detectors inside of the stadium.
So were you there? You know, when they were building the stadium, there was an earthquake and these I guess it was five guys were working way up high the high iron or whatever, and they fell off. They got knocked off by the motion of the of the platform and they were all wearing safety armises, so they were okay. They were hanging there above you know.
The way you do hanging right there. I'm like, oh shit.
So they were hey, can you guys get me? But safety first people.
By the way, Bill, speaking of seismic safety, we've had a flurry of earthquakes in California in the last couple of months, particularly in southern California. Nothing dramatic four point six.
No.
I you know, I have a house in Studio City and we were in the headquarters in Pasting and we got we just got outside.
You got outside. Were you the beneficiary of the early warning system?
Ye?
What's the science? You have one of those?
Yeah?
What do you think of that? Is that technology? Real? Is that going to get better?
Everybody? You know this thing on your phone, if it's a start up with the iPhone, you do this or this and the image changes. Right, Yeah, there's a in here is what's called an accelerometer. And I'm introducing the word before the idea, but it measures down. You know, if you drop something rates towards the center of the earth, it falls. So these tiny, tiny silicon little flaps are detect where down is and that's what enables the picture
to change when you do that. And so that same gizmo, connected to the right software, an app, detects this motion that is coordinated with other phones in the neighborhoods. So you can't you can't get cal tech to declare there's an earthquake. Just by doing this. Everybody's phone's got to be doing it. Yeah it works, Governor, Oh, it's not perfect, but it worked.
I mean, we've got a lot of money into it, so I just want to make sure investments.
Yeah, oh man, yeah, And so as we say, if you have ten seconds, if you have ten seconds of warning in an earthquake, that's a lot.
Man.
You can get outside. You can get under a solid table. This business about the doorway, that's kind of a myth. Get under a table. Or if you can manage to get outside away from a building, which is what I did the other day. We have a big parking lot. We could get outside. Because, as we have the old saying, earthquakes don't hurt people. Buildings hurt people. It's when it's when structures fall down and you're underneath them that stuff goes wrong.
Let me ask you a question, Bill, I can tell my twelve year old if name one or two things you think he's an experience when he's when he's fifty.
And sixty years old, that, oh man?
Is I know it's more than that, but is there a few things you like, like look out for this two things? Uh?
Uh uh no. No, I'll bet you in fifty years someone has figured out how to do fusion on earth surface. There are so many companies working so hard at it, and universities working so hard at it. I bet somebody does it. So we a nuclear power plant that we have. Now, you take these large atoms, I mean they're atoms, but these large atoms, and you get them to split apart, and as they split apart, the splitting, they run into other atoms and they split some more in the so
called chain reaction like Oppenheimer what have you. But in the interior of the Sun and all the stars in the sky, there's so much gravity that the repulsion, the force that would keep these particles from smashing together, is overcome. And that also releases even much more heat. That's the hydrogen bomb. Right. The sun is a fusion power plant running day and night. There's no night. It's the sun.
And so so betcha' somebody in the next fifty years has got fusion working, and then we would have humankind would have, really you all, unlimited electricity.
Which changes everything in every way, the economics of everything, radical change ability, the universality of this.
So if I were king of the forest governor, we'd be throwing money at that like crazy.
And you think it's I love that you said fifty years, because we've been promoting this as in the next four or five years, next four or five.
Well, yeah, he's said he's he gave me fifty.
All right, so you're covering your basis. So you got that cover.
Hold on, What's what's the second thing, Bill.
Well, marsha on bases are part of the baseball it's a different game from your profession.
Yeah, anyway, I'll swing a bet too.
Yeah, I bet you do. Man, all you guys are just extraordinary athletes. I'm not changing this of it. When I was on the field in October last year, I was impressed by the whole thing. Okay, you guys are so big and so fast, it's just weird. And you're also so quick, it's just weird. It doesn't look real. And then you guys just warming up throwing the ball to each other. It would take my arm off. I mean, it's the guys throw it so hard, and guys like
you you get it an instantly. You've got your fingers on the seam or the stitches, just instantly. It's amazing. But the thing that freaked me out or freaked me out, the thing that made such an impression on me, was the punting. I mean, I've kicked a football. I think these guys kick it up. It comes down with frost star. It's big in the atmosphere. And then they said, Okay, I'm gonna kick it over here. The guy's got a
flag or an orange thing. Kicks it over there. He kicks it over there, he kicks it end over end, he kicks it short, and he kicks it far. It's just whoa. I mean, just sorry. It made an impression.
That's a different beat.
Yeah, my shot.
I noticed he didn't talk about running backs talking about I'm just saying it.
I started out with running backs so big, so fast, and so.
Quick, and they get the Yeah he missed that part.
Don't worry that.
I thought he's trying about the receivers.
Now that's just the governor doing the governor's thing.
You know, do they still ever sear? Okay? So the second thing, Doug, is discovery of life or evidence of life on another world. If you give me fifty years, somebody's going to scoop around under the soil on mars Man.
I don't know if you just say.
Now, I'm not talking about aliens beaming stuff. I'm talking about some Martian bacteria under the sand of Mars, where there's still this very salty slush. And then on October tenth, as we say in space exploration, ne et no earlier than October tenth, You and I, we taxpayers, are going to send a mission of spacecraft to Europa. Europa is the moon of Jupiter with twice as much ocean water as Earth. If you have salt water for four and a half billion years. Is there something alive on Europa?
Are there EU opinions swimming around under the ice on Europa?
Why are we talking about where we talk about Mars so much, Why are we talking about Europians?
Well, Marshaun Winzemr Is on his TV show.
That's the smoke screen. Get you thinking about this shit over here while they over there doing with it. You know, that's that's politics one on one.
Oh, is it?
We're deflecting on the real mission, the missions to Europa.
That's what y'all doing.
By by the way, the amount of money we spend on these planetary missions is nothing. It's less than a cup of coffee once. By the way, when you this thing leaves no earlier than October tenth, it will get to Jupiter in twenty thirty, twenty thirty, a huge flipping rocket, gigant get rocket will not get to Jupiter for six years, almost six years. It's amazing. It's so far away.
And are they putting people on that?
No? No, no, no.
One's on it.
Oh.
I was about to say that, man, who the fuck want to go out in.
The space That's why it's so cheap. There's no people. You don't have to feed them, you don't have to have them take care process their waste. It's a spacecraft full of instruments.
Well, Bill, why are more people not going to the Moon? I mean, I know we did that back and Earth.
By the way, well that was not staged either, Bill, was it? I mean, I know we have flat earthers. We stop people literally that do not believe we ever went to the moon. And it does beg the question why haven't we been back? If we were there the first time?
We are going back in twenty twenty eight. They're all sexed up on this on Artemis. No people are going back? Is no earlier than twenty twenty eight. There's been a setback with the Star. The Star Cruise CST, another Boeing product, has been a setback, and SpaceX has not flown to what they're called the starship in orbit around Earth or out to the Moon or all that. But people are working really hard on that and it's going to happen.
Bill, on a serious note, what is the benefit I mean, obviously the moon going back to the Moon, But is that the highest and best use in terms of those space dollars or is it to do what you guys are trying to do before October tenth?
After October. So I am the CEO of the Planetary Society. We promote planetary science so that people everywhere on Earth will know the Cosmos and our place within it. That is our mission. I applied to be an astronaut four times. However, I don't really especially need to fly in Earth orbit. I don't especially need to go to the Moon, I really have. I am not interested in going to the mar going to Mars unless I'm coming back.
Yeah, the return flight issue.
Yeah yeah. So whether or not it's the best use of our tax dollars, I defer to you all. But it is happening because enough people think it's a worthy and cool thing to do that we're doing it and interesting everybody. The reason, well, hang on, the reason we went to the moon originally was because of the Cold War. Okay, you can say that all sorts of amazing science came
from it. We learned so much more about the age of the Earth, and where the Moon came from, and where Moon's writ large can come from, and where the significance of asteroids in the evolution of life on Earth. When the people walked on the moon, there was no good idea of what happened to the ancient dinosaurs. It wasn't until nineteen eighty eighty three that people work that out, and it was in part by studying the moon. Doug back to you.
Well, that's fascinating. It's interesting as an agent. Bill and Marshall be back in a second. But the advt now about new therapies and things to do, you know. Now it's the new fat of these cold plunges and these red light therapy saunas.
How and by the way, our governor who uses them every day, and.
I don't use them every day, just every other day. I mean, I've never been healthier as.
He wasted his time? Or are these legit?
Bill, Well, it's up to the person. Let me say, as much as we may think it's a new idea. People in Scandinavia have been using saunas and cold baths forever. People in Japan are fascinated. But the ancient Romans had the baths. You can go to Britain and there's the town of Baths named after the bags. Like, it's not an extraordinary new idea. What's cool now or cold now is we can get things so much colder, so much quicker,
so much faster. We can get things so much warmer, so much more quickly than we could in the good old days. So the answer is clearly without question.
Maybe see I love a certainty of science.
That's why you need scientists in the world, not politicians.
I think what it is is your results may vary.
You did a series with Seth McFarlane about disasters, and you talked about volcanoes, you talk about asteroids, you talked about all of these issues, including solar flares. I think was one of them that was a that's the one that's the one you're most worried about.
Yeah, I mean asteroids. Everybody, by the way, everybody hip to apophus.
Apophus I want to claim I am just in case I look stupid, but I have no clue what you're talking about.
Well you won't now, so I'm not kidding. April Friday, the thirteenth of April twenty twenty nine, an asteroid is going to come between us and serious XM satellites and it's called a poffice, which is one translation the Greek god of anxiety. So during that flyby of this rock, we are working to get an international consortium together to make it what we're calling a dress rehearsal for deflecting
an asteroid, because it's a real thing. An asteroid impact is a real thing to really physically actually worry about. But the one that I'm really worried about of the six disasters we did is this solar flare of what's called coronal mass ejection a CME uh. And what would the real thing that could go easily wrong is two of them twelve hours apart, so you'd you'd turn off all the lights on Earth, which would just be catastrophic, catastrophic.
And you were, I mean, these weren't I mean completely hypothetical scenarios that you were laying out, including by the way, hurricanes cat fives versus cat sixes.
Well, so category sixes have occurred on the open ocean. One hasn't landed yet, So I mean you.
Talk about optimism, but imagine that also, Yeah, you know those six episodes brought a little anxiety as well as well. Was it about awareness, about waking up our senses?
Yeah, it's about paying attention. So in the case of Chrono mass ejections, the solar players put it turning out all the lights. This is a solvable problem. So you all may remember when the Texas grid. Now some of my best friends, as they say, are from Texas, proud Texans, and they're very proud of their electrical grid. They're very proud of that they were independent. But then we got a little bit cold, a little bit quickly, nothing extraordinary,
and the power went out all over the place. The famous pictures of here's Texas in the dark, and here's Arkansas with the lights on, and El Paso I think is not quite on the grid. So a solvable problem. What we have to do is the expression they throw around is hardened or get the electrical grid more robust so when it gets cold and warm, the system keeps running.
And one that another one you want to design for is this very strong electromagnetic field that is induced when these charged particles from the Sun interact with Earth's magnetic field. Who could forget eighteen fifty nine Carrington the Carrington event. So Carlington was an astronomer observed these sunspots and then fires were started in telegraph offices the telegraph lines. Of the energy going through the telegraph lines interacted with the Earth's
magnetic field, and these charged particles and zap stuff. And as before, we had phone calls like this, and all this electricity running all over the flip and place be cat test traphic. So we need to shield them, shield this stuff.
And so I mean, so that's I mean, that's a demonstrable thread, not a hypothetical because you're able to connect to that date.
What is it? Is there any.
Seriousness of purpose the federal government's placing on this or is this or is the byproduct of our general efforts to upgrade our gride, harden our grid, decentralize our grid and all of the other things going to benefit.
Well, hypertheoretically it would benefit from decentralizing, but still you need to shields the real vulnerable part that we were We read some papers about You know, the people engineers who studied paragrid is, the transformers, those cans on the utility poles, those are the real vulnerable component components of the electro grid. So we need to shield those. And there's have you ever heard this story in the thunderstorm, stay in your car.
That's a I mean? And is that literally the advice in this case?
Absolutely stay in the metal.
Car, Stay in the middle car.
The energy of the lightning will go around you. It will go around if the car's metal. If you're in a plastic car, things will be different, but it'll go around you. And the guy who developed Faraday's law, Michael Faraday, did this analysis that's now famous where the term Faraday cage has caught on. If you have a metal cage a conductive cage around an object, it will protect it, and then you can optimize it so that you also have that energy go to the ground like a lightning rod.
It's all. It's doable, but we have to design for it and plan for it and throw money at it. Tax dollars.
Bill, take me through your campaign of too hot not to vote, explain that to us.
So I just encourage everybody who wants to vote thoughtlessly for conservatives. You should vote on Wednesdays. To be sure to vote on Wednesdays.
We know where your leadings are.
I was well leanings. I'm way past leaning it. No, no, So I ran this nonprofit where we worked very hard to be political but not partisan. But now we can't do that. This is it climate change, This is it. If we do not do not address climate change this time four years from now, it's just going to be really hard to do it.
You really feel like we're at that tippy POI where I mean literally because we keep talking about it. In some ways, some people feel like we can continue to move that bar.
But you feel like the next.
Few years it's easy for us to be called alarmists. Yep, in a critical way. Paul Revere was an alarmist. That was good. That was good. Paul revering everybody, He got everybody rapped up, and we have a country on account of it. So uh, it's not that there's going to be what has often been analyzed as a tipping point. Apparently the latest research is it's just going to get worse and worse. It's just gonna get hotter and hotter.
More stuff's gonna go wrong, more sea level rise, fewer glaciers, more displaced wildlife, more wildfires, are difficult to predict, weather, more extreme weather events in the Gulf of Mexico, Nor'easter's Pineapple Express. Everything's just going to get amplified.
And human migration, human displacement.
People are gonna So it's happening in the States. You guys. You can't get insurance for your parking your car in Florida because of the salt water coming over on the King tides and coming up through the limestone in Florida. And so people are gonna move, not immediately, but sooner or later. And where are they going to go and where they're gonna.
Do homeowner insurance as well as it relates to impacts of wildfires.
And then wildfires in California and then now in Pallas Verdi's So I'll tell you, Governor. The head of the jet propulsion lab during the Viking missions, the Voyager missions the nineteen seventies, the heyday of those missions, Bruce Bett. Bruce Bett, Bruce Murray was a geologist, and he used to just, oh, you know, so I've been California. This isn't rock it's just it's just dried mud this whole place.
It's going to fall apart when there's an earthquake. He used to say stuff like that, And so Pallas Verdes is that's where it's going on.
Man, it's uh.
And you guys aren't unaware it's I mean, back in the fifties Pallas Verdi started to slip, there was some landslide movement. Now it's been accelerated the last two years of massive rains have been moving up to six eight inches. I mean, it's it's a serious thing. They're losing electricity, losing their gas.
Uh.
And it's a very It's tends to be a wealthier community and impacts even with folks with means, is pretty outsized.
Folks with means, and then where are they going to do go? And if you've lost everything, even if you're rich, it's a drag Amen.
Amen. But all byproducts of this sort of foundational reality that we're still debating, Bill, We're still debating the science of climate change.
It's amazing and it should be one would think it's not a part is an issue. Everybody's invested in the health and safety, health and welfare of our citizens. Everybody can see that. They're more wildfires, and you can say, well there's more fuel. No, no, they're more wildfires. They are more floods. These hurricanes are devastating, and we have more people living everywhere, and so there are more effects
on us agricultures. Of everybody can see that. Yet the fossil fuel industry has been so influential convincing people that scientific uncertainty plus or minus two percent is the same as plus or minus one hundred percent. And so you just can't do that, No, Bill, I was.
I mean it just what you just said I think is really important. I wanted to underscore it. Even if you don't believe in science. To your point, you have to believe your own eyes. And the hots are getting a lot hotter, drivers are getting dryer, wets are getting wetter, lifestyles, places, traditions. You have places like Paradise, California, wiped off the map, grizzly flats, places literally that people have experienced for generations.
You try to go to the Assemite Park, all of a sudden, you're.
With the grandkids.
You can't even experience what your grandparents allowed you to experience as a child because they're closed. So this is a I mean, it's serious stuff and it's costing taxpayers of fortune.
But you said it.
I cannot, I cannot impress upon folks more. This is not complicated. The climate crisis is a byproduct of greenhouse gases emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, of oil, gas and coal.
It's not complicated.
And the complicity of the oil companies to deny and now delay and obfuscate facts and science is of outsized importance to highlight. So anyway, I just that's off for you for calling balls and strikes.
Let's talk about it, talk about climate change.
And look, I gotta tell you, bill uh, this has been an obsosite pleasure. You are you are, it's so impressive and all these things. We could talk to you for about seven more hours or seven more days or seven more weeks, but this has been unbelievable.
I know.
Moreshan is a couple of things left.
No, it's all good. I just no, I'm good, big dog.
You have a question, Marshaan.
Just just just hearing you speak and just knowing that I was I was better. That's enough for me, big dog. I appreciate it.
So you know what he brought to the game, you guys, he played with joy. Yep, Marshawn played with joy and you could see it.
Yes, yeah, that's hey, Bill.
Do you know just today, Doug, what this joy has now brought Marshawn as one of the new fifteen folks to be considered for the Hall of Fame just came out?
Oh wow, sure for some reason, I'm not consulted.
But of course, last thing, Bill, because I always tell more Shawn this. Marshawn has lived his life with joy. He's lived his life how he's.
Wanted to do it. He lived it with happiness.
Equate that to length of life, Bill, because I think if you live like Moreshawn does, he might lived about one hundred and fifteen, So I think more people need to live like Morehon Who.
So you have to put in the hours to do that, so, you know, doing the podcast a different podcast, We had a guy on who studies a physician who studies people who are over one hundred years old, and he said, there are two kinds of people that live to be over one hundred. People who are just happy. They're just happy. Stuff goes wrong, they just roll with it. And then people who just take all the stress, all the stress and put it on everybody else. There's some really very
interesting observation. I'm giving you hearsay of what this guy told us on the podcast. I haven't done the research, but could be.
I think I might hellow mustress on you and Batman Man you do that every day, Marsha.
I think I might hello lustress on all that.
Oh Man, that's why you're going to go one fifteen. So anyway, Governor, you know I will vote in Studio City. Uh. And I look forward to voting and everybody. People are talking about the seven swing states and all this stuff, but don't forget you got to vote. Even if it's nominally our people perceive it to be in the got to vote. Everybody, please vote with the climate and the future of humankind in mind. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Thank you, Bill. It's been a pleasure.
All right.
Anything I can do to help, man, Governor, anything I can do to help, let me know in a way, let me know if I can help. All Right, you guys, carry on, Let's change the world.
Thank you, Thank you Bill.