Return to Transcripts main page
Live From...
Interview With Bill Nye the Science Guy
Aired September 18, 2003 - 13:55 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Another guy who is helpful in all this kind of stuff, in explaining it to the mere masses, to those of us who were history majors, like me, is Bill Nye, the science guy, joining us from Seattle.
Bill, how are things going out there? Still nice and sunny and all that, right?
BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": Well, we have a little light rain today. But I'm not going to call that the same conditions you have in North Carolina.
If we can get to that shot again of the hotel, the Ramada Inn...
O'BRIEN: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: You can see that the building has peeled away. The damage to the building is on the downwind side.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Bill, hang on one sec, because we'll get that queued up. I don't have that one ready.
I want to do -- let's do this storm thing surge first. Then we'll talk about that, OK?
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: So you compare trying to swim in air with trying to swim in water. Water's a lot more massive. So when you get huge waves flying into the houses along the beaches, you get this -- this tremendous damage.
O'BRIEN: All right. Now, let's -- we're in God's view right now, 22,000 miles up. And this thing, if you go across there, is about 600 miles plus, right? So it's a big storm.
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: Six hundred nautical miles?
O'BRIEN: Well, nautical or statute. You pick.
NYE: Whatever. That's huge. (CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: The bottom line is, it's a big, low-pressure system, right?
NYE: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Right.
Orelon, if you'd advance that for us. Now, as we go down, explain what's going on here, as low pressure gets in there. What's happening here on the surface?
NYE: So imagine, if we could see this from space, there's less air above the ocean there in the middle than there is out on the edges.
O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.
NYE: And so the ocean gets squeezed up.
O'BRIEN: It squeezes up. So, right along the edges, it's actually pushing it up.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: This area here in here is little higher as a result. How much higher?
NYE: Well, it can be up to 2 meters, 7 feet or something. It can be -- it doesn't sound like much, 7 feet. But if you're under 7 feet of water, you're going to drown.
And so by raising the sea level 7 feet, that's a tremendous effect, literally an impact on the shores. So this is a big part of what's called the storm surge, the swelling of the sea.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: The swelling of the sea.
And, of course, the wind, the wind, just the direction of the wind, of course, causes stuff -- just like if you were to blow on the top of a cup of water, it would blow the water off, right?
NYE: That's right. It drags.
So there's two components to that. The wind is spinning. This crazy, enormous energy is spinning -- causing it to spin. And then it's moving. It's moving from the southeast to the northwest. And that's another 20 knots or 15 knots. So that's a -- it's a lot of wind. And you'll notice that the damage to things is not just from the wind itself, but from all this debris that gets flying around.
O'BRIEN: All right, now, I don't know if we have that other piece of tape ready yet. OK, let's show you that shot you called for. Ask and you receive.
Orelon, do you have anything you want to share with Bill Nye the Science Guy here?
ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, besides the fact I just love listening to these explanations, because this is great stuff, my whole thing with this particular storm is that, just imagine that this was a Category 5, as it was when it was out to sea.
The storm surge would be even more, because the lower the pressure, the higher the storm surge. And then, of course, you've got the winds pushing in. So my whole thing is to put it in perspective and realize how lucky we are with this system, because, remember, this was one of the few Category 5 storms out in the middle of the Atlantic. And thank God it was out there instead of over here. We really got lucky with the intensity of this one.
O'BRIEN: And, Bill Nye, one more point I wanted to bring out. And we're kind of pressed for time here.
But I want to show one thing here. This thing -- and this drives me nuts. We were talking earlier. Putting -- can we can roll that tape showing the stuff from the flooding? The fact there are still power lines on polls there.
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: Well, this is the thing, Miles.
O'BRIEN: There are half a million people without power right now who can't even hear us because of this. Explain why we don't bury these things.
NYE: Well, explain why. It's politics. It's human nature.
If you want to bury the power lines and make them waterproof and secure, it costs a tremendous amount of money. And so, let's say you've lived there, your family has lived there for decades. And somebody comes along and insists that we upgrade the power line. That's an expensive thing. If you're a developer and somebody wants to pass laws to make the power lines more secure, it all costs money.
And so the question, though, as always is -- and people do this kind of analysis -- how much money would you save if you didn't have to go out and buy plywood and screw it to the walls every year, or six times a year, maybe, if you didn't have to have crews around to repair power lines? These have real costs to society. And somebody has got to decide.
And that somebody, to me, is voters and taxpayers decide where the tradeoff is. And the interesting thing is, I'm across the country in Seattle and it's going to...
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Oh, we just lost him. Son of a gun. KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We were getting the countdown, too.
O'BRIEN: I was getting the countdown.
PHILLIPS: But Bill always has a lot to say.
O'BRIEN: I was going to suggest to him that a good way to tax it would be to do a tax on espresso to pay for burying the lines.
PHILLIPS: Twenty cents, instead of 10 cents?
O'BRIEN: Yes, but they didn't go for that, did that? Who can blame them?
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Bill Nye, thanks. We're sorry we lost the satellite.
PHILLIPS: We'll bring him back.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 18, 2003 - 13:55 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Another guy who is helpful in all this kind of stuff, in explaining it to the mere masses, to those of us who were history majors, like me, is Bill Nye, the science guy, joining us from Seattle.
Bill, how are things going out there? Still nice and sunny and all that, right?
BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": Well, we have a little light rain today. But I'm not going to call that the same conditions you have in North Carolina.
If we can get to that shot again of the hotel, the Ramada Inn...
O'BRIEN: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: You can see that the building has peeled away. The damage to the building is on the downwind side.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Bill, hang on one sec, because we'll get that queued up. I don't have that one ready.
I want to do -- let's do this storm thing surge first. Then we'll talk about that, OK?
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: So you compare trying to swim in air with trying to swim in water. Water's a lot more massive. So when you get huge waves flying into the houses along the beaches, you get this -- this tremendous damage.
O'BRIEN: All right. Now, let's -- we're in God's view right now, 22,000 miles up. And this thing, if you go across there, is about 600 miles plus, right? So it's a big storm.
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: Six hundred nautical miles?
O'BRIEN: Well, nautical or statute. You pick.
NYE: Whatever. That's huge. (CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: The bottom line is, it's a big, low-pressure system, right?
NYE: Yes.
O'BRIEN: Right.
Orelon, if you'd advance that for us. Now, as we go down, explain what's going on here, as low pressure gets in there. What's happening here on the surface?
NYE: So imagine, if we could see this from space, there's less air above the ocean there in the middle than there is out on the edges.
O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes.
NYE: And so the ocean gets squeezed up.
O'BRIEN: It squeezes up. So, right along the edges, it's actually pushing it up.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: This area here in here is little higher as a result. How much higher?
NYE: Well, it can be up to 2 meters, 7 feet or something. It can be -- it doesn't sound like much, 7 feet. But if you're under 7 feet of water, you're going to drown.
And so by raising the sea level 7 feet, that's a tremendous effect, literally an impact on the shores. So this is a big part of what's called the storm surge, the swelling of the sea.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: The swelling of the sea.
And, of course, the wind, the wind, just the direction of the wind, of course, causes stuff -- just like if you were to blow on the top of a cup of water, it would blow the water off, right?
NYE: That's right. It drags.
So there's two components to that. The wind is spinning. This crazy, enormous energy is spinning -- causing it to spin. And then it's moving. It's moving from the southeast to the northwest. And that's another 20 knots or 15 knots. So that's a -- it's a lot of wind. And you'll notice that the damage to things is not just from the wind itself, but from all this debris that gets flying around.
O'BRIEN: All right, now, I don't know if we have that other piece of tape ready yet. OK, let's show you that shot you called for. Ask and you receive.
Orelon, do you have anything you want to share with Bill Nye the Science Guy here?
ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, besides the fact I just love listening to these explanations, because this is great stuff, my whole thing with this particular storm is that, just imagine that this was a Category 5, as it was when it was out to sea.
The storm surge would be even more, because the lower the pressure, the higher the storm surge. And then, of course, you've got the winds pushing in. So my whole thing is to put it in perspective and realize how lucky we are with this system, because, remember, this was one of the few Category 5 storms out in the middle of the Atlantic. And thank God it was out there instead of over here. We really got lucky with the intensity of this one.
O'BRIEN: And, Bill Nye, one more point I wanted to bring out. And we're kind of pressed for time here.
But I want to show one thing here. This thing -- and this drives me nuts. We were talking earlier. Putting -- can we can roll that tape showing the stuff from the flooding? The fact there are still power lines on polls there.
(CROSSTALK)
NYE: Well, this is the thing, Miles.
O'BRIEN: There are half a million people without power right now who can't even hear us because of this. Explain why we don't bury these things.
NYE: Well, explain why. It's politics. It's human nature.
If you want to bury the power lines and make them waterproof and secure, it costs a tremendous amount of money. And so, let's say you've lived there, your family has lived there for decades. And somebody comes along and insists that we upgrade the power line. That's an expensive thing. If you're a developer and somebody wants to pass laws to make the power lines more secure, it all costs money.
And so the question, though, as always is -- and people do this kind of analysis -- how much money would you save if you didn't have to go out and buy plywood and screw it to the walls every year, or six times a year, maybe, if you didn't have to have crews around to repair power lines? These have real costs to society. And somebody has got to decide.
And that somebody, to me, is voters and taxpayers decide where the tradeoff is. And the interesting thing is, I'm across the country in Seattle and it's going to...
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Oh, we just lost him. Son of a gun. KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We were getting the countdown, too.
O'BRIEN: I was getting the countdown.
PHILLIPS: But Bill always has a lot to say.
O'BRIEN: I was going to suggest to him that a good way to tax it would be to do a tax on espresso to pay for burying the lines.
PHILLIPS: Twenty cents, instead of 10 cents?
O'BRIEN: Yes, but they didn't go for that, did that? Who can blame them?
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Bill Nye, thanks. We're sorry we lost the satellite.
PHILLIPS: We'll bring him back.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
