Children of all ages gathered in crowded Alumni Arena on Wednesday to see the man who has inspired them to become engineers, doctors, oceanographers, amateur scientists and enthusiasts.
Walking out to his famous theme song and to the electrifying roar of the audience, Bill Nye ignited the last Distinguished Speakers Series lecture of the year with a story.
"I got a little concerned just a few minutes ago; one of you came up to and asked 'Is Bill Nye your real name?' And I said 'Well, it's William Nye.' And then he said, 'Then, why did you change it?'" Nye said, explaining that he was a little shocked.
Nye got right into what he does best - inspiring people while simplifying science - after making fun of the Buffalo inhabitants and the chilly weather, which he equated to an abusive lover - violent for most of the year, but with a few days in summer that allow all to be forgiven.
"I want you to change the world - this is going to take you a few minutes," Nye said in a gentle tone, explaining the mission he had for the audience.
With the help of projectors, pictures and humorous labels on the slides, Nye entertained UB throughout the night while letting them in on a little secret about the fate of the Earth, as its climate is changing at a remarkable rate.
But before getting into that, Nye told the audience a few little known facts about the Sun, Venus and Mercury. He explained that the Earth was the Goldilocks planet and described the "Joy of Discovery" behind learning that atmosphere was the reason behind it all.
"Mars... is cold, crazy cold - north and south poles on Mars . . . if there are any of them, have ice made of dry ice, carbon monoxide. Then Mercury, only 8 million kilometers from the Sun is crazy hot, like, 350?! Celsius. Then Venus, almost twice as far from the Sun as Mercury is hotter, considerably hotter. In fact, the surface of Venus is so hot that the sulfuric acid rain that they have on Venus doesn't hit the ground," Nye explained. "The reason for this is atmosphere."
Nye also pointed to the backdrop of pictures taken from the Viking Mission to Mars of the 1970s on the screen, explaining the incredulity of people seeing the Mars sky for the first time, being a taupe and salmon color, instead of the obvious blue.
"If you go to a department store like Macy's or Nordstrom where they sell women's stockings, it's one of the colors in the upper right," Nye joked. "I don't wear stockings, but I'm a huge fan. And it's one of those - eggshell or ostrich breath. This color comes from the Martian sky."
Mars is covered with iron oxide, visible from many parts of Earth, Nye stated.
"Carbon dioxide is most of the atmosphere on Mars," Nye said, pointing to the data from the Viking Missions. "When I was young, during the disco era, the Earth's atmospheric percentage fraction of carbon dioxide was .03 percent. Nowadays, we would say 300 parts per million, same number."
Nye explained that rounding to two digits changed this number from .03 to .04.
"This tiny change is changing our world. That is why you all, we all, have to do something about it," Nye said.
After talking about his father's obsession about sundials, sparked by being a captive in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, and his own work with NASA's Mars rovers, Nye led into another mission for people of what he calls the Climate Generation - those born after June 23, 1988, when Jim Hansen first went before the federal government about the environment.
Nye pointed out a picture on the screen behind him, depicting a piece of equipment on Mars with what looked like tiny bumps all over it.
"Near as we can tell, these nodules, these spheres, these balls of something once in a while... bloop...join up and become a bigger sphere. So everybody is thinking, this is super salty water that was a liquid during the Martian summer in the arctic on Mars."
There is a possibility of finding evidence of life on Mars along with these pictures of these spheres of water, Nye explained. This is an example of what might change the world, he exclaimed.
Nye changed the tone of the lecture when he put up pictures of the Upsala Glacier in Argentina, labeled 1928. Displaying after that a picture of the same area, audience members were awed by what was missing: the entire mass of the ice sheet. The whole glacier has melted away over time, causing scientists like Nye to experience the "Heartbreak of Discovery" - the understanding that global warming is delivering real results.
He shared the account of his visit to the National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver, CO, where they have a collection of ice cores that account for different time periods, like tree rings.
The world is getting warmer and carbon dioxide is increasing at a rate faster than ever before. From these ice records and pictures of stranded polar bears on broken ice floes he displayed, people can see the effects.
The oceans will get bigger as they get warmer with the world. Nye points out that there are 6.7 billion people, and counting, in the world, which is why we are able to change the world's climate.
"Places like South Florida, New Orleans and Houston will inundated," Nye said. "Are you people high?... Everybody is closing his or her eyes to a situation they do not wish to acknowledge."
The world is topsy turvy: when two hamburgers cost less than a salad, when natural fertilizer is going to waste against the popularity of huge chemical fertilizer plants, and hybrids are thought to be made for hippies. It is unnatural, according to Nye.
The development of battery-pack stations for hybrids, use of wind turbines and green switches will change the world.
"Students: if you can find a way to make a better battery... if we can get it where it's a fuel cell where you are just moving the happy protons... If you can come up with a better battery, whether it's fuel cell or lithium styled or the next generation, you, my friends, will get rich," Nye ensures. "You can change the world, and wait, perhaps, you can get rich."
Nye left the audience with one simple message at the end of the night. In a world where it's possible to reach the moon in nine hours and where humans have already sent a probe to Pluto, which will arrive in 2015, it's possible to change the world and save it from climate change.
