Bill Nye “the Science Guy” suggested NASCAR switch their gas-burning race cars to all-electric vehicles.
Nye — famous for acting as a scientist, but educated in engineering — wrote in a Monday op-ed for Aeon that NASCAR should change its name to National Electric Stock Car Racing, or NESCAR.
“Here I am trying to envision the smart, efficient transportation technology of tomorrow, and there is NASCAR doing the opposite — celebrating a very old transportation technology of yesterday,” wrote Nye.
He continued: “NASCAR kinda breaks my heart. It’s a celebration of old tech. It uses gasoline burning instead of electron-flowing. I wish NASCAR were more like NASA. I wish NASCAR were more about the future instead of the past.”
Nye, who gained fame in the 1990s for hosting a kid show called “Bill Nye The Science Guy,” suggested a NASCAR change to electric drive trains would signal to the rest of the world that the U.S. is ahead of the curve in automotive technology.
The Florida-based stock-car racing company, for its part, claims it has the largest green program in sports.
“We care and (green) is the right thing to do,” Catherine Kummer, NASCAR director of green innovation, said at a Green is Good for Business Conference conference in September 2015.
“South Carolina, with Darlington (Raceway) specifically, has been a fantastic location to host NASCAR events and Darlington has a significant recycling program as well,” she added.
The company also uses the Nissan Leaf as shuttle cars during races.
Nye has a record of making controversial comments about climate change. For example, last year during an episode of Huff Post Live he attempted to link climate change and terrorism.
“You can make a very reasonable argument that climate change is not that indirectly related to terrorism,” Nye argued. “This is just the start of things. The more we let [climate change] go on, the more trouble there’s going to be.”
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