Children’s television host Bill Nye, better known as “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” has formally endorsed President Barack Obama for reelection in 2012.

Appearing at a press conference this week with Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) at the Seacoast Science Center, Nye told a reporter for Foster’s Daily Democrat that the 2012 presidential election is “the most important election of my life,” and emphasized the president’s commitment to not cut public education budgets.

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“I believe we’re at a crossroads, a turning point,” he said. “We can either move forward, especially in education, or backward. I think voters have a clear choice, so I’m supporting the president.”

That’s opposed to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), who supports the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). An analysis by The National Education Association predicted the Ryan budget would trigger tens of thousands of job losses and push over 200,000 kids out of the Head Start program, a community welfare initiative that helps young students living in poverty — vital to keeping the dropout rate down in poor communities.

“If you fund public education, your society will innovate better and faster,” Nye said. “Scientific discoveries will create technologies that will improve the quality of life. People want those technologies, so money will come in to the U.S. rather than out.”

Nye has emerged in recent years in the national media as an unabashed advocate of climate science, once drawing the ire of a Fox News guest host for allegedly “confusing” the viewers with science. He even once insisted that science-deniers are “unpatriotic,” but until now Nye has never gone so far as to outwardly endorse a candidate.

President Obama has insisted upon investing more in the clean energy sector, but he’s also taken a balanced approach to other sources like coal, offshore oil and nuclear energy. Romney’s views on whether climate change even exists, however, have undergone something of an evolution; after supporting climate initiatives and promoting renewable energy in Massachusetts, he now claims that nobody really knows what is influencing the climate.

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Or, as CBS News put it: “The longer he runs for president, the more doubts Republican front-runner Mitt Romney seems to have about the science behind global climate change.”

This video is from Foster’s Daily Democrat, published to YouTube on July 18, 2012.



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Photo: NASA/GSFC/Bill Hrybyk, creative commons licensed.