Speaking to students at the University at Albany, Bill Nye the Science Guy said that a carbon tax was needed for the purpose of redistributing wealth.

"We need, dare I say it, a tax, or should I say a fee," Nye purportedly said Wednesday, right before an anonymous student began recording.

“It’s not just to be mean, it’s to redistribute wealth,” Nye said.

Nye went on to claim that instituting such a tax would drive innovation in more environmentally friendly ways.

"It will stimulate people investing in more energy efficient means. If you gotta pay a fee every time you make carbon monoxie and somone comes up with a more efficient car, you'll use that car. Somebody comes up with a more efficient blender, you'll use that blender. I mean, that's just how it's going to go."

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The free campus event distributed 1,000 copies of Nye’s new book Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation to students in attendance. The lecture, part of an annual student-run speaker series, quickly became a pro-big government, higher taxes rally.

“The trouble with this is, there are people now, in the U.S. government, who don’t like government,” Nye lectured.

The former television host and Disney actor then ranted about limited government conservatives, comparing them to a General Motors employee that wants to shut their own company down.

“We have to get people who really want the government to do what it’s supposed to do, which is run things,” Nye said.

A student who attended the event told Campus Reform that he was disappointed with the big government push offered by Nye. “I thought this was going to be a fantastic event talking about science, but it turned out to be politically charged, big government propaganda.”

“I think he should stick to T.V.”

Nye, a former mechanical engineer who became a famous by explaining scientific concepts to a preteen audience with his eponymous show Bill Nye the Science Guy, proceeded to beg his audience to vote.

“If you don’t want to vote, would you please just shut up,” Nye said.

“We need to address climate change as quickly as we can. Both with technical solutions from the bottom up and regulatory solutions, or changes, from the top down,” Nye said. “And working together, you all can become the next great generation and you can, dare I say it, change the world.”

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