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Television personality and author Bill Nye 'the Science Guy' joined President Barack Obama today for an Earth Day excursion, riding aboard Air Force One with the president during his visit to the Florida Everglades.

Nye held court with press making the trip before boarding the airliner, telling them, I love the smell of jet fuel, according to an account provided to White House reporters.

The White House said Tuesday that Nye, who has degrees in engineering but was made famous for his 90s era television show for school children, 'Bill Nye the Science Guy,' would make the trip today on its behalf to shoot a video of the president.

On the road trip flight from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to the Florida swamp and back again, a 1,836 mile trip, Nye will have ample opportunity to take a big whiff of the carbon being emitted from the president's jet as it burns up more than 9,180 gallons of fuel.

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Television personality and author Bill Nye 'the Science Guy' joined President Barack Obama today for an Earth Day excursion, riding aboard Air Force One with the president during his visit to the Florida Everglades. Nye held court with press making the trip before boarding the airliner, telling them that he loves the smell of jet fuel

GLobal warming triumverate Barack Obama (center) Bill Nye (left) and Neil DeGrasse Tyson (right) shared a selfie moment in the Blue Room of the White House last year

Off to save the planet: Obama flew nearly 2,000 miles round-trip on Earth Day

Nye told press it was his first flight on the president's private jet but he once rode AF2 with former Vice President Al Gore.

And, while he was working as an engineer at Boeing in 1978, Nye said he designed an anti-vibration tube for the horizontal stabilizer that is used in the company's 747 planes, and likely AF1.

In a tweet last night, Nye said he was 'heading down to DC to catch an #EarthDay flight on Air Force One with President Obama.

'We're going to '#ActonClimate,' he wrote.

'That said, the excitement, much like #climatechange, is real,' he added in a follow-up tweet a minute later.

The statements were met with puzzled responses.

'Doesn't jet travel leave a big carbon footprint?' user Timothy Grome wrote.

'Hmm, seems ironic. doesn't seem very climate friendly earth day,' Allison B. of Galveston, Texas, wrote.

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White House communications director Jen Psaki got some 'cool points' by posing for a selfie with Nye 

Obama will use the Earth Day trip to promote his administration's commitment to cutting carbon pollution and preserving Florida's wetlands, taking a tour of the Everglades National Park and giving a speech that was first cancelled this morning to the public because of heavy shower, then rescheduled.

Previewing the trip, the White House reiterated in a statement that Obama's belief that 'no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.'

'The effects of climate change can no longer be denied or ignored,' it said, pointing out that last year was the warmest year on record and that 14 of the 15 of earth's hottest years happened this century. 

'Climate change is also affecting some of the most iconic places in our country, from disappearing glaciers in Glacier National Park to dying Joshua Trees in Joshua Tree National Park,' it wrote. 

'Recognized worldwide as a unique and treasured landscape, the Everglades is a perfect example of the threat we face from climate change, including rising sea levels that result in shoreline erosion and increased flooding.'

The White House asserted that climate change was already animals and plants, including tropical orchids, some of which are only found in south Florida.' 

Asked on Monday if the president risks 'undermining' his message on greenhouse gases by adding to emissions with his own travel, Obama's spokesman, Josh Earnest, said ,'no, he doesn't' and repeated the administration's talking points on the harmful effects of carbon pollution.

'That is precisely the case that the President will be making at the Everglades. And he's looking forward to the trip,' Earnest concluded.

He then directed the reporter, CBS News' Mark Knoller, to the Department of Defense and the Presidential Airlift Group for information on what the United States Air Force is doing to make the president's travel more environmentally friendly.

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'I can say as a general matter that the Department of Defense has acknowledged that climate change does pose a national security threat to the United States,' Earnest added. 

'And there are a lot of practices that the Department of Defense has taken to try to reduce their carbon footprint.'

Knoller, the unofficial historian of the modern White House, also frequently calculates how much fuel AF1 guzzles up – including during today's trip.

Florida's Republican governor Rick Scott lit into Obama and Congress in anticipation of the president's visit for not providing his state with what he believes to be appropriate financial resources to protect the Everglades

'Our environment is too important to neglect and it's time for the federal government to focus on real solutions and live up to their promises,' he said in a statement.  

Earnest mocked the GOP executive in comments to CBS DC and noted that Scott had 'outlawed employees in the State of Florida from even uttering the word "climate change." '

'It's a little rich for someone who has made that declaration that somehow the president has not been sufficiently committed to defending the Everglades from the causes of climate change,' he said.