Celebrities
often use their platforms to spread awareness on important issues. But while
many of us have become numb to their warnings, there's something about Harrison
Ford that makes people sit up and listen.
Maybe it's
the cult following he's acquired from playing heroic characters like Indiana
Jones and Han Solo.
More likely,
though, it's because Ford doesn't tiptoe around important issues, he charges
through them with guns blazing.
Speaking at
the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco this week, the 76-year-old
actor and tireless climate activist issued a sober warning: "If we don't
change the path that we are on today, the future of humanity is at stake".
“Stop giving power to people who don't believe in science.” - Harrison Ford pic.twitter.com/Ywja01Z7Qi— AJ+ (@ajplus) September 14, 2018
The actor's
stern statement is followed by a long sigh. And with that one heavy breath, you
can almost feel the actor's exasperation. For nearly 27 years, Ford has been
working for the environmental group Conservation International, which supports
scientists from around the world who are working to identify and overcome
biodiversity threats.
But as Ford
makes clear in his recent and impassioned speech, none of that work matters if
we deny the reality of climate change and collectively forget nature in our
"corporate, state and national climate goals".
"We can
put solar panels on every house, we can turn every car into an electric
vehicle, as long as Sumatra burns, we will have failed," he says. "So
long as the Amazon's great forests are slashed and burned, so long as the
protected lands of tribal people, Indigenous people, are allowed to be
encroached upon, so long as wetlands and bog peats are destroyed, our climate
goals will remain out of reach. And we will be shit out of time".
HE HAS SPOKEN! (and I couldn't agree more.) #WeAreShitOutOfTime #HamillHeartsHarrison https://t.co/LNFtk8Uksg— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) September 14, 2018
To say that
the actor appears displeased with the current state of environmental affairs
would be a drastic understatement. Ford's speech is not simply an urgent
call-to-action, it is a rallying cry; a thinly veiled attack against ignorant
politicians ahead of the US midterm elections.
"Elect
leaders who believe in science," he urges voters.
The comments
are reminiscent of a similar speech made by Ford that went viral last year,
just after President Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accord.
"We've
got people in charge of important shit who don't believe in science," he
warned us at the time.
You can
still sense that passion one year later. But after a slew of political attacks
against climate science in 2018, you can also hear a rumbling of anger.
"Stop
for God's sake the denigration of science! Stop giving power to people who
don't believe in science, or worse than that, pretend they don't believe in
science for their own self-interest," Ford says, his voice cracking as it
rises in volume.
"They
know who they are. We know who they are!"
Calling
climate change "the greatest moral crisis of our time", Ford cautions
that unless something changes (and soon), those "least responsible will
bear the greatest costs".
Throughout
it all, he brings us back to his core argument: that natural carbon sinks are
currently "the only feasible solution" for fighting climate change.
"Simply
put, if we can't protect nature, we can't protect ourselves," he says.
The end of his
speech could not have been written by anybody else: "Let's shut off our
phones, roll up our sleeves and kick this monster's ass".
You can
watch all of the speeches from the Summit below:
Via
ScienceAlert
The world suffered great losses not because of the destruction of vandals, but the silence of good people.
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