So, after watching quite many videos, one day I came across and watched his HBO Special from 1992. There's a bit about Saving The Planet. I love it, but I think his advice in this case deserves reconsideration. I think he was a little way off base here. This post is about my reconsideration. Blue = his script. Pink = my comments.
Let me tell you about endangered species all right? Saving endangered species is just one more arrogant attempt by humans to control nature. It’s arrogant meddling; it’s what got us in trouble in the first place. Doesn’t anybody understand that? Interfering with nature. True, interfering with nature IN A BAD WAY got us trouble, and we've already DONE it. That's why we are now trying to rollback the mess we've made. We are trying to get out of those troubles we made, not to cause more troubles.
Over 90% - over, WAY over – 90% of all the species that have ever lived on this planet, ever lived, are gone! Pwwt! They’re extinct! We didn’t kill them all, they just disappeared. That’s what nature does. They disappear these days at the rate of 25 a day and I mean regardless of our behaviour. Irrespective of how we act on this planet, 25 species that were here today will be gone tomorrow. Let them go gracefully. Leave nature alone. Haven’t we done enough? Regardless of our behaviour? Really? Irrespective of how we act on this planet? Really? Erm. Obviously not. We killed them. They didn't just disappear. THEY DIDN'T JUST GO AWAY DUE TO SOME NATURAL PROCESS. We make them extinct hundred of times faster. Why do we feel as if it's nothing to do with us? Forest deforestation killed thousands and thousands species, it's not a natural process, it's caused by our behaviour. I'll give an example here. Life began 3.8 billion years ago. Some creatures, like Eastern box turtle even survived the asteroid 65 million years ago are now driven to extinction by humans. To "Let them go gracefully" because of us is beyond words. Hey, killers are generally unsuccessful when they tell the judge it's arrogant to judge them killing because their victim was bound to die anyway. Everybody is going to die, it's not the issue here. The issue is how we effect and expedite the process. It's not okay to kill someone even though later he/she is going to die anyway. It's just plain wrong.
We’re so self-important, so self-important. Everybody’s gonna save something now: “Save the trees! Save the bees! Save the whales! Save those snails!” and the greatest arrogance of all: “Save the planet!” What?! Are these fucking people kidding me?! Save the planet?! We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet! We haven’t learned how to care for one another and we’re gonna save the fucking planet?! Well, actually, save the planet can be seen as a more noble (and simpler) way to say "Save our own sorry asses before we drown in our own filthy industrial toxic waste". Saving the planet = taking care of ourselves; we try to save ourselves. Planet is just a rock orbiting a star that needs no saving. What we actually try to save is the world; interlocking community of people, the environment, and millions of species of plants and animals. Hey, 1.2 million people died in China / year because of pollution and we say "Save The Planet" there in China. Saving the planet = caring for one another; we care about those 1.2 million people died in China. We don't want more to die from our own destructive behaviour.
I’m getting tired of that shit! I’m getting tired of that shit! I’m tired of fucking Earth Day! I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists; these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren’t enough bicycle paths! People trying to make the world safe for their Volvo’s! Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. They don’t care about the planet; not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live; their own habitat. They’re worried that someday in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me. Well, first he said we need to take care of ourselves before saving the planet, and now he hated those who want to save the planet to take care of themselves. What?
Anyway, saving the planet may mean saving ourselves, but it doesn't mean it has to be ONLY us. Not all environmentalists are only interested in their own convenience. Most of environmentalists I've known became the way they are because of empathy. They are not self-centered; they throw away their job and modern living at the city to take care of Borneo forest, just because they want those orangutans and other animals there to live a better life. They feel the animals being defenseless and want to be useful for them, they want to defend them. Empathy is a huge, powerful, and beautiful word, isn't it? Why don't we encourage it?
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet... nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine... the people are fucked! Difference! The planet is fine! Compared to the people, THE PLANET IS DOING GREAT: Been here four and a half billion years! Do you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years, we’ve been here what? 100,000? Maybe 200,000? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200 years. 200 years versus four and a half billion and we have the conceit to think that somehow, we’re a threat? That somehow, we’re going to put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us: been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drifts, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages, and we think some plastic bags and aluminum cans are going to make a difference? True, the planet (rock orbiting a star) is fine. True, the people are fucked up. Again we're not saving the rock, but the interlocking community on it. We're trying to 'un-fuck' the people; we're so fucked up in so many ways, and one of them is our behaviour towards our own habitat and our fellow animals. We destroy our own home and every living thing on it, isn't it fucked up? It is. So, let's save it then! Let's try!
Next, are we a threat to this interlocking community? Yes, we absolutely are. We are no threat to the rock, but we are a really great threat to the sustainability of this interlocking community. Instead of being a citizen, we're acting like a destructive consumer, that's why we are a threat. Are some plastic bags and aluminum cans going to make a difference? Yes, it isn't much and awareness alone won't get us far - BUT that only means we SHOULD DO EVEN MORE, not less.
The planet isn’t going anywhere... we are! We’re going away! Pack your shit folks! We’re going away and we won’t leave much of a trace either, thank God for that... maybe a little styrofoam... maybe... little styrofoam. The planet will be here, we’ll be long gone; just another failed mutation; just another closed-end biological mistake; an evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, a surface nuisance. You wanna know how the planet’s doing? Ask those people in Pompeii who are frozen into position from volcanic ash how the planet’s doing. Wanna know if the planet’s all right? Ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. How about those people in Kilauea, Hawaii who build their homes right next to an active volcano and then wonder why they have lava in the living room?
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: The Earth plus Plastic. The Earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the Earth! The Earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the Earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place: it wanted plastic for itself, didn’t know how to make it, needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question: “Why are we here?” PLASTIC!!! ASSHOLES!!!
True, this rock has a self-correcting system. When we're going away, it's a restart. When we're going away, it means we have successfully done the mass extinction, is it okay? We can avoid it now, why not? Why do we have to give up and let this world gone forever? We give birth to a new world, which is beautiful and terrible at the same time. It's terrible because it's no worse than a mass murder, you know. WE ARE KILLERS if it's happened. WE ARE KILLERS if we don't care. What do you feel about this ongoing mass murder? We, humans, are the one who causes this mass extinction. Animals and plants have nothing to do with it, but they have to feel it too. For me, I still want to see this world with its beautiful scenery and innocent animals, I believe we can recover. We can be better.
Let's unlock the greatness of humanity once again. It's still there.
It turns out that George Carlin is a misanthrope who lost his hope on humanity.
Let's not let other people lose hope on us, too.
- a girl who's optimistic enough to save the world -
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