You got people like this around you? Country is full of them now! People walking
around all day long, every minute of the day — worried about EVERYTHING! Worried
about the air, worried about the water, worried about the soil. Worried about
insecticides, pesticides, food additives, carcinogens; worried about radon gas;
worried about asbestos. Worried about saving endangered species.
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 into trouble in the first place! Doesn't anybody
understand that? Interfering with Nature! Over 90 percent.. over... way over 90
percent of all the species that have ever lived — EVER LIVED — on this planet
are gone. Whissshht! They are 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 behavior. 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?
We're so self-important. So self-important! Everybody's going to 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, we're gonna save the
fucking planet?
I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. Tired! 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
Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They
don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. 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 some day in the future, they might be
personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress
me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet.
The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference! The planet is
fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a
half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been
here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what? A hundred thousand?
Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a
little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion.
And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're
gonna 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 drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic
reversal of the poles; hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets
and asteroids and meteors; worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires,
erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages... And we think some plastic bags, and
some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet... the planet...
the planet isn't going anywhere.
Телешоу, ТВ-передачи на английском: George Carlin - Saving the Planet
