Harrison Ford told members of the United Nations this week that “angry” young people are the key to successfully combating climate change.
The man who made “Indiana Jones” and “Han Solo” famous on the big screen was in New York this week to address the UN Climate Action Summit. He told his New York audience that throngs of young activists are ready to save rain forests — and the planet — if world leaders would “get the hell out of their way.”
“We’ve been talking about saving the Amazon for 30 years,” Mr. Ford said Monday in footage shared by Reuters. “We’re still talking about it. The world’s largest rain forest, the Amazon is crucial to any climate change solution for its capacity to sequester carbon, for its biodiversity, for its freshwater, for the air we breathe, for our morality. And it is on fire. When a room in your house is on fire, you don’t say, ’There is a fire in a room in my house.’ You say, ’My house is on fire,’ and we only have one house.”
The actor then touted a “moral army” that can succeed where others have failed.
“They are the young people who, frankly, we have failed — who are angry, who are organized, who are capable of making a difference,” Mr. Ford said. “The most important thing that we can do for them is to get the hell out of their way.”
Critics on Twitter called the actor, who is also a licensed pilot, a hypocrite.
Some reactions include:
- “Harrison Ford has an aviation hobby and he owns airplanes. Ford’s carbon footprint is multiples of the average person’s carbon footprint around the world. What would the world look like if everyone lived Ford’s lifestyle?”
- “I hope he didn’t forget to turn off his private jet’s engine after parking it at the hangar.”
- “Harrison Ford owns EIGHT (8) planes, among them the Cessna 680 Sovereign, a long-range jet. He’s a qualified pilot. ’[I] used to own airplanes and have pilots flying them for me, but I finally realized they were having more fun than I was.’ We want his life!”
The social media aggregator Twitchy also covered an extended list of feedback and labeled the actor the “Hypocrite of the Day.”
Actor Harrison Ford spoke at the United Nations to demand immediate action on climate change, warning that the future of the planet is at stake pic.twitter.com/QwSGlaPuDS
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 23, 2019
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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