On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that “all the environmentalists of Hollywood and Washington” have a position of “we must do more to stop pouring carbon into the air, except for me when I want to go somewhere, and then I take a private jet.” And stated that “If you could run TED talks on hypocrisy, you wouldn’t need coal” and even acknowledged he takes private jets despite not needing to do so, but said that when he has tried to be responsible, nobody followed his example.
Maher began by saying, “If insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and expecting a different result, we have to stop being insane in our approach to fixing the environment and try something new. I don’t know what will work, but I know what didn’t work, asking people to be good, trying to convince our citizens and other countries to use less and pollute less, sacrifice more. When you tell humans, if you do these environmentally-friendly things, we can all continue to live, their response is, what’s in it for me? So, just to be clear, I do still believe very much that climate change is an emergency. But I don’t think we’re going to win it by grocery shopping with a laundry bag or banning the gas stoves or imagining a human can really drink [a milkshake] through a paper straw.”
He added, “The verdict is in. Humans are not good people. It’s just not in us, including me, and I’m tired of living a — well, not a lie, but it’s also something I never mention, but it’s a new year and I’d like to come clean. My name is Bill, and I fly private. And so does every other person who calls themself an environmentalist who can…all the environmentalists of Hollywood and Washington do it. Their position on climate change is, we must do more to stop pouring carbon into the air, except for me when I want to go somewhere, and then I take a private jet. It turns out there is one thing in this world that is completely impossible to resist, and this is it. It’s like heroin.”
Maher further stated that, with the exceptions of Ed Begley Jr. and Greta Thunberg, “everyone else is full of shit, and I’m done being full of shit. I can take being a bad environmentalist because almost all of us are, but I can’t take being a hypocrite. Now I always justified renting a plane because I only used it for work and literally could not get to most of my stand-up gigs on time any other way. … But I don’t need to do stand-up, like tomorrow night in Albuquerque. And outside of heads of state, almost everyone else could fly commercial. Why don’t they? Ask anyone who tried to get home for Christmas last year.”
He added, “John Kerry is our climate czar, and he uses a private jet. It’s like if the secretary of homeland security smuggled drugs in his butt. People take jets to environmental conferences. If you could run TED talks on hypocrisy, you wouldn’t need coal. But sorry, not sorry. I tried to do my part for the environment. I never had kids, the one thing worse for the planet than private jets. … I had the first generation Prius in 2001. … I had the first Tesla in 2010. And honestly, both these cars sucked. … But both times, I said to myself, okay, I’ll take one for the team because I have a platform, so I’ll do the right thing, and then everybody will follow…nobody followed.”
Maher concluded, “So, yes, it’s fun to laugh at powerful people. That’s how I can afford to fly private. But we need to get serious, really. More nuclear, moving way more money into research and development, I don’t know, but something serious because the real technological problem is the way people are wired. I know it’s easier just to blame Taylor Swift’s plane, but honestly, do you want to be stuck on Southwest with a pissed-off Taylor Swift?”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.