The world has never been so focused on the issue of climate change as it has been lately, and with good reason. With the devastating fires in the Amazon and the rise of young climate activist Greta Thunberg, everyone’s eyes are being opened to the state of the Earth, including actor Harrison Ford.
Harrison spoke at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York on Monday.
“We’ve been talking about saving the Amazon for 30 years, and we’re still talking about it.” Harrison began in a video tweeted by Reuters .”
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Harrison continued.
“The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon is crucial to any climate change solution for its capacity to sequester carbon, for its biodiversity, for its fresh water, 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.”
“There is a new force of nature at hand, stirring all over the wold.”
“They are the young people who, frankly, we have failed — who are angry, who are organized, who are capable of making a difference. They are a moral army. And the most important thing that we can do for them is to get the hell out of their way.”
Harrison is likely referring to Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old activist from Sweden.
Greta also gave an impassioned speech to the UN Climate Summit that quickly went viral. Her anger at the world for failing to ensure the planet is livable in the future is very similar to Harrison’s speech.
Some have called out Ford’s activism as hypocritical, given his history with private planes.
One tweet read , “Harrison Ford has an aviation hobby and he owns airplanes. Ford’s carbon footprint is multiples of the average person’s carbon foot print around the world. What would the world look like if everyone lived Ford’s lifestyle?”
