George Carlin - Saving the Planet

What Hacker News said

Recommends radiorental · 2019-01 · on “Insect collapse”

I view our success as a product of evolution. It is the driving factor that got us down out of the trees, cultivating our food and to where we are today. Would we be putting a little less pressure on the environment without people like Edward Bernays, possibly. However, I think our collective consciousness can put itself a little at ease. As we enter the 6 mass extinction event, it's a natural cycle and if it wasn't us, some other species would dominate the planet. It's never a bad time to listen to George Carlin's "saving the planet" [this video]

Recommends kbr2000 · 2020-09 · on “Sir David Attenborough makes stark warning about species extinction”

Hey, you can be proud for having spent time thinking about it to start with. And for having tried! Feeling responsible for it yourself alone is not necessary, it's bigger than that. Here's a thought or two by Attenborough on overpopulation, one of the drivers of these problems [0] The problem will solve itself however (with certainty), and I cannot explain it better than George Carlin [1]. Enjoy! [0] [LINK] [1] [this video]

Cites pavanred · 2014-05 · on “Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice”

Not sure if you based it on this, but it's a very famous argument made by George Carlin [1] [1] [this video]

Cites badosu · 2017-11 · on “Scientists have signed the largest-ever warning about Earth’s destruction”

Could not resist mentioning "Save the planet" from Geroge Carlin: The planet isn’t going anywhere. We are! We’re goin’ away. Pack your shit, Folks, we’re goin’ away. We won’t leave much of a trace either, thank god for that. Maybe a little styrofoam, maybe, little styrofoam. Planet’ll be here and 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 doin’? Ask those people at Pompeii, who were frozen into position from volcanic ash. How the planet’s doin’. Wanna know if the planet’s alright, ask those people in Mexico C

Cites cornholio · 2018-02 · on “Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030”

By that metric, what is the environment and why is it important to protect it? On an abstract enough scale, we and our plastic are simply evolutionary products and the fact that we are wiping out species and cataclysmically heating the planet is just a geological event that might be called The Great Human Extinction by some distant inteligent race. As George Carlin used to say, the planet is just fine. It's the people who are f*ed: [this video]

Cites subcosmos · 2018-10 · on “Microplastics found in 90 percent of table salt”

This is getting absolutely rediculous ... Epoxy resins may very well have created the Diabetes epidemic, with genetic data backing it. [LINK] And the chemical used to make Teflon was dumped into the Mississippi river valley for years, leading to a spate of birth defects and other more common medical problems. Dupont paid hundreds of millions : [LINK] Carlin had it right .... [this video]

Cites 34679 · 2020-09 · on “How Big Oil Misled the Public into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”

George Carlin: "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 toward 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 egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” Plastic… asshole.” Full text: [LINK] Video: [this video]

Cites Gravityloss · 2022-03 · on “Antarctic sea ice hits lowest minimum on record”

Now have time for a longer reply. There are a few different phenomena. First is that "fear" and "anxiety" are indeed used by the news media or politicians to get more attention. There I agree. It is cheap, unsustainable and harmful. But there's more to glaciers than news fearmongering. The second concept is "the planet doesn't care". George Carlin has his famous skit. [this video] Of course life will continue on earth, after relatively large temperature swings or 10 kilometer asteroid hits etc. That doesn't mean we don't need to care about anything. His skit can be seen as a wake up call (which he might or might not have meant). Why would we do anything? Why would you recycle instead of dumping p