Transcript for George Carlin - Saving the Planet

You have got people like this around you. Countries are full of them now.

People walking around all day long very minute of the day.

Worried about everything.

Worried about the air, worried about the water, worried about the soil

Worried about insecticides, pesticides food aditives, carcinogens

Worried abour radon and gas, worried about asbestos

Worried about saving engangered species

Let me tell you about engangered species, allright

Saving engangered species is just one more arrogant attempt by humas to control nature

It is arrogant medling

It is what got is what got is in trabble in the first place

Doesn't anybody understand that?

Interfeering with nature

Over 90% way over 90% of all the species that have ever lived on this planet are gone

They are extinct

We didn't kill them all

They just disapeared

That is what nature does

The disapeare these days at the rate of 25 a day

And I mean regardless of our behaviour

Irespective of how we act on this planet

25 species that were here today will be gone tomorow

Let them go gracefully

Leave nature alone

Haven't we done enought?

We are so selfimportant

So selfimportant

Everybody is gonna 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.

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 save 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. WE ARE!

We’re going away.

Pack your shit, folks.

We’re going away.

And we won’t leave much of a trace, either.

Thank God for that.

Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe.

A little styrofoam.

The 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’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet’s doing?

Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position

from volcanic ash, how the planet’s doing.

You wanna know if the planet’s all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia

or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble

if they feel like a threat to the planet this week.

Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, .

and then wonder why they have lava in the living room

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone,

and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does.

It’s a self-correcting system.

The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed,

and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable,

well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm:

the earth plus plastic.

The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards 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 philosophical question, “Why are we here?”

Plastic…assholes.

So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now.

And I think that’s started already. Don’t you?

I mean, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat.

Something to be dealt with.

And the planet can defend itself in an matter like a large organism

like a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism.

I am sure the planet will think of something.

What would you do if you were the planet? Trying to defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species?

Let’s see… Viruses.

Viruses might be good.

They seem vulnerable to viruses.

And, uh…viruses are tricky, always mutating

and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed.

Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures.

Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along.

And maybe it could be spread sexually,

making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.

Well, that’s a poetic note. And it’s a start.

And I can dream, can’t I?

See I don’t worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails.

I think we’re part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand.

A higher order. Call it what you want.

Know what I call it?

The Big Electron. The Big Electron…

whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa.

It doesn’t punish, it doesn’t reward, it doesn’t judge at all.

It just is. And so are we. For a little while.

Thanks for being with me for a little while tonight

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