[wordup] george carlin on saving the planet

[Adam Shand]

i assume this is old news, but i'd never read it before.  it think it's
a sad, but remarkably astute, piece.

adam.

From: http://www.spack.org/index.cgi/SaveThePlanet

"Haven't we done enough. We're so self-important. So self-important.
Everybody's 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 to take care of one another and we're gonna save the fucking
planet. I'm getting tired of that shit. I'm tired of 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 safe 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. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live.
They're own habitat. They're worried some day in the future they may be
personally inconvenienced."

"Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the
planet. The planet is fine. The people are fucked. Difference. The
planet is fine. Compared to the people the planet is doing great. Been
here four and a half billion years. You ever think about the arithmetic?
Planet has been here four and a half billion years and we've been here
what, a hundred thousand, maybe two hundred thousand. And we've only
been engaged in heavy industry for around two hundred years. Two hundred
years versus four and a half billion, and we have the conceit to some
how think we're a threat. That some how we're gonna put into jeopardy
this beautiful little blue green ball that's just a floating 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 bombardments by comets and asteroids and meteors, world wide
floods, tidal waves, world wide 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 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. The planet will be here and we'll be long gone. Just
another failed mutation. Just another closed end biological mistake. An
evolutionary cul-des-ac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of
fleas. A surface nuisance. You want to know how the planet's doing? Ask
those people in Pompeii who are frozen into position from volcano ash
how the planet's doing. Want to know if the planet's alright just 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 a planet this week."

"The planet will be here for a long, long, long time after we're gone.
It will heal itself. It will cleanse itself, because 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 plastic is not degradable,
well then the planet will simply incorporate plastic in a new paradigm,
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 why the
earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place is 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." -- George Carlin