The British actor Jeremy Irons has come out in support of environmentalist policies such as population management, waste disposal control and sustainability. The Times reports:
Launching himself as a green campaigner, Irons has revealed plans to make a documentary about sustainability and waste disposal, likening himself to Michael Moore, the controversial film maker, although “not as silly”.
The increasing global population would put an intolerable strain on the world’s resources, Irons said, and the gulf between developing countries and westerners living a bountiful “pie-in-the-sky” existence must be addressed.
“One always returns to the fact that there are just too many of us, the population continues to rise and it’s unsustainable,” he said in an interview with The Sunday Times. “I think we have to find ways where we’re not having to scrap our effluent junk and are a really sustainable planet.”
Natural systems of selfregulation may stop population growth, he said: “I suspect there’ll be a very big outbreak of something because the world always takes care of itself.”
The 61-year-old actor went on to speculate that either disease or war, “probably disease”, could become nature’s way of halving the population.
He is seeking funding for a film on sustainability, which he hopes will be in the manner of An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning Al Gore documentary on climate change.
. . .
Irons, who says he runs “very old motor cars” including a 13-year-old Range Rover, also launched an attack on today’s throwaway society. “Why does it make sense for us all to be buying a lot of motor cars, selling our old ones and scrapping them? Why don’t we make cars that last for 40 years? We could,” he said.
Known for backing causes such as an international ban on capital punishment and the repeal of the fox hunting ban, Irons said he developed his views after discussions with Richard Leakey, the Kenyan conservationist and politician.
. . .
The ultimate solution, he says, is for us all to live less decadently — growing our own food and recycling instead of replacing goods: “People must drop their standard of living [so] the wealth can be spread about. There’s a long way to go.”
There's more at the link.
Unfortunately for Mr. Irons, he happens to own seven homes, including a pink castle in Ireland. So, when he says -
“People around the world suffer hunger — 1 billion. Now that’s bad, worse than bad, that’s crazy! We’ve got to get mad. I want you to get mad. I want you to get up right now, stick your head out of the window and yell, ‘I’m mad as hell’.”
- from which window, of which of his homes, does he plan to do so? As for 'dropping [his] standard of living' (as he calls on the rest of us to do), would that include getting rid of a few of those homes, and living in just one or two (or, at most, three) of them?
Sustainability? More like hypocrisy, if you ask me. Seems like a classic case of 'Do as I say, not as I do'.
Peter
7 comments:
I truly wonder if actors/directors/other stage and screen types spend so much time creating and living in fantasy worlds that they come to believe that THOSE are reality and thus the rest of the world can be manipulated as easily. Politically-induced starvation can be cured by yelling "cut" and looking fierce, wars will end if only the right people wave signs decrying war, making a "documentary" will instantly cure ______ social ill. Or maybe prolonged exposure to stage-makeup and video cameras rots your brain.
LittleRed1
Just because he's a complete hypocrite doesn't mean he's wrong; he just refuses to apply his ideals to himself.
Still, I would contend that he IS wrong. If our standing assumption is that the world is overpopulated and we humans need to regress in order to save Mother Gaia, then yes, the standard of living needs to take a dive.
However, better to drive a new subcompact than a 14 year old SUV- the old vehicle will be recycled and you'll be using less fuel and generating less pollution. The guy is just out of whack on multiple levels.
I contend that a high standard of living is not a bad thing- we have 3 (yes, THREE) HDTVs at home- they had to be built somewhere, and the people who made them received paychecks, increasing their lot in life. We don't all need to tend a farm when one guy with a few pieces of machinery can handle it. We aren't starving because there isn't enough food; people are starving because of other humans- the warlords who stockpile food for their friends while starving others bears a burden here, not middle class people in industrialized nations.
I'd submit that the earth gets better treatment here in the USA or in the UK than it does in any of these third world agrarian societies Mr. Irons might see as ideal. People living in squalor don't have the time or energy to care about the environment; that's a rich person's concern.
But he's a "star"... Of course the 'rules' won't apply to him... sigh...
He who has the medicine to cure all our ills should have no trouble demonstrating how effective it is on himself first.
I do seriously wonder if he thinks he has a shred of credibility. Less silly that Michael Moore? Not so sure on that one.
rrrrrrAAAAWR. It is a perennial pet peeve of mine the way people personalize "Earth" and "nature" as though it were a self-protecting, self-sustaining, single entity. That's just not the way it fucking works. As for humanity, we became "unsustainable" by Mr. Irons's standards sometime around the time we left Africa for the first time. The only long-term "sustainable" populations Earth has ever had are ones in which the environment is so unforgiving that any sort of expansion (or much in the way of technological or cultural advancement) is punished by immediate die-off.
As for Earth, it's a fricking hunk of variously molten rock in orbit around a yellow star. It is not concerned with us. It has intermittently killed off up to 90% of all life on its surface through various perturbations. We should be a great deal more worried about what Earth-the-planet may do to US than about what we can do to it. We can and should be worried about other life, but the planet will be quite fine. It does not care what crawls on its skin or doesn't.
LittleRed: I think you are right; people who spend their entire lives wrapped up entirely in narrative begin thinking that the world itself works that way. Humans in general are already basically inclined to be narrative-based thinkers, and being in the full-time business of creating stories seems to have its pitfalls.
Nothing to see here, just another well-off leftist enviroloon. Move along. Go watch TV.
I always like to tell those "Earth has too many people" idiots that we should indeed get rid of some people. I then look them straight in the eye and say, "YOU go FIRST!" It definitely exposes their hypocrisy!
chicopanther
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