While conservatives sometimes like to say that Bill Maher is getting red-pilled, it’s more like he’s getting pink-pilled: He increasingly recognizes the insanity of today’s Left, but still accepts liberalism’s basic suppositions. In this vein, being unlikely to value-signal, Maher doesn’t act as if shows of style are substitutes for the substance prescribed by leftist orthodoxy. Then again, he’s apparently also not amenable to always embracing that substance personally. A good example of this occurred on the HBO host’s Club Random podcast last week, when he featured as guest fellow comedian Dana Carvey.
As Fox News reports, on the show,
Maher went after the progressive, environmental left, calling their criticism of older generations hypocritical and saying he wasn’t going to be the “schmuck driving the three-dollar car” in order to fight climate change.
… Maher knocked the idea of wealthy environmentalists forgoing the use of private jets: “I say this now: The only people who don’t fly private are the ones who can’t. Anyone who can, would.”
Maher said he didn’t want to be the only one making sacrifices to save the planet, something needs to be done “as a group of humans” for the problem to be solved, but it’s been all talk and no action.
“I just don’t feel like me [not flying private] is making a difference,” he added. “We either do this as a group — I’m just not going to be the one schmuck not enjoying my life.”
Highlighting Gen Z environmentalist Greta Thunberg, the host declared her to be an exception as she won’t fly in private jets: “She’s not representative of her generation who love to blame us.”
Maher summarized young environmentalists’ criticism of their elders as “you wrecked the world!” Then retorted, “Yeah, like you’re doing it differently. You’re not driving? Right. You’re just with Greta on a sailboat all the time. You’re using cars as much as we did. So, shut the f— up!”
How much of an “exception” Thunberg is may be a matter of debate. (Her net worth is at least $1 million — at age 19 — and her father’s wealth may be as high as $10 million.) Maher could choose to lead by example and experience the pleasure of acting on principle, but he doesn’t. Why, one could very well imagine Korean dictator Kim Jong Un echoing his sentiments and saying, “The only people who don’t arrogate luxuries to themselves while most everyone else ‘enjoys’ socialist privation are the ones who can’t.”
This is not, mind you, to equate Maher with the bloody tyrant. The point is that there is little if any historical record of leftists gaining power and then sacrificing along with “the people.” They always find a reason why they, being special, should continue enjoying their “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” (hat tip: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous host Robin Leach). Would Maher be an exception? Perhaps that question is between him and God (or would be, if he believed in God).
Maher is correct, though, about the younger generations. The Hill reported in 2020 that “80 percent of voters between the ages of 18 to 29 say that global warming is ‘a major threat to human life on earth’ as humans know it.” Yet their actions reflect no enviro-asceticism; they indulge in the same modern, energy-intensive lifestyles their elders do.
This isn’t to put any special onus on them; they’re not guilty of being “young people,” just people. That is, talking the talk is easy, but few make real sacrifices for their professed beliefs. Also note that youths indoctrinated with greentopian alarmism didn’t brainwash themselves — older people, some now dead, birthed this effort.
Yet few greentopians truly understand their preferred prescriptions’ (e.g., wind and solar) implications. As to this, the top MSN.com commenter under the aforementioned Fox News article wrote:
“All the progress the younger generations now enjoy and take for granted was built and made possible by the very things they now condemn[,] but I don’t see any of them willing to give up all those things they enjoy and take for granted and go back to having to do the hard work of making it all possible without all the things they condemn. Their positions are all empty virtue signaling[,] and if allowed to play out, they are going to find their lives are going to be much harder and much more inconvenient than they are willing to tolerate.”
More on this is found in the essay “Why the Greentopians Would Destroy the Earth.”
Shaking people from climate alarmism isn’t easy. But a valuable approach is to apply the Socratic method and ask three thought-inspiring questions:
- What’s the ideal average temperature for the Earth? People won’t have an answer. Yet, then, how can they possibly know if the given climate change, whether natural or humanity-induced, is good or bad? For they can’t then know if the given change is bringing us closer to, or moving us farther from, that ideal temperature.
- How much of the air we breathe is carbon dioxide? Twenty percent is a common answer. The actual figure is four one-hundredths of one percent (or 400 parts per million). Note that this figure has been as high as 5,000 parts per million during Earth’s history, and was 5 to 10 times as great during the dinosaur age.
- Given this, how could relatively minor fluctuations in this historically low CO2 level threaten the Earth?
We’d do well to ponder these questions deeply. The lifestyles — and even the lives — we save may be our own.
For those interested, Maher’s Club Random segment is below (relevant portion begins at 41:40).
