Harrison Ford says Donald Trump's attacks on measures to tackle the climate crisis scare the hell out of me and make the US president one of the worst criminals in history.
In a scathing attack on the president, Ford told the Guardian that Trump doesn't have policies, he has whims. It really scares me. Ignorance, pride, lies, perfidy. [Trump] he knows better, but he is an instrument of the status quo and he makes money with open arms, while the world goes to hell in a handbasket.
The legendary Star Wars and Indiana Jones actor, 83, added: It's incredible. I don't know of a greater criminal in history.
During his second term as president, Trump moved to dismantle climate and clean air protections, halted clean energy projects, urged oil and gas companies to drill, baby, drill for the fossil fuels that are overheating the planet, fired hundreds of scientists while eliminating their work, and even banned mentions of climate change and emissions in government.
Trump, who once again withdrew the United States from the Paris climate accord, also targeted other countries' climate policies, pressing the United Kingdom to demolish its ugly wind turbines in favor of more oil drilling and demanding that the European Union roll back its climate rules and buy more American oil and gas.
Climate change is the greatest scam ever perpetrated on the world, Trump said in a speech to the United Nations last month. If you don't move away from this green scam, your country will fail. You need strong borders and traditional energy sources if you want to become great again.
Ford, a longtime environmental advocate, said Trump's aversion to wind turbines was because he simply hadn't seen gold in them and that the president's legacy on the climate crisis would be a clear expression of ignorance, hubris and deliberate subterfuge.
The world, including the United States, the second-largest carbon polluter, remains behind in efforts to reduce the planet's heat emissions to curb the type of disaster suffered this week by Jamaica, which was hit by a Category 5 hurricane that scientists say was likely accelerated by a warmer atmosphere and ocean.
Earlier this year, Ford himself had to be evacuated following massive wildfires that ravaged parts of Los Angeles (and were likely caused by global warming), although his Brentwood home was spared the destruction, unlike those of many other celebrities.
Rising global temperatures are wreaking havoc beyond spectacular disasters such as Hurricane Melissa and the Los Angeles fires, with a major study released this week finding that excess heat now kills one person every minute globally.
I knew this was going to happen, I've been preaching this stuff for 30 years, Ford said of these climate-driven disasters. Everything we said about climate change has come true. Why isn't that enough to alarm people when they change their behavior? Because of the well-established status quo.
However, the world is increasingly adopting cleaner forms of energy, albeit at a slower pace than necessary to avoid escalating climate impacts, and Ford said he hoped Trump's fossil fuel-dominated vision would not prevail.
He's losing ground because everything he says is a lie, Ford said. I am convinced that we can mitigate [climate change]that we can buy time to change behavior, create new technologies and focus more on implementing these policies.
Donald Trump delivers his message of exercise, baby, exercise while on the campaign trail in October 2024 in Oaks, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP
But we must develop the political will and intellectual sophistication to realize that we human beings are capable of change. We are incredibly adaptive, we are incredibly inventive. If we focus on a problem, we can solve it most of the time.
Ford spoke to the Guardian shortly before receiving a conservation leadership award at a ceremony at Chicago's Field Museum on Wednesday evening. The prize was awarded by the foundation of the late biologist EO Wilson, who coined the term biodiversity. Wilson, a myrmecologist, became friends with Ford after working together on conservation campaigns and naming a species of ant after the actor.
Wilson proposed that half the planet be protected for nature to stem disastrous losses of species and ecosystems, an initiative that his foundation and Ford continue to support. Worldwide, more than 100 countries have pledged to conserve 30% of land and seas by 2030, and although progress has been made over the past year, barely half of that goal has been achieved, according to a new report from the Wilson Foundation.
We are on the brink, Ford said of the continued loss of nature due to deforestation, pollution and other human-caused destruction.
Indigenous people are custodians of much of the remaining forests and hold out hope that these precious places can be preserved. Science has proven the value of their preservation, but this does not prevent their encroachment, and the protection afforded to them is tenuous in some of the countries where these assets exist.
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