Jeremy Clarkson: Just been for a walk round the farm and I’m a bit alarmed by how few butterflies there are.
Something is afoot.
Danny Wallace: Diesel-smelling Top Gear host who threatened climate protestors misses butterflies.
Jeremy Clarkson: Just been for a walk round the farm and I’m a bit alarmed by how few butterflies there are.
Something is afoot.
Danny Wallace: Diesel-smelling Top Gear host who threatened climate protestors misses butterflies.
To be fair. His farming ventures have moved his opinion on climate in a positive direction. People can change their mind and that is a good thing. I would even go as far as calling it a very good sign that even a person as stubborn as the great ape Clarkson can change their opinion on this matter is absolutely fantastic. Good on Clarkson! And fuck the other guy for shoving up the past in his face when he is trying to be better.
But have they? His insistence at this point is that he doesn’t have to do anything, or change anything, science will “solve the issue”. Nothing better than someone who thinks any mess they make can be cleaned up by someone else so why bother trying to make any changes that makes your life slightly less convenient?
https://metro.co.uk/2024/04/29/problem-jeremy-clarksons-global-warming-joke-20736068/
Uhh isn’t progressing to electric cars… science progressing to help solve the issue? What a strange train of thoughts.
I know someone who has a similar outlook (climate change is real but science will solve it, so we don’t need to change anything). Basically anything science produces toward that end they will move the goalpost and say it’s not worth pursuing because science will fix it.
It is essentially their way of making climate change denialism seem reasonable and open-minded. I think if somebody came up with a miracle device to magically reverse everything, they’d complain it’s too costly at any price.
Yup. When/if we do find a way to dial back global warming, billionaires will be screaming for us to not use it because they’ve already found ways to make money off of people dying.
See: American healthcare system.
No. It isn’t.
It’s capitalism shifting their private transport scam from an energy source that they exploited the living crap out off to another that they haven’t mismanaged into the ground yet.
What he thinks will happen is Tony Stark inventing a… Thing. And this Thing will make the climate better by doing… Stuff. And no one will have to change or do anything or even think about it because this Thing will do the Stuff for them.
Hello I’m “the Tony Stark” and I’m totally out of my element and overwhelmed
This is getting solved by the entire human species, not one dude
Would be cool if that were the case
No, its more like corporations moving to capitalize on peoples desire to affect change.
They help, but they don’t solve the issue. They’re a bandage for a gaping chest wound. It’ll staunch the bleeding… a little, but it won’t heal it.
Substitute religion out for technology and this is still meaningful
He’s right about electric cars not solving anything but wrong about politics not solving it. Science has already provided the solutions like over a decade ago but no one is willing to implement it.
I’m really tired of this pervasive fantasy where people actually think we can get rid of all cars and bring public transport to the masses in the space of a year.
We live in a car centric society and changing that is going to take a decade at the minimum.
EVs are our best solutions currently, we don’t have time to wait for trains or hydrogen. We should absolutely start trying to phase cars out completely but that doesn’t negate the fact that saying “EVs don’t help” is essentially being an oil barons mouthpiece.
And that’s way too optimistic. Given the life expectancy of modern autos, the “quick” option of EVs will be a couple decades or more.
Building car-centric towns and cities has taken most of a century of constant growth. Now those cities exist and we no longer have the growth so rebuilding them is a much bigger job. We’re talking many decades, likely a century or more. In the meantime we can’t afford to be stuck with ICE.
Although maybe you’re not from the US so the problem is not as severe. Here in Massachusetts we also have the advantage of so many towns and cities being built out before cars. We’re “behind” on being car-centric so hopefully can fix that trend more quickly
Best time to start was years ago, second best time to start is now. Maybe we can start by voting in favor of the next public transit initiative in our respective local elections.
Of course, but the point is that EVs are a useful step, even if transit is the goal and start now.
Also that it’s going to take quite a while. Yes, we need to plant that tree ASAP and we need to take really good care of it and we need to appreciate shade as we get it …… but also realize it won’t be full grown until long after we’re gone.
(Hydrogen is very much not a solution. It takes way too much energy to make and it’s very dangerous to store.)
Science is pushing electric cars for a reason. Clarkson’s an idiot.
No it’s capitalism and the car industry that wants to continue selling cars that are pushing for EVs.
Cars in general are bad for the environment and the people around them. EVs are a bit better than internal combustion, but it’s not a miracle.
EVs still emit tons of rubber particles because of tire shedding, they are heavier and require more energy to move around, they still require vast amounts of paved parking and roads, and they can still crush pedestrians and animals.
If you have to have a car, it should be an EV if possible, but it would be better to reduce the amount of cars in cities and around us.
So we agree the man with 10 v8 engine cars should move to EVs or public transit rather than having 10 cars? Because he’s saying fuck that.
He’s not using all 10 at the same time every day for a multi-hours commute. In a way he’s right. In his country, that means not cancelling HS2. It’s not his personal fault. And him changing a car to EV won’t change much, aside from putting one more car on the market.
Again, my point is, it’s not science that is pushing EVs, it’s capitalism. Buy an EV!1!!! Buy buy buy!11! ThEy ArE GoNnA SaVe ThE PlAnEt!
No need for policy changes. All we need to do collectively is ban plastic straws, drive EVs, recycle, and those that are not doing this will be blamed!
https://www.abc27.com/news/environment/keeping-old-cars-longer-can-help-the-environment-more-than-buying-new-electric-cars-study-finds/
https://www.cargurus.co.uk/Cars/articles/whats-greener-used-car-or-new-ev
https://mycarheaven.com/2023/07/keeping-your-old-petrol-car-may-be-better-than-buying-an-ev/
Myth. https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/mythbusting-world-evs-better-buy-new-or-keep-your-old-car
HS2 wasn’t going to fix much. Shave 20 minutes off a multi-hour journey. There’s already fast, frequent rail between London and the other major cities in HS2. It’s just very expensive and HS2 wasn’t going to fix that either. What would help is good rail between the North West and Yorkshire, where it’s absurdly bad and has been for a long time.
Now if you could get rail or light rail out to my town or up the bus frequency and speed to match light rail, I’d gladly give up running my (second hand) electric car, but I need it to be so much cheaper, because the electric car costs me £4 a week to run if I don’t use the light railway (plus £3 a day parking), and light rail costs me £6 a day if I park and ride. (I don’t miss my petrol car at all. It cost me £20 a week to run, plus the parking, and it really was no fun to drive at all.)
If you have 10 cars and buy an 11th thats electric you’re not really solving anything. The problem is overconsumption moreso than method of propulsion, the bulk of a car’s lifetime emissions are a result of manufacturing rather than daily use.
Yeah someone clearly doesn’t know history loll
As much as I like Top Gear, I’m embarrassed to share a name with this guy. Why does every public personality named Jeremy have to be a cunt? Maybe it’s just British TV personalities.
mfw
To be fair, it’s corporations doing the vast majority of the polluting.
Where I live, electric cars are essentially a net-zero because most of our electricity comes from coal and gas.
Does that absolve any individual from doing what they can? Absolutely not.
There are tons of people with that opinion that “the eggheads will just figure it out like they always do”. IMO it’s incorrect, but people on all ends of the political spectrum have that take.
IMO he’s correct that individual action doesn’t matter, but he’s wrong that political action doesn’t matter. It reminds me of the gun hobbyists in the US who are against gun control because they don’t want their enjoyment of their hobby to be constrained by laws intended to get less people killed. There are solutions here where you can have your cake and eat it, but you just don’t want to decouple the fantasy of your hobby from the reality of it.
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying guns or cars as a hobby, but you should also acknowledge that their widespread presence is a net negative for society and regulating them would be a good thing for the world in the long run. It doesn’t mean you can’t have your toys.
Certainly nobody who drives their car to the office every day on a congested freeway is thinking about how fun it is to drive a V8. Less car dependency and more public transit would mean less cars on the road which would make driving more fun for petrol heads like Clarkson anyway. He should want more public transit, cyclist infrastructure, etc. It would benefit him indirectly even as a petrol head.
What I find funniest though is when he says in that quote in the same breath “electric cars don’t solve anything” and then “science will solve the problem”. My brother in Christ, science made the electric cars!
If he’s changed wouldn’t he know what the issue was? It’s a little worrying that he hasn’t made the connection if that’s the case.
I don’t see this as a change of opinion, just a severe lack of understanding as a whole.
You are probably right. Or maybe he just wants to create a discussion
Yeah, about his show, and what a good guy he now is… And look, it worked!
Is it possible a tweet doesn’t contain the entirety of his thoughts on the subject?
Plenty more characters available, could have made himself not seem so clueless or oblivious to what he’s done and did or even for the future.
Climate change is serious, would work instead of something is affoot for example.
Change is rarely immediate or miraculous. He’s moved a little, hopefully he continues on that path.
I won’t hold my breath, but I won’t refuse to accept that change has occurred. Slight though it may be.
It’s probably just promo for the next season of clarksons farm where he’ll plant a bunch of milkweed in the field that had the poor mustard harvest last year.
Jeremy does at least try to be somewhat environmentally conscious with his farm. Last season he was making a big focus on responsible hunting, renewable farming (less chemicals), using non-arable spaces for small scale harvesting (forest berries and herbs as well as putting hogs in the forest instead of a field), and utilizing the most of the space we have(growing mushrooms in an abandoned bomb bunker instead of building something new)
I feel like this is the sort of conservation that conservatives should be all about. Rather than conserving wealth.
Idk, to me it seems like he’s changed his opinion on the cause but not yet realized the effects
Standard issue conservative. They only complain when it begins to affect them. If he didn’t have a farm, would he still have moved in that direction?
Nope.
A common characteristic of conservatives is a lack of empathy.
Am I happy he did? Yes.
Am I holding my breath that he’ll actually vote for change? Nope.
I’m not saying that he did, or not completely, but people are allowed to learn and change opinions. It is possible!
meh. he profited personally off of lambasting the very scientists who were trying to warn us. he literally made his fortune off of glorifying petrol guzzling shitwagons.
fuck clarkson. he’s a fucking toolbag who’s just now - as the world is on fire- is slowly starting to wake to the crisis he personally helped fuel.
Someone missed the episode(s?) where he raced the public transit system and lost. Or raced other drivers in noticeably slower cars in highly congested traffic and lost, or raced a bicycle and lost.
A semi-common through-line of the show was that cars are, and should be, for fun. (Full disclosure this was often pushed most heavily by James May, but I feel like Jeremy could have said no at any point.) They often lambasted average and everyday use cars.
I loved my old sports car! It was 2 seats and too much power! I had to get rid of it because it was unreliable and unsafe for traveling with my first kid. Neither would have been an issue with good public transit infrastructure in place.
Cars are not the problem, but car dependency absolutely is.
(I don’t totally feel this way and do think cars a major contributing factor in some problems, like pollution of microplastic particulates from aggressive driving, but that isn’t as quippy.)
I never watched the show, but I did visit its wiki page.
It looks like they did 6 races against public transportation, and the car won 5 of them. They also did 2 four way races between car, water, bike and public transport, and car and bike were the two first place winners.
But where would you get the gas to power your sports car without the massive fossil fuel infrastructure?
From a refinery? Losing car dependency doesn’t mean that the global oil industry goes away over night. Shoot, if we invented completely safe and cheap scifi teleporters, making all current forms of transportation obsolete, I don’t believe every factory in the world would stop producing gasoline.
My thinking for this primarily comes from vacuum tubes. The technology has been completely replaced by better performing, cheaper, smaller, and more reliable components for about 50 years now. However, there are still 2 or 3 factories churning out tubes for guitar amplifiers supplying the world for the handful of enthusiasts who enjoy that sort of thing.
Go ahead and throw mechanical typewriters into that same category of “Wow! I can’t believe that they still make these?” as well.
It was effecting his vacationing. Hyper fucking privileged.
Oh yes, great. When it is too late suddenly the fucks who are responsible for this mess have a change of heart and deserve sympathies? Give me a break…
they’ll shout “why didn’t anyone warn us!” while cashing their residual checks from the show that lampooned climate change and encouraged millions to buy gas guzzling shitwagons.
I think it was the first episode of the first season where one of his neighbors bitched him out over climate change. Really satisfying to see.
No. You don’t get to “give back to the community” after shitting in the mental water reservoir for decades.
Exactly. There was a time when I didn’t know how to multiply 6 by 5.
But I learned, as did I’m sure all of you.
Ignorance can be cured.
Punishing people for the ignorance of their past when their present self is trying to do better is wrong.
Maybe be a little more charitable towards your fellow man.
But Clarkson wasnt just ignorant, he was actively spreading ignorance.
He was out there telling all the kids that 6 x 5 = 40.
Now it looks like he might have realized that 6 x 5 is actually 30. If he wanted to be an adult and try to do better, he would be posting about how he was wrong, posting apologies, and positively affirming that 6 x 5 = 30. I dont see him doing any of these things.
Nobody improves exactly the same way.
Improvement is still good
We neither have the time nor a duty to wait for or expect assholes who only think about themselves to come around on the climate and ecology after they have thoroughly burned planet earth for money.
You’re a dumb whore if you think we should respect planet burning greedy leeches.
Fuck you.
I hate to break it to you but these boomer guys are in charge. Nothing will happen until they either die or change their mind. That is the reality. Everything that has been done so far for the environment have done nothing at all, every year we have a new record carbon emissions. It does not matter how many solar panels and EVs they shove down our throats. It is not sustainable.
Given the current pace, they’re gonna die first. You’re being a fatalist basically, and then mad at someone for telling others to have more sense of urgency? 🙄🙄🙄 You’re saying solar panels and EVs don’t make a difference? You’re just lying, wrong.
Assholes. Dumb whores. Leeches. Yeah, you really know how to motivate people and get them on-board!
Keep up the good work!
Yup. Oh, someone changed his mind bc he got into a different business, but before that the information was all readily available, but he ignored it bc he was previously profiting? Wow stand up guy, only paying attention to issues impacting his bottom line.