Seven Crazy Things Celebrities Have Said About the Environment
by Eric Leech, New York, NY 
on 01. 7.09
Photo Credit: Khizer
From George W. Bush to Jennifer Aniston, celebs spread their great wisdom on the world's most pressing issues involving the environment. Celebrity and political forces have been known to express their views on such subjects as pollution, nature, air quality, natural gas, electricity, water conservation, and waste management. Here at TreeHugger, we are thankful to have such a powerful think tank on our side, sharing such deep and meaningful brain-power. And yes, you may have seen some of these before, but we can't get enough: Here are seven of the craziest celebrity quotes we have heard over the past two decades.
Photo Credit: MSHennessy
1. Dan Quayle on Pollution
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
Snopes has pretty much let the air out of this humor balloon, informing us that this quote never actually happened. Well, you had most of us fooled Mr. Quayle. It sounded just like something you'd say!
Photo Credit: Hypnotoad
2. Retired Alaskan Governor, Walter J. Hickel, on Nature Conservation
“We can't just let nature run wild...” (Source: New York Times)
Coming from Alaska, a state whose license plate motto claims they are the last frontier, this statement sure doesn't sit right with us. This quote was uttered over the fact that there are too many of them dag-um wolves in the great Alaskan frontier. You know, causing havoc and acting natural as wolves are inclined to do when left alone in their own habitat.
Photo Credit: Bobster1985
3. George W. Bush on Natural Gas
Austin, Texas, Dec. 20, 2000: “Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.” (Source: The American Presidency Project)
Um...ok. If you're not sure of what you really want to say, make it up as you go along and then hope that nobody notices.
Discover more crazy things celebrities have said about the environment on page 2.
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Get Behind Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor—60 Green Groups Already Have
- Meet Green Business Consultant Tyler Moorehead, of GreenUnlimited
- 8 Ways Laughter Can Help You Naturally Improve Your Health and Lose Weight
- Get Michelle Obama Arms with Natural Resistance Bands
- Focus on Focus Earth: The Beginning of Eco-Terrorism (Video)
- A Green Bath Soothes Your Aching Bones and Saves Water Too
The only thing I have to say about holywood celebreties on climate change is that until they stop flying around in their private jets and start shelling out some of that money solve the wordl's climate problems the need to stop telling us average people change our lives to help save the planet.
I'd like to volunteer to time Miss Aniston's shower time. It should only take a few years to collect the data. I won't peek.....honest. ;)
Uh, did someone change the definition of "celebrity"? I only see ONE celebrity on this list; Jennifer Anniston. I see a hoax about a VP, that proclaims it's "truthiness", some rehashed statements from Bush, and Lee Iococca? Really, Lee is a celebrity? Must have missed him Perez Hilton. Let me suggest a few celebrities who will supply you with an endless list of stupid statements; Brad Pitt, Barbra Streisand, Patricia Heaton, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, good Lord, you really haven't been reading the gossip pages, have you?
Regarding nuclear power being renewable - "treehuggers" are quick to tout the benefits of solar and wind power, but fail to mention the fact that these so-called "renewable" resources are in fact dependent on a nuclear-fusion reactor at the center of our solar system that will, one day, die out and radiate far less energy than it does today. Conventional fission reactors here on earth will run out of fuel on the same timescale as the sun, so they are effectively renewable resources. You may balk at this idea, but please, do a little research on just how comparatively harmful nuclear energy is before you rant about its evils.
You failed to phonetically decode the way President GW always says "New-que-ler"... which makes the quote all the more amusing.
radia:
Fission reactors cost more per power output than solar power, create serious waste, and are as over hyped as ethanol.
A nice discussion on the longevity of Nuclear Fission:
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=156759
Basically the current price of Uranium puts us at a 50 - 100 supply of natural uranium. The advent and production of fast reactors should take us another 100 - 200 years on the spent uranium. That means fission is not a renewable technology. If we use the sun's lifespan as a time line for the basis of renewable, I think that would in fact render fossil fuels renewable.
Outlook on solar, hydro, thermal, and wind energy is good; technology is improving fast. Current technology could be deployed now. It would be years before a new reactor could be brought online in the US.
After the part about Bush knowing something we don't about nucular power, I saw the picture of Dhamler Chrystler and for a minute thought it was the Delorean building and that you were making a reference to Back to the Future. But you didn't. Doing so would've improved this article tenfold.
Ha, funny stuff!
"Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees"
-President Ronald Reagan
Fission isn't renewable in the sense that Uranium isn't produced anymore on earth, but the bi-products of nuclear fission (like plutonium) can be recycled and used to power other nuclear reactors.
The best possible solution would be a functional fusion reactor if they can ever get the technology to actually produce energy (More energy is needed to create the reaction than the output, much like many 'bio-fuel' alternatives).
NUclear energy is renewable if you use a breeder reactor which makes the Uranium into Plutonium
Ok so the Jennifer Aniston one is retarded, clearly the point is that she both does everything one does in the shower (aka lather and rinse), along with brushing her teeth. This is smart, and taking a 3 minute shower (while probably exaggerated) is still better than most of you could claim.
Or am I missing something?
The only true celebrity around is Barbra Streisand and she makes the most normal sensible statements.
What about Cheryl Crow?
She said everyone should be limited to one single square of toilet paper.
Two if you're 'really messy'.
X.
nu-que-lar power is renewable....just depends on which one you use....so Bush is not as dumb as you!!
@ radia_
excuse me for jumping in a few days late, but the big non-renewable energy reactor in the middle of our solar system is over 300,000 times the size of the planet we live on. The sun will stop generating energy as a yellow star in 4-5billion years. and thats because it's a middle aged star.. in all probability we won't be here on earth at the time. either we'll be extinct or we'll be polluting the next planetary system.
Oh and another thing. what did you think would happen to the sun after it runs out of hydrogen (H), deuterium(H2) and tritium(H3) ?? that it'd just fuse out like a light bulb and vanish? no. a byproduct of fusion is Helium. so the sun turns into a white dwarf star consisting of carbon or carbon oxygen core, helium/ hydrogen atmosphere and will emit huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation among others.
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/dwarfs.html
the article was nice... and funny. the funniest tho was Ronald Reagan's comment posted by Ruggy
"Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees"
yeah, i don't understand what's wrong with aniston's quote either. so she takes short showers and also brushes her teeth in the shower to save water. what's so stupid about that?
Maybe if Treehugger cared about the environment, they would have hosted this on 1 page instead of 2...oh, but then you'd lose out on all those clicks and extra ads...forgot my priorities again...Capitalism #1; Environment #2; Faccism #3; Self #4; and the rest in any order...self, can also be #1, as long as I'm making money, money, money...
Thank you for posting this. I read the Jennifer Aniston comment when it was first published and had to give a second thought to if this was celebrity genius or idiocy. Also Sheryl Crow and her one square of TP...no, no, no...
i love it!
The stupid thing about Aniston's three minute showers is that if she's using all that time to brush her teeth, how does she wash everything else? If she's implying she just stands there and doesn't lather up or anything, that's disgusting. Plus she doesn't even NEED all that water to brush her teeth. You only really need water at the end to rinse, as someone stated earlier. She'd be better off using three minutes to actually WASH (soap up) in the shower and then use a mouthful of water after brushing her teeth at a sink.
I think Jennifer Anniston was trying to make a point that while the water is on for a shower, while you are there you can also brush your teeth. I know of other people who do the same thing and I don't consider them intellectually challenged.
Zig
I'm thinking there is a limited amount of raw material on our Earth to support nuclear generation. To call it nuclear renewable is like calling coal renewable because the US supposedly has enough to last 400 years or so. Solar thermal & wind may be the only truely renewable means of power generation. As long as the Sun continues to shine anyway, whenever it stops, it's all over for us on Earth.
Learn the correct facts about the clean energy alternative we already have; Natural Gas. This is the clean energy that will get us to the renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and thermal. It's the Bridge we will have to use until those renewables are developed to take over. Go to naturalgasforamerica.com.