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.
To be fair. His farming ventures have moved his opinion on climate in a positive direction.
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?
He added: ‘I won’t drive a Tesla. I’ve got probably 10 cars, all with V8 engines. I don’t think electric cars solve anything. Science is going to be needed here, not politics. Science will solve it eventually. Always does.’
https://metro.co.uk/2024/04/29/problem-jeremy-clarksons-global-warming-joke-20736068/
To be fair. His farming ventures have moved his opinion on climate in a positive direction.
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.
Uhh isn’t progressing to electric cars… science progressing to help solve the issue?
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.
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.
I don’t think electric cars solve anything. Science is going to be needed here, not politics. Science will solve it eventually. Always does.
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.
Is it possible a tweet doesn’t contain the entirety of his thoughts on the subject?
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)
To be fair. His farming ventures have moved his opinion on climate in a positive direction.
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.
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.)
But where would you get the gas to power your sports car without the massive fossil fuel infrastructure?
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.
His farming ventures have moved his opinion on climate in a positive direction.
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…
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.
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.
To those curious, do not check out the original post
Comments are entirely “cloud seeding”, “blocking solar radiation with dangerous chemicals”, and sensible people arguing for encouraging biodiversity being shut out, a few by Car Man himself
Telling adults what to do will drive them to do the exact opposite. You tell me what to read, I’ll buy Clarkson an aircraft carrier! Don’t test me!
I’m not sure you used drive intentionally but it was a good pun that made me breathe out through my nose real fast
I quite enjoyed Top Gear. However. I have since found Clarkson to be just another rich old right winger that doesn’t care what he says. He’s a bit of an asshole.
He’s a bit of an asshole.
You couldn’t tell that from the show itself? Just don’t keep food away from him.
I’m more of a James May fan but they are all hilarious and Top Gear/Grand Tour is top-tier entertainment.
Was it wrong that he punched his producer for not getting him a hot meal and called him a “lazy Irish cunt”? Possibly, but his series about a farm is doing very well.
Alan Partridge
I suppose he only cares about the climate because it now affects his farming business, that’s it.
The only reason Clarkson is still well liked is because he is funny and charismatic. But over all he is still an arch-conservative Tory jerk.
for sure. I love him as a TV persona, but definitly feel he and I would NOT get along in person.
This is amusing, as while watching Clarkson’s Farm, I find myself constantly yelling at the TV that he’s being dumb. But seems like every time he is interacting(in person) with someone he doesn’t know intimately he is extremely kind and deferential. With the exception being people that are antagonizing him in some way, even if they’re not being malicious about it.