November 29th 2023.
William Shatner, beloved actor from the Star Trek franchise, has been blasted as ‘hypocritical’ for his rallying cry to save the environment. This follows his ‘joy ride’ on Jeff Bezos’ space rocket in 2021.
The 92-year-old spoke on Good Morning Britain, where he told a presenter that his children would have ‘difficulty living’ due to climate change, and urged King Charles to warn the nation that ‘we’re all going to die.’
Naturally, his call to arms was met with a great deal of criticism. Viewers questioned William’s environmental credentials over the trip, with one expressing their anger by saying: ‘William Shatner didn’t care about the climate when he went into space polluting the air with rocket fuel, a case of do what I say but not what I do.’
Another added: ‘The irony. William Shatner, the man that went to the edge of space in the Blue Origin for fun. Hypocrisy at its absolute finest.’
William spoke about the environment, saying: ‘We’re dying man. Your children are going to have difficulty living. Do you understand that?’ When asked if he genuinely feared we face extinction, he said: ‘Insects are going extinct. We don’t go around saying, “Oh my god, insects are going.” Who cares? And we stupid human beings don’t even know they existed in the first place.’
He went on to warn that ‘we’re all going to die’ because of climate change. Urging King Charles to give his starkest warning yet over the climate change crisis in his opening speech at COP28 in Dubai, William said he should open with: ‘Very quickly, we’re all going to die.’
William is best known for playing Captain Kirk in Star Trek and prior to taking part in Blue Origin’s Club for the Future program for aspiring astronauts in 2021, he admitted he was feeling some pre-flight jitters. After completing the mission on October 13, during which the crew hit zero-G and experienced several minutes of weightlessness, William became the oldest person to head to space.
He said the adventure left him with grief and an ‘overwhelming sadness’, which reminded him of the further destruction of Earth at the hands of humans. Reflecting on his trip a year later, he wrote in his book Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder: ‘The extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna … things that took 5bn years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.’
The trip at the time proved somewhat controversial, with Prince William criticising space tourism and called for the world’s richest to fix Earth’s problems. His warnings have been echoed by an international team of scientists who said life on Earth was ‘under siege’ with the planet’s vital signs pushed to the extreme.
It's clear that William Shatner is passionate about raising awareness of the climate crisis, and although his trip to space was seen as hypocritical, he has now learnt the importance of using his platform to bring attention to this critical issue.
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