“Real Time” host Bill Maher opened up Friday night about his environmental sin while addressing the urgent need to combat climate change.
During his closing monologue, Maher told his viewers that “asking people to be good” when it comes to going green hasn’t worked, so he took a different approach.
“My name is Bill and I fly private,” Maher turned to the camera. “And so does anyone else who calls themselves an ‘environmentalist’ who can!”
He then broadcast a collage of photos of countless celebrities seen boarding or exiting their private jets that included Leonardo DiCaprioGeorge Clooney, Brad Pitt, Oprah Winfrey, Bono, Mark Zuckerberg, Beyonce Knowles Carter, and Jay-Z, and even prominent Democrats like former President Bill Clinton, as well as Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
“If you don’t see a celebrity photo here, it’s because we weren’t allowed to use it,” Maher said. “But all the environmentalists in Hollywood and Washington do it. Her position on climate change is ‘We need to do more to stop putting carbon in the air, except me when I wanted to go somewhere and then take a private plane.’ It turns out that there is one thing in this world that is completely impossible to resist. And that’s all. It’s like heroin, if you do it once, you’ll never stop.”
The HBO star told his audience that there are only two types of people in the world; “Those who fly private and those who would if they could,” adding that the category of “those who could but don’t” doesn’t exist with the exception of actor Ed Begley and children’s activist Greta Thunberg.
“Everybody else is full of shit and I’m not full of shit anymore,” Maher said. “I can accept being a bad environmentalist because almost all of us are, but I can’t accept being a hypocrite. Now I always justified renting a plane because I only used it for work and literally couldn’t make it to most of my presentations on time otherwise. How do you think I did all those years saying goodnight here at 8 pm and being on stage in Vegas at 10? But I don’t need to do stand-up, like tomorrow night in Albuquerque. And outside of heads of state, almost everyone else could fly on commercial flights. Why not? Just ask anyone who tried to get home for Christmas last year.
Maher went on to come to the attention of the Biden administration climate czar John Kerry for his infamous use of private jets, saying “it’s like the Secretary of Homeland Security smuggled drugs up his ass.”
“People take jets to environmental conferences! If you could run TED Talks on hypocrisy, you wouldn’t need coal,” Maher quipped. Look, I’m sorry, I’m not sorry. I tried to do my part with the environment. I never had children the only thing worse for the planet than private jets… I had the first generation Prius in 2001. It looked like a Tylenol gel cap. I always gave my keys to valets who drove a better car than me. I had my first Tesla in 2010 and honestly both of these cars suck… But both times, I said to myself, ‘Okay, I’ll take one for the team because I have a platform, so I’ll do the right thing. And then everyone will follow. ‘…No one followed.”
He later concluded: “So yeah, it’s fun to laugh at powerful people. This is how I can afford a private flight, but we have to get serious. In fact. More nuclear, moving a lot more money into research and development, I don’t know, but something serious because the real technological problem is the way people are connected. I know it’s easier to blame Taylor Swift’s plane, but honestly, do you want to get stuck in Southwest with a pissed off Taylor Swift?