To some of us, he is also T.J. Hooker but let’s be honest, he will always and forever be known as the iconic character, Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the USS Starship Enterprise. Recently he traveled into space, becoming at age 90 the oldest person to do so. But William Shatner, the charming and handsome Canadian, did not return from space seeking to talk only about himself.
Captain Kirk loves planet earth and wants to save it.
“I wish I had better news and more entertainment and jokes to tell you but I was moved to tears by what I saw,” Shatner said. “I come back filled and overwhelmed with sadness and empathy for this beautiful thing we call Earth.”
In comments that strongly suggested what he saw gave him pause, Shatner was adamant that we had no more time to waste if we are to save this planet, and by extension, our species.
“We're at the tipping point, we haven't got time to wait 30 years and argue about a few billion dollars,” Shatner said. “Burying your head in the sand another instant about global warming and the destruction of the planet is suicide for all of us.”
Shatner appeared to reference the climate change agenda in President Biden’s embattled $3.5 trillion spending bill. He also warned that if we don’t do something about the industrial pollution we will not only be stripping the planet of its natural resources, we will be stripping it of the future.
Shatner has taken painstaking steps over the years to avoid appearances of political allegiances, perhaps owing to his Canadian citizenship or just borne out of a desire to not have a lunatic on his front porch at 3 in the morning. But something in space clearly, after 90 years on the planet, moved him to tears and to issue the warning to humanity.
Maybe if we all went to space, we could see for ourselves what touched him so. Or maybe all we have to do is open our eyes to this:
That is an innocent creature, a polar bear, losing its habitat. We see it everyday if we look, from polar bears, to mallards on a Target parking lot, to displaced squirrels wondering why a Circle K now stands where their family’s home was once located.
We don’t have to go into space to accept the validity of Shatner’s warning. And if we did, the Republicans would probably just try to build strip malls on Mars, because if there is one thing we have learned about them, it is that the vast majority of them learn nothing.
We are out of time. A man who is in the twilight of his time on this earth, recognizes that we as a people risk being in the twilight of ours if heads are not extracted from hindquarters and immediate measures are taken.
And though Shatner was eloquent, I would be remiss not to point out the wisdom of Captain Kirk’s colleague, the philosophical Spock, played by lifelong and loyal liberal, Leonard Nimoy.
Spock said, "Insufficient facts always invite danger,” and "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."
But without facts, and wisdom, humanity may be near the end.
And that scenario, given we are sentient beings, is “Highly Illogical.”
-Spock
In Loving Memory of Leonard Simon Nimoy,
March 26, 1931-February 27, 2015
-ROC
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-ROC