Wednesday, late night went in on climate change, joining forces for a “Climate Night.” On the Daily Show With Trevor Noah, the host caught up with climate activist Greta Thunberg three years after her first appearance on the show to see if there’s been progress in, well, saving the world. Turns out, emissions have not gotten much better.
“Emissions are still rising and 2021 is currently projected to see the second-highest emission rise ever recorded. As you know, we’ve been through a pandemic and there’s lots of talk about the green recovery and building back better and so on, but only about 2% of government spendings have been spent on clean energy. … It just shows that we are not really taking this seriously, it seems like, or at least the world leaders are not taking it seriously.”
She added that everyone could be doing a better job “treating a crisis like a crisis as we climate activists have been saying for many many years.” Thunberg said that with the pandemic looming, people seem to be grasping that more, but the environment is still not getting the serious attention it should.
Jimmy Kimmel invited climate scientists that he previously had on the show five years ago to reiterate taking action. “There’s still time to unfuck some stuff,” said one, leading into a montage of experts calling on us to “unfuck the world.”
“It seems that we get hit with fallout from the climate crisis every day here in California. Wildfires, floods, landslides — which are all amazing things to hear Stevie Nicks sing about, not something you want to experience in life,” Kimmel said. “And if death and destruction, famine, pestilence, water shortages on a global scale isn’t enough, think about this: Scientists say climate change can severely impact the world supply of beer.”
“This is a huge planet-wide emergency. If we don’t act now and don’t act big, then there will hardly be a planet left for Jeff Bezos to flee from in his liquid hydrogen-fueled dildo rocket,” he added.
Meanwhile, Samantha Bee talked poop. “Tonight I’m partnering with other late-night hosts to bring you stories about climate change because climate change is making the planet slowly uninhabitable. But there’s another big climate change issue that doesn’t get as much attention…you might say it’s the Number Two issue,” she said. “I really don’t want to do this segment. My official stance on all bathroom talk is ‘Feminists Don’t Poop.’”
She went on to discuss how the water sanitation infrastructure is “falling apart” and how racism is tied to the issue. “As with virtually every other problem in this country, racism plays an unfortunate role in our sanitary system dysfunction,” She said. “Water horror stories like these can be found in many predominantly black communities, as opposed to predominantly white communities where the worst water horror story is when the waiter says, ‘We’re out of sparkling.’”