George Carlin
Earth & Plastic
See, I'm not one of these people, who’s worried about everything
Country's full of them now
People walking around all day long
Every minute of the day, worried about everything
Worried about the air, worried about the water, worried about the soil
Worried about insecticides, pesticides, food additives, carcinogens
Worried about radon gas, asbestos
Saving endangered species
Let me tell you about you about endangered species, all right?
Saving endangered species is just one more arrogant attempt by humans
To control nature
It's arrogant meddling
It's what got us in trouble in the first place
Doesn't anybody understand that?
Interfering with nature
We're so self-important
So self-important
Everybody's going to save something now
Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails
And the greatest arrogance of all, save the planet?
What? The planet is doing great
Been here four and a half billion years
Do you ever think about the arithmetic?
Planet has been here four and a half billion years
We've been here, what? 100,000, maybe 200,000?
And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200 years, 200 years versus four and a half billion
And we have the conceit to think that somehow, we're a threat?
That somehow, we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue green ball, it's just a floating around the sun
The planet has been through a lot worse than us
Been through all kinds of things worse than us
Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles
Hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets, and asteroids, and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages
And we think some plastic bags
And some aluminum cans are going to make a difference?
The planet
The planet
[Chorus]
The planet isn't going anywhere
We are
We are
The planet isn't going anywhere
We-We are
We are
It's arrogant meddling
It's what got us in trouble in the first place
We're so self-important
So self-important
Everybody's going to save something
Planet isn't going anywhere
We are
We are

And we won't leave much of a trace either
Thank God for that
Maybe a little styrofoam, maybe, little styrofoam
Planet will be here we'll be long gone, just another failed mutation, just another closed-end biological mistake
An evolutionary cul-de-sac, the planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas
A surface nuisance
You want to know how the planet's doing?
Ask those people at Pompeii who are frozen into position from volcanic ash
"How the planets doing?"
Want to know if the planet is all right? Ask those people in Mexico City, or Armenia or hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble
If they feel like a threat to the planet this week
The planet will be here for a long, long, long time after we're gone
And it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, because that's what it does
It's a self-correcting system
The air and the water will recover
The earth will be renewed
And if it's true, that plastic is not degradable, well the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm
The earth plus plastic
The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic
Plastic came out of the earth; the earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children
Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place
It wanted plastic for itself
Didn't know how to make it
Needed us
Could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question – Why are we here?
Plastic – Assholes
Plastic – Assholes
Plastic – Assholes
[Chorus]
The planet isn't going anywhere
We are
We are
The planet isn't going anywhere
We-We are
We are
It's arrogant meddling
It's what got us in trouble in the first place
We're so self-important
So self-important
Everybody's going to save something
Planet isn't going anywhere
We are
We are

[Outro]
If it wasn't for love my lady
The moments that we share
Laughter and tears and the love that we made
Will all slip away