William Shatner has urged King Charles to make an urgent warning to the British public about the climate change crisis at the COP28 climate conference.
The "Star Trek" icon made his plea during an appearance on "Good Morning Britain" while speaking about the "human extinction" the planet is facing.
"He’s got to say 'we’re all going to die,'" said Shatner of King Charles, according to the Daily Star. "That’s what he should say to open up with. 'Very quickly, we’re all going to die.'"
The 92-year-old actor went on to state that England "is one of the foremost countries in the world and it has to lead."
"We’re burrowing into our own graves,” he warned.
"We’re dying, man," he added. "Your children are going to have difficulty living. Do you understand that?"
When asked whether he was afraid of human extinction, Shatner replied, "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."
It was not long before a backlash erupted over Shatner's remarks, with fans pointing out that he recently went to space on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.
"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," one person commented, according to the Daily Star, while another slammed Shatner as "a hypocrite."
"Did I just hear that right? William Shatner who apparently went to space says climate change is due to stupid people," another noted, while a fourth chimed in, "The irony. William Shatner, the man that went to the edge of space in the Blue Origin for fun. Hypocrisy at its absolute finest."
After his 2021 space voyage, Shatner hinted at his concerns about climate change while remarking on an "overwhelming sadness" he felt at the time.
"The extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna … things that took 5 billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread," he wrote in his book, "Boldly Go."
"My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral," he continued, adding that the wealthy should be "trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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