Celebrities frequently use their platforms to raise awareness about major global issues, but while many public warnings can go overlooked, Harrison Ford has a way of commanding attention.
Perhaps it is the legacy of iconic heroic roles such as Indiana Jones and Han Solo that gives him added presence. More likely, however, it is his direct, uncompromising style—he doesn’t ease into difficult topics, he confronts them head-on.
At the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, the 76-year-old actor and long-time environmental advocate delivered a stark warning: “If we don’t change the path that we are on today, the future of humanity is at stake.”
He paused heavily after the statement, his exhaustion and frustration evident. Ford has worked with the environmental organization Conservation International for nearly three decades, supporting global scientific efforts to protect biodiversity and address environmental threats.
But as he emphasized in his remarks, even that work is undermined if the world continues to ignore climate change and sidelines nature in national, corporate, and global planning.
“We can put solar panels on every house, we can turn every car into an electric vehicle, but as long as Sumatra burns, we will have failed,” he said. “So long as the Amazon’s great forests are slashed and burned, so long as Indigenous lands are encroached upon, so long as wetlands and peat bogs are destroyed, our climate goals will remain out of reach.”
He warned that without meaningful action, humanity would run out of time.
Ford’s speech went beyond a call for urgency—it carried the tone of a warning aimed at political leaders and voters ahead of U.S. elections.
“Elect leaders who believe in science,” he urged.
His remarks echoed a similar address he gave the previous year after the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, when he criticized what he saw as a growing disregard for scientific evidence in political decision-making.
That intensity remains undiminished. In his latest speech, Ford expressed growing anger at ongoing political attacks on climate science.
“Stop, for God’s sake, the denigration of science,” he said. “Stop giving power to people who don’t believe in science—or worse, pretend they don’t—for their own self-interest.”
He described climate change as “the greatest moral crisis of our time,” warning that those least responsible for it would suffer the most severe consequences.
At the core of his message was a simple argument: protecting natural ecosystems is essential to addressing the crisis.
“Simply put, if we can’t protect nature, we can’t protect ourselves,” he said.
He closed with a characteristically forceful appeal: “Let’s shut off our phones, roll up our sleeves, and kick this monster’s ass.”
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