GMA Gives Harrison Ford Platform to Advertise 'Pressing Environmental Issues'

By Carolyn Plocher | September 22, 2009 | 10:45

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You know him as Han Solo or Indiana Jones, but these days, "Harrison Ford Fights for Planet." Or so says "Good Morning America."

ABC's morning show devoted an entire segment on September 21 to actor Harrison Ford touting "Team Earth", an "action campaign" dealing with "pressing environmental issues." Ford said, "We need to come together, umm, to create solutions to the pressing, uhhh, environmental issues that face us ... "

With the entire on-air cast of GMA surrounding him, Ford stated that "... it's the time to come together and, uhh, make an effort to, uhh, um, make people understand that we require - not just here in the United States but throughout the world - meaningful climate legislation, uhh, from all of our leadership."

Far from questioning the need for climate legislation, Ford's hosts helpfully prodded him along. Diane Sawyer chimed in, "And there are a lot of people who think this ... these are the months it must be done. We have to address what we're going to do if we're going to do something."

The segment included video of "pressing environmental issues": a polar bear with her two cubs, a man swimming with a blue whale, melting icebergs, a forest fire, a bulldozer in the rain forest, a hand holding a baby tree, a frowning ape. Meanwhile, Ford continued to utter environmental platitudes.

"You're all on Team Earth. You were born on to it," he said. "But now we've gotta get everybody off the bench and into the big game . . . What's happened is that - that, uhh, the environmental movement so far has failed, uhh, to - to motivate the great, ya know, masses of people."

Maybe they were too star-struck even to acknowledge that there is any disagreement with Ford's view of these issues, but GMA devoted the rest of its segment to showing Ford's "public service announcement," an advertisement warning of the dire impact of deforestation, which, not surprisingly, somehow involved Ford taking off his shirt.

Robin Roberts then lobbed another softball, saying, ".... you've said it's time for us to get off the bench. What can we do? Because you see the response; people want to take part."

With that huge lead-in, Ford said, "Our first, uhh, ambition is to get a million people to go to TeamEarth.com, which we're just, uhh, launching."

Diane Sawyer ended the segment by giving one last cheer: "Team Earth! Sign up! Go to ABCNews.com. Find it."