Harrison Ford's Climate Plea: "Find Your Connection to Nature Again"

How the legend himself is asking us all to recommit to the environment.

Crying silent tears in the audience as Harrison Ford broke down onstage about conservation was not something I foresaw happening this week, but then again, much of 2025 is not something I foresaw either.

I’ve known of Mr. Ford’s impressive commitment in this regard: he is a member of the board of Conservation International (CI) - which I wrote about in an earlier post - and a staunch environmentalist that has spoken next to Equator Prize-winning Indigenous communities at the United Nations during New York Climate Week.

Photo credit:

Ryan Thrower

But this week, I got to see this play out in real life. During the session, he spoke of how his move to Jackson, WY put him in touch with heavy-hitter activists and conservationists (like CI founder Peter Seligmann) and started to change the conversation for him around his relationship to the natural world. He also spoke of early trips to island nations around the globe, where communities, as they cleaned their beaches, would pick up shells to turn into buttons for companies like Gap and Patagonia. If there weren’t economic incentive structures in place for communities, he said, there was the danger of missing the point.

He also referenced a video he voiced many (ten?) years ago and the shift in narrative between then and now. The Nature Is Speaking series, produced by CI, was one that drew praise (advocating for nature! giving it a voice!) and criticism (why are humans speaking on behalf of nature?) alike… especially with names like Jason Momoa, Shailene Woodley and Penelope Cruz attached.

“It’s not exactly the right tone for now,” he admitted in his talk, saying that climate communications of old were more dramatic and more severe to engender urgency. “What we need now is communication that brings us closer to the middle, closer together.”

Some takeaways from what was one of the most impactful talks I’ve seen in a while:

• People need nature, nature doesn’t need us: How can we flip our narrative here, realizing our moral responsibility to change our behaviors?

• Young people have power: He conveyed sadness - deep, teary sadness - at feeling like he had failed younger generations. How can we support younger generations - or are we them?? - to take action and create the future they want to see?

• Push leadership: Within companies, in politics, inside systems - how might we push and “go for it?”

• Nature as religion: “Nature is my god.” He didn’t mince words. He spoke of, in fact, a lack of strong religious beliefs until he found his love of nature. Nature became that religion for him.

• Find joy and connection to nature: He urged us all to find that personal connection to natural spaces, whatever that meant for each of us, saying that that was how we would move forward as a society as a collective whole wanting to protect those spaces.

This last one is interesting to share with a readership of outdoorfolk - I’d wager a guess that many of us have found that connection and already love being outside in many capacities. But that is precisely why I found his message to be so powerful - if we already have that, how can we be then even more effective? Can we let the love of these spaces guide us in what we do with even more energy and passion?

His message was quite simple - do something. Take action. Go. So I raise this to all of us here reading along, thinking of those wild spaces we love so much. What might our “go” be? How might we push, act, take up space as we advocate for politicians, companies, individuals to improve?

The emotions that overwhelmed him while speaking to us were honest, raw and unfiltered. Reportedly, in preparation for the session, he shared that he didn’t want to talk about movies or his new show or anything else. He wanted to get right to it and talk about the environment.

When asked what keeps him going on this topic, he left us with:

“I keep pushing, because I’m not dead yet.”