Jimmy Kimmel reads angry climate change comments

Jimmy Kimmel reads poorly spelled messages about climate change

Jimmy Kimmel is best known for his pranks and man on the street segments, but he has taken to discussing serious political topics in recent weeks on his show Jimmy Kimmel Live. The late-night host recently called out former House Speaker and confessed child molester Dennis Hastert and the former Republican lawmakers who have come to his defense. This week, Kimmel spoke out against Sarah Palin and her stance on climate change, enlisting scientists to explain that the phenomena is real. But he soon learned that taking sides on a politically charged topic can result in a backlash from some viewers, which he discussed on Tuesday’s episode when reading mean messages from people who were angered by his climate change segment.

Kimmel began by lamenting the fact that in the age of social media, people can just “torpedo” their rage at him directly instead of having to send letters or make phone calls to the network like in the old days after he says something that upsets people. He used his climate change segment as an example, which he explained specifically revolved around “that big dummy” Sarah Palin who has made a habit of telling people climate change is just a conspiracy. The clip Kimmel produced featured climate scientists pledging that they’re not involved in any hoax, which got lots of people riled up online.

“Most people liked it, but many did not like it. Many responded with vitroil,” Kimmel explained.

He then showed a sampling of the negative comments after promising that he did not purposely choose messages that contained grammatical errors, adding, “The truth is the vast majority of the negative comments came from people whose grammar is bad.”

They included comments on Facebook addressed to “Mr. Kimble” imploring him to get a real job, claims that the scientists are “lying to their teeth to help the government to control our lives in the name of global warming,” and a plea for “jackass” Kimmel to “reduce man made gases” by shutting his yap.

Similar comments were found on YouTube where users tried to debunk the issue of climate change by referencing snow – as well as the North and South Poles – while others targeted Kimmel’s beard, and another pointed out that Einstein once questioned what 97% of scientists were saying at the time.

“Some of it got me kind of mad, the ignorance, but ultimately I have to say after reading all of this, I’m now kind of okay with global warming wiping out the human race,” Kimmel concluded. “It turns out we deserve it.”

Watch the clip here:

Next: Kimmel asks Salma Hayek to talk sense into Donald Trump

Kimmel’s attempt at becoming more political makes sense in what could prove to be the craziest election year ever in what is a changing late-night landscape. But he also risks alienating viewers that don’t agree with his political stances. The comedian currently tops a list of best late-night hosts in an informal poll conducted by Variety with just over 30% of the vote, while more politically-focused hosts like Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Larry Wilmore and Seth Meyers are all in the single digits. Becoming more partisan could put that position at risk as Kimmel continues to battle it out with Colbert for second place behind Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show.

Jimmy Kimmel Live airs Monday to Thursday at 11:35 p.m. on ABC. The rest of this week’s guests include Julie Bowen, Chloe Bennet and Rob Lowe.