Jerry Garcia (1942-1995), an American musician and member of the Grateful Dead band, supported efforts in 1988 to save the world’s rain forests. On September 13, 1988, at the United Nations for a press conference to announce a benefit concert launching World Rainforest Week, Jerry Garcia said (video here):
   
“Somebody has to do something. It seems incredibly…in fact, it seems pathetic that it has to be us.”
   
“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us” is a popular form of the quotation. Garcia’s quote is frequently used when people discuss their involvement in works to save the world.
   
   
Wikipedia: Jerry Garcia
Jerome John “Jerry” Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead, which came to prominence during the counterculture era. Though he disavowed the role, Garcia was viewed by many as the leader or “spokesman” of the group.
     
28 September 1988, Variety, “Music: The Dead ‘Green’ Rainforest,” pg. 71, cols. 1-2:
The Grateful Dead had a press conference Sept. 13 at the UN to unveil the benefit concert, which launches World Rainforest Week Oct. 9-16. Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace and Cultural Survival are the main groups spearheading the environmental battle.
 
One of their arguments is that the rainforest harbors species of plants and animals that haven’t been studied. Somebody has to do something (to stop the unharnessed defoliation),” Garcia said at the press conference, which was replayed for MSG fans during intermission. “It’s pathetic that it has to be us.”
 
Google Books 
Newsweek
Volume 112, Issues 19-26
1988      
Pg. 17:
“Somebody needs to do something — it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.” Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, on his group’s support for efforts to save the world’s rain forests.
     
Orlando (FL) Sentinel
MAGPIE
February 15, 1989
Q. I heard that even the Grateful Dead has given a ‘‘something-aid’’ concert. What for?
A. Tropical rain forests. Last fall the band held a concert in New York to benefit several groups fighting to preserve the world’s rain forests. After 20 years as laid-back non-activists, the grandfathers of acid rock have finally taken up a cause. ‘‘We’ve never agreed on anything,’’ says guitarist Jerry Garcia. ‘‘But somebody needs to do something. It’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.’‘
 
Google Groups: alt.rock-n-roll
Who sings ‘Friday On My Mind’?
Johnathan Vail
11/26/90
(...)
“Somebody needs to do something—it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be *us*.” —Jerry Garcia
 
Google Books
Companies with a Conscience:
Intimate Portraits of Twelve Firms that Make a Difference
By Mary Scott and Howard Rothman
Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub. Group
1992
Pg. 137:
“Somebody needs to do something — it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”
 
Google Books
The Fifth and Far Finer than the First Four 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
By Robert Byrne
New York, NY: Fawcett Columbine
1993
Pg. ?:
Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.
Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead
   
Google Groups: rec.music.gdead
Mystery Quote
Peter Lipscomb
12/23/94
Fran Harris asked about the following quote attributed to Jerry Garcia
“Somebody has to do something, and its just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”
 
I remember this line from a PBS broadcast called “The Grateful and the Dead”.  The program profiled the Rex foundation, the Grateful Dead’s charity organization.  What Jerry was referring to was the applicants who file requests for grants from Rex to continue their musical work. 
 
The program covered many aspects of Rex work, but focused mostly on music. Some footage from Cal Expo 1993 Rex benefit performance was also included.
 
The most ‘pathetic’ artists featured were avant-garde composers in the UK who have been cut out of the national arts program because their music is not finding an audience.  Luckily for them, Lesh has taken a shine to their efforts and they have stayed afloat(barely) with Rex money.
 
Eclectica
Aug/Sep 1998 • Miscellany
Michael Ruppert: An Interview
interview by Tom Dooley
(...)
Mike Ruppert: My motive however, is not to get even. What I felt then and feel now more than ever, is that if these kinds of crimes can happen to me, they happen, de facto, to all of us as citizens. As Jim Garrison said, “If I don’t do this, who will?”
Eclectica: That makes me think of one of my favorite quotes, said by Jerry Garcia: “Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”
   
Reality Catcher 
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2010
Garcia: Somebody Has To Do It; Pathetic That It Has To Be Us
At 4:20 PM this Wednesday (December 1), acclaimed Grateful Dead filmmaker and Everything Must Go director Len Dell’Amico will be releasing a rare clip of Jerry Garcia in 1988 concerning the future state of our environment.
 
Dell-Amico was nice enough to let Reality Catcher readers have an advance peek at the clip (see above).
(About 45 seconds into the video clip—ed.)
JERRY GARCIA: “Somebody has to do something. It seems incredibly…in fact, it seems pathetic that it has to be us.”
     
Jerry’s Brokendown Palaces
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Legs McNeil (High Times) Interview, 9/13/88
On Tuesday, September 13, 1988, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead, as well as Dr. Jason Clay, the director of Cultural Survival, Peter Bahouth, the Chairman of Greenpeace USA, and Randall Hayes, the Director of the Rainforest Action Network, sat down at the panel in conference room four of the United Nations and alerted the world’s press to the horror of the vanishing rain forest. When asked why the Grateful Dead was getting into the act and helping to publicize the plight of the rainforest, Jerry Garcia answered in his own inimitable style, “It seems pathetic that it has to be us, with all the other citizens of the planet, and all the other resources out there, but since no one else is doing anything about it, we don’t really have any choice.”
(...)
HT: You’ve made the statement that you think it’s pretty pathetic that you’re the ones who have to do it.
JG: Yeah, it is. It’s an alarming feeling. This is an earth problem—the whole earth. And who’s left talking about it? Us.
 
Google Books
Words of Wisdom (Volume 7):
1001 Quotes & Quotations
By Dr Purushothaman
Kerala, India: Centre for Human Perfection
2014
Pg. 86:
Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.
Jerry Garcia
 
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sharie kaye
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“someone has to do something and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us” - Jerry Garcia pic.twitter.com/aeTWG7hWDJ
12:09 PM - 17 May 2014