Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Auto; Jetset celebrities Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Aisling Bea have demanded banks stop financing production of jet fuel? Maybe they haven’t thought it through.
Emma Thompson and Aisling Bea urge UK banks to stop financing fossil fuels
By Beth Timmins
Business reporter, BBC News
Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry and Aisling Bea are among celebrities calling on the five of the UK’s biggest High Street banks to stop financing new oil, gas and coal projects.
It follows criticism that HSBC, Barclays, Santander, NatWest and Lloyds are funding “fossil fuel expansion” despite making green pledges.
Businesses and charities like Greenpeace also back the campaign.
HSBC and Barclays said they were helping their clients to cut emissions.
The Make My Money Matter campaign points to research by environmental charity Rainforest Action Network, which claims that between 2016 and 2021, HSBC, Barclays, Santander, NatWest and Lloyds funnelled almost $368bn (£298bn) towards the fossil fuel industry.
It added that in the same time period, the lenders financed the 50 companies making the biggest investments in oil and gas projects to the tune of $141bn.
It added that while HSBC and LLoyds had made “welcome new announcements” on stopping direct finance for new fossil fuel expansion since then, “there is a long way to go”.
“HSBC was this month found to have provided $340m to a company opening a new coal mine in Germany,” it said.
…
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64399747
The open letter from “Make My Money Matter”; The letter and website were created using the products of fossil fuel (computers), and the website stays up because of electricity provided by fossil fuel.
Dear CEOs of HSBC, Barclays, Santander, NatWest and Lloyds:
We are writing to you as concerned customers and citizens. In 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that there should be no investment in new oil, gas and coal if we want to limit global temperature rise and avoid climate catastrophe.
However, the UK’s Big 5 high street banks funneled $141 billion to the 50 companies at the forefront of oil and gas expansion between 2016 and 2021.
This action is jeopardising our futures.
We want you to ensure that your banks stop financing fossil fuel expansion. Here are the steps you need to take:
- Stop directly financing fossil fuel expansion activity.
- Put clients on notice that they must stop expansion activity or face the financing consequences.
- End relationships if clients do not stop fossil fuel expansion.
Lloyds has made a start by ending direct financing to new oil, gas, and coal projects; but all 5 of you must ensure you take climate action by following the three steps above, otherwise we will find a new bank.
Do you think we’ll stand for you financing climate catastrophe? Don’t bank on it.
Signed,
Source: https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/openletter/
In my opinion Emma Thompson is one of the most egregious celebrity climate hypocrites on the planet. In 2019 Emma Thompson flew 5400 miles to participate in an Extinction Rebellion anti-flying protest.
Police told to use ‘full force’ of law against Heathrow climate change protesters
Heathrow is “working with the authorities” to address any protests which could “disrupt the airport”.
By Ceren Senkul, news reporter
Friday 19 April 2019 07:06, UKPolice have been given the green light by the home secretary to use the “full force of the law” against climate change protesters who are planning to disrupt Heathrow airport.
Extinction Rebellion has been holding demonstrations over several days in key parts of London in order to get the government to take action on the “unprecedented global emergency”.
…
Actress Emma Thompson joined the protests in London after taking a 5,400-mile flight from Los Angeles in the US.
She said: “I absolutely wanted to be arrested on my 60th birthday but I didn’t quite manage that.
“I’m so proud and thrilled to be part of Extinction Rebellion.”
…
Read more: https://news.sky.com/story/police-told-to-use-full-force-of-law-against-heathrow-climate-change-protesters-11697820
In response to accusations of celebrity hypocrisy, Extinction Rebellion explained the problem is people like Emma Thompson are forced to use fossil fuel, because they are stuck in the system.
Dear journalists who have called us hypocrites,
You’re right.
We live high carbon lives and the industries that we are part of have huge carbon footprints. Like you – and everyone else – we are stuck in this fossil-fuel economy and without systemic change, our lifestyles will keep on causing climate and ecological harm.
There is, however, a more urgent story that our profiles and platforms can draw attention to.
Life on earth is dying. We are living in the midst of the 6th mass extinction. For those who still doubt the severity of our situation, here is the International Monetary Fund on 10th October 2019 :
“Global warming causes major damage to the global economy and the natural world and engenders risks of catastrophic and irreversible outcomes”
And here is Sir David Attenborough on 3rd December 2018 :
“Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate change. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”
Climate change is happening faster and more furiously than was predicted; millions of people are suffering, leaving their homes and arriving on our borders as refugees.
Alongside these people who are already paying the price for our fossil fuelled economy, there are millions of children – called to action by Greta Thunberg – who are begging us, the people with power and influence, to stand up and fight for their already devastated future.
We cannot ignore their call. Even if by answering them we put ourselves in your firing line.
The stories that you write calling us climate hypocrites will not silence us.
The media exists to tell the public the truth. Right now there has never been a more urgent need for you to educate yourselves on the CEE (Climate and Ecological Emergency) and to use your voices to reach new audiences with the truth.
We invite all people with platforms and profiles to join us and move beyond fear, to use your voices fearlessly to amplify the real story.
Thousands of ordinary people are risking their freedom by taking part in non-violent civil disobedience. We’ve been inspired by their courage to speak out and join them. We beg you to do the same.With love,
… lots of signatures …
What protestors like Extinction Rebellion and celebrity hypocrites are really saying is it is acceptable to be a climate hypocrite, so long as you agitate for change. They are all waiting for you lazy engineering types to get off your butts, and find a way for celebrities to live their high energy lifestyles without mining or fossil fuel or anything else which offends green sensibilities.
What can I say? When you lazy engineers do your jobs, when the world runs on magic, green heroes like Emma Thompson won’t need an airplane to fly.
Lazy engineers are the best, we figure out how to solve issues as quickly and efficiently as possible. Since we haven’t “solved the climate problem” yet, maybe people should realize it isn’t a problem that needs solving.
Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Aisling Bea: Stop USING Fossil Fuel and petrochemical dependent goods like…
Flying anywhere
Driving on synthetic rubber tires
Heating or cooking with gas or propane
Using grid sourced electricity
Using anything containing plastic
…Computers
…IPad’s
…Cell Phones
…Home Land Line Phones
…Insulated Wires
…Wind Turbine (blades)
Wearing Nylons or Pantyhose
Wearing Make-up
Using face cream
Using anti wrinkle cream
Using age spot cream
Using anything with Vaseline
Using asphalt paved roads
Taking prescription meds in capsules
Taking any medication from plastic bottles
…aspirin
…vitamins
…supplements
…prescriptions
Writing with Ink
Dying your hair
Deodorants
Tooth brushes
Tooth paste tubes
Lingerie containing elastic
…
Making use of ANY of the more than 6000 items dependent on petrochemicals derived from petroleum and Natural Gas while calling for their demise makes you a hypocrite
I wonder how many of them realize that John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil invented Vaselene™ as a way to make more efficient use of crude oil.
That’ll upset Stephen Fry 😉
He could always use goose grease or whale oil
Not being allowed to use anti-wrinkle cream is really going to upset Emma.
They other consideration is that even if you go full 20000BC with your clothing and completely shun the oil and gas world, you also need to ensure you are not using any products of industry to make your hemp/cotton/organic clothing.
Steel needles? Steel comes from industry. You need to use bone and to make your bone sewing tools make sure you are using stone tools to kill and skin the animal.
OMFG, yes, more lazy engineers! I working in software engineering (a misnomer at best) and the number of so-called engineers who think doing everything manually, repeatedly, forever, is perfectly fine is staggering.
I’m lazy. I want to do something once and just run the code the second time.
The problem is the quality of people working in STEM now. There are too many low-talent, low-priced who are ruining for anybody who can think outside the box. We used to be highly-valued, highly-respected and highly-paid. Now we’re just code monkeys. Too many people who code for a living can’t solve problems. If they can’t copy and paste from somebody else’s code, they are simply lost.
/rant off
Larry Wall, who came up with the Perl programming language, claims that the virtues of a good programmer are laziness, impatience and hubris (https://thethreevirtues.com/)
What, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel??
Shocking!
Sorry Schmoozer.
I have worked with some lazy engineers. There is time effective and there is lazy.
There is a difference between not wanting to re-invent the wheel and just not wanting to do work.
Had a contract back in the day. Were fitting vehicles. Had to remove the bracket that mounted the obsolete GPS unit and design and fit a bracket that would hold the new and completely different sized new GPS.
Whole thing could have been 1.6mm sheet. The GPS was the size of a clunky phone and had a similar mass.
The ‘Lazy Engineer’ didn’t want 1.6mm as he would have had to do calcs to sign off on the design. So he worked out the old bracket was 3mm so said the new bracket could be 5mm steel. That way he could just claim the new bracket was not reduced relative to the old one and was therefore clearly fit for purpose.
He also actually made the ‘Lazy Engineer’ quote as justification for his actions.
This are the people for whom the term ‘Mass Budget’ was not invented.
See also the people who claim it is not worth spending too much time on this as it is getting replaced by the new system soon. You challenge on when ‘soon’ actually is and get some general answer about sometime next year. So you challenge again about what we are meant to do in between ‘now’ and ‘sometimes next year’?
See also also the people who complain a system is difficult to update now cause people who worked in the project earlier didn’t document their work correctly… and then don’t want to actually fix the problems and throw a band-aid on top of the existing band-aid.
Sometime Lazy Engineers are pragmatic users of pre-existing research and effective users of time/resources.
Sometimes they are just lazy.
They’re just fly-over-populations anyway.
Unfortunately I think they have thought it through.
1) They know it’s never going to happen. Therefore a great photo-op.
2) They want and believe it will happen because they’ve already secured a spot at the top of the New World Order.
They are just waiting for the new green engineered flying cabbage.
One of those electric jets I see mentioned in headlines from time to time.
I want ALL of the eco-zealots to be put on a long flight in that first battery powered plane.
In cold weather.
Ending at a busy airport that keeps them in a holding pattern.
In Shakespearean times (and probably after), actors and prostitutes were in the same tier of society.
Why should I care what an actor thinks?
You mean they both sell their bodies for the entertainment of others?
Exactly.
Prostitutes are better informed and more intelligent than any Hollywood personality.
Yes, they knew where the money was and flocked to Davos for the Fascist Forum Fest.
It must’ve been before the “entertainment industry”, which has become an industry only after the the invention of celluloid film and after societies becoming affluent enough on the back of oil industry.
I think in many eras of history prostitutes were given greater respect.
‘Entertainers’ were often a small step up from unemployed beggars and/or bandits and often acted the same way.
For great parts of European History if you didn’t have a job you were moved on. You were clearly not serving your lord, and you were clearly not a freeman with a trade. So… probably a thief. Jog on.
Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves?
Aren’t they the SAME thing?
Seeing all the actresses that complained about Weinstein having sex with them AFTER he could not longer help their careers begs the question about them, and the others who had the sex and got the part, and NEVER complained. The “casting couch” is what it was, and probably still is, but today even more, with all the various sexual proclivities of the modern Hollywood elite.
They, all, are advocates of late-term abortion. Why is late-term abortion not being applied to them?
Retroactive late-term abortion, perhaps?
Who remembers that episode of Star Trek (TOS) with the 2 planets engaged in virtual warfare? Computers calculated the casualties and citizens obediently reported to the disintegration centers when the algorithm said they were dead?
Can we do something like that for these people?
Not familiar withe episode.
What I am aware of is the ‘modelling’ conducted by the British government before WW2 on bombing.
Using very basic models – ie – if one bomb kills one person then 100 bombs will kill 100 – and using the then current theory that ‘The Bomber Will Always Get Through’* they decided that London would basically be utterly destroyed within days.
They then evacuated all the children once the war started, only to sheepishly let them all come home again… only to evacuate them again.
(* – This theory is a bit of an odd one. Historically it was actually very hard to stop an air raid. The bomber COULD get through, it was just a question of how many would make it back and be ready to bomb again the next day. Sustaining a bombing offensive was actually hard. The flaw with the theory was that bomber raids could not ever be stopped, and once a bomber force existed it would fly constantly where it liked AND always bomb accurately. This big wasn’t actually true once the war started. This is what happens when you make plans based on unproven theories and models. We digress.)
“Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Aisling Bea: Stop Financing Fossil Fuel” Then stop using them, you lie spewing c^nts. F^ck you.
Ugly name-calling doesn’t win arguments.
There is no argument, they are lie spewing scumbags. Stop defending them, idiot.
You forgot hypocrites.
You know what is really of note? It has taken me 5 attempts to respond to you. Almost like wordpress is trying to silence people.
Stop acting like a “hot mic” political leader at the podium (or staged hot mic acts should we say).
Don’t even know what this means. Perhaps you should fall back and punt.
Oh, well, if the IMF and Attenborough made a couple of vague-ass generalizations about it then it must be true.
Especially Attenborough, who is still peddling that walrus nonsense after being responsible for their mass deaths!
Emma Thompson should investigate transvection, i. e. broomsticks, as flying without hydrocarbons is about as much a fantasy.
But….but….they are so knowledgeable on the subject….similar to Greta….and they are so virtuous in saving the planet…..maybe they will invent a magic battery that will solve the problem?
Yes, they seem to have joined Kerry’s virtuous band of planet-saviours!
Isn’t it comforting to know that these highly-educated scientists are able to make such statements! Idiots all, and especially Stephen Fry who usually seems so sensible!
We are listening to Stephen Fry’s retelling of the Iliad right now. We are really enjoying it.
https://www.amazon.com/Troy-The-Greek-Myths-Reimagined/dp/B08ZBNW3N7/
Highly recommended.
I am sure he doesn’t know squat about technical issues.
I’ve got the Kindle edition, just barely started. Is he a good reader?
I love Stephen Fry’s acting performances. It’s a shame he’s a total moron in real life.
Yep. And not the only one. Hollywood is full of them. Clooney, Blanchett, DeCaprio, Ruffalo, Fonda, Streep, Affleck, Phoenix, Redford, Ford etc etc. Morons the lots of them.
To quote: “The world has become a place where media personalities are mistaken for people of importance.
I’ve needed a doctor.
I’ve needed a teacher.
I’ve needed a plumber.
I need farmers.
I need all manner of trades, etc.
But I’ve NEVER, not ever, needed a media personality for anything.”
The presumptuousness and arrogance of the Hollywood Elites in lecturing us little people about our carbon footprints is infuriating.
They just do it cuz their agents tell them it will result in paid speaking engagements with good pay for 10 minutes of memorizing lines and acting like they are sincere.
If real zealots gained power, posturing fools like these are the first to be stood up against the wall. (see: useful idiots)
Ref Trotsky…
They’d be acting at towns’ fairs.
Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Aisling Bea, lead by example. Stop using fossil fuels yourselves. That means all transportation, all plastic and other items made with fossil fuel derivatives or that use fossil fuels to power the manufacturing equipment. Oh and no electricity generated from fossil fuels. Let us know how great your righteous, fossil-free lifestyle is.
And they can’t “let us know” by jawing to a camera. Their fossil fuel free life demands they diver their message door to door. On foot.
”Jetset celebrities Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Aisling Bea have demanded banks stop financing production of jet fuel”
Yeah! Let some of the smaller players have a chance to make money.
Sad. Aislinn Bea is a sharp smart funny Irishwoman. She deserves better than Emma Thompson.
Acting and media presentation is carried out by those who are told what to say and how to say it. Their only skill is to be convincing echoes for other peoples thoughts and objectives.
Once you accept the likes of Thompson, Fry, DiCaprio etc have no original thoughts or minds of their own, their utterances and posturing becomes more acceptable.
They are just highly paid performing fools, who know not what they do….
Just to be suitably woke, airlines should make it a condition of transit that the passenger supports the use of fossil fuels on the grounds that letting greenies fly may cause severe angst of hypocrisy in the poor dears which may be bad for their mental health.
I thought that Stephen Fry was an educated and intelligent person, one I respected, especially, after he had an learned discussion with Jordan B Peterson some time ago!
Hmm, I forget who it was who said that Fry was a stupid person’s (not you of course) idea of an intelligent person.
This is a job for Zion Lights and Cultbusters. Cold turkey with the fossil fuels on Survivor Island and very slow reintroduction one step at a time ignoring their pleading tears and tantrums.
Actors — Never really emerged from childhood — still playing dress ups…’bout as smart as a toddler.
Yep. There it is, a really good description of actors and politicians. And always screaming for attention from the rest of us, the peons.
Not being a worshipper of play-actors, I don’t know who the Stephen guy is, which must mean he’s just small fry. The one with a bea in her bonnet, is obviously sick and ailing, and I think I recognise the third one as a once prim young lady obsessed with some nerd’s stick. She’s being photographed often these days, in rather slutty poses, if I got the right gal…
Our new Young Leaders of Tomorrow, eh what?
Well, I always thought that Thompson deserved to have a flying broomstick.
Over a quarter of the world live in absolute energy poverty … having the 0.1%er’s lecturing the world over energy sources is meant to be taken seriously???
The projection here is supernova dazzling
Why, instead of ‘financing fossil fuel’ – why don’t they tell ‘The Little People‘ to Stop Buying fossil fuel
They know even better than we do, they’d soon be scaling the dizzying heights of having Anti-Celebrity Status
like harry & meghan are finding out right now – they want Fame, Control & Money but none of the responsibility
Emma Thompson flew first class. Not even the slightest genuflection to saving the planet.
Stephen Fry has some exotic holiday destinations too.
This is a classic of its kind. Has all the elements, the hysterical prophecy of disaster, for which there is zero evidence:
“Climate change is happening faster and more furiously than was predicted; millions of people are suffering, leaving their homes and arriving on our borders as refugees.
Alongside these people who are already paying the price for our fossil fuelled economy, there are millions of children – called to action by Greta Thunberg – who are begging us, the people with power and influence, to stand up and fight for their already devastated future.”
The demand for action which, even if the prophecy is right, will have no effect on it. Its directed, notice, at 5 UK banks. Which, even if they stop all lending to oil and gas, it will make no material difference either to the available funding or to total emissions.
Accompanied by the claim of being a victimized minority, when they are in fact voicing the liberal consensus and this action will certainly not put them in any firing line:
“We cannot ignore their call. Even if by answering them we put ourselves in your firing line.
You notice what is missing? On any rational account of what they claim to think is the problem, its not UK banks that are the cause of it. Its China, India etc.
But they do not threaten to organize a boycott of Chinese goods or basmati rice. Or demand that China stop funding coal fired power plants, or oil and gas exploration and exploitation. Things that actually could make a difference to global emissions.
And finally comes the threat, they will withdraw from banking with these banks. Which will not even be noticed by the banks. Big deal. Costs them nothing and accomplishes nothing.
This has nothing to do with the environment or global warming. Its classic virtue signalling, testifying to group membership, and that is all it is. Stay on side, stay comfortable, be known as right on people.
In 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that there should be no investment in new oil, gas and coal if we want to limit global temperature rise and avoid climate catastrophe.However, the UK’s Big 5 high street banks funneled $141 billion to the 50 companies at the forefront of oil and gas expansion between 2016 and 2021.
doh!!!!
Do these people actually have any influence on anything, or are they just ugly old gobshites?
XR knows who their cash cows are.
Hallam is psychotic enough to endanger almost anyone, but not the ones providing funding.
I’m just waiting for Sean Penn to weigh in with his views before I jump onboard with Make My Money Matter. I can’t hear to hear his well-informed, well-balanced opinions.
Just what we need; advice from people who play make-believe for a living, and don’t know its difference from reality.
“…otherwise we will find a new bank.”
Promise?
I’m sure it’s been said many, many times, but was there ever a time when Lenin’s description of people like these as ‘useful idiots’ was so apposite. People like Emma Thompson should ponder: if I was merely a typist in my local ‘office’ would my voice be so important – and any more worth listening to?
Who. Never heard of these people.
Open Letter to Stephen Fry.
Dear Stephen,
Stick to what you know. You may know a lot of Quite Interesting facts about many things but, believe me, you know nothing about the energy balance of the planet. Nothing of importance, that is. So stop pontificating about matters you know nothing about, it demeans you.
With my best wishes,
Ed
Who the f*ck is Aisling Bea? The other 2 morons I have heard of and avoid at all costs.
Dear Emma: Without fossil fuels and the economic benefits thereof, you’d be nothing more than a fishwife living the same lifestyle as the vast majority of women of the 17th century.