I first heard about the environmentalist group Extinction Rebellion just a few days ago, but they’ve already taught me so much. Did you know that the planet is in such imminent peril, the only way to stop it is to yell and scream and destroy other people’s property and glue yourself to things? It’s true! And now they’ve taught me another valuable lesson: Celebrities are saving us all by scolding us, so they don’t need to practice what they preach.
Steve Bird, Jack Hardy, and Helena Horton, The Telegraph (UK):
Dame Emma Thompson joined climate protesters in London on Thursday to declare that she wants to be among those demonstrators arrested by police.
However, it has emerged that the Oscar winning British actress was photographed a day earlier arriving at Heathrow Airport after apparently flying from Los Angeles where it is believed she had been celebrating her 60th birthday…
It is estimated that a single 5,456-mile transatlantic flight between Los Angeles and London Heathrow would run up a three tonne carbon footprint.
Oh, is that all?
But don’t worry, she didn’t do anything wrong. An Extinction Rebellion spokes-entity explains:
“If she has to fly around the world like a climate lawyer might have to fly around the world, it seems counter productive in the short term but we are looking at the bigger picture.”
See? She’s like a climate lawyer, whatever that is. Someone who flies around the world suing the clouds, I guess. Objecting to the rain. Asserting attorney-climate privilege.
Emma Thompson’s actions directly contradict her words, but it’s okay because there’s a bigger picture. We’re just peasants, so our tiny little brains can’t comprehend why the rules she wants to impose on us don’t apply to her. How many Oscars do you have, loser?
It doesn’t need to make sense. It doesn’t need to be intellectually consistent. It just needs to feel good. Thompson’s accomplishment is fooling herself into thinking she’s accomplishing something.
London police are taking a break from investigating mean tweets and are now arresting the protesters, almost 600 so far. Dame Emma is begging the cops to arrest her, which frankly they should’ve done after her complicity in making Love Actually.
P.S. Okay, so this is what a climate lawyer does…
VIDEO: Leading climate lawyer Farhana Yamin dives through a police cordon to glues herself to the pavement of Shell’s London HQ as part of #ExtinctionRebellion : https://t.co/99RWD9gvfU pic.twitter.com/wUhy4VgrZb
— Karl Mathiesen (@KarlMathiesen) April 16, 2019
Sometimes you need to break the law if you want to make a complete fool of yourself.