During my morning trawls of newsfeeds I came across this from some film industry news portal called Deadline:
A long list of celebrities from the film, television, sports and music industries has sent a letter urging City National Bank’s parent company, Royal Bank of Canada, to defund the Coastal GasLink pipeline. The letter, sent “In solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders,” is demanding the immediate withdrawal of financial support for a 416-mile gas pipeline slated to cut through what’s termed “sacred and sensitive ecosystems” in Wet’suwet’en land, in British Columbia, Canada without consent from hereditary chiefs.
More than 65 Hollywood celebrities, including Mark Ruffalo, Leonardo DiCaprio, Taika Waititi, Scarlett Johansson, Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, and Robert Downey Jr., released a letter to City National Bank’s (CNB) parent company, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).
More than 65 celebrities – that’s serious firepower, man!
Here is a chart showing natural gas prices over the past five years, and the huge fall and bounce back in some ways tracks the lockdowns, and also, I suggest, what is going on in Ukraine. The past few weeks have been a wakeup call about where natural gas comes from, and who controls it. Maybe these “celebrities” might want to reflect on that, assuming they have above-room temp IQ capacity to do so.
Protecting wildlife is important. So is keeping the lights on, the air conditioning working and the heating. Those “celebrities” presumably want these things to continue. If they don’t, and would prefer to live in a tent, they should say so.
These nuts are completely insane in believing that a modern civilization is possible without energy. Totally insane. Forget the celebs, it’s Biden and more than half the US population and probably 75% of Europe (including mad Boris). Totally insane.
They are shooting themselves in the foot and dance in the streets celebrating their self immolation.
And it has got absolutely nothing to do with Putin.
Putin turns out to be the new climate change. One cannot utter any complete sentence without inserting Putin somewhere.
That’s partly their short attention spans. It was always the same but technology has accelerated this tendency. “Influencers” peddle their lies and half-truths by finding any association with the current bête noire of the media darlings. As the deplorables get kicked to the side and “deplatformed” the echo chamber effects increase.
I don’t think the celebrities, or the mass, believe that civilization is possible without energy, they just believe that unlimited clean energy is available without any trade-offs. They believe the oil and gas industries deliberately spread pollution, they believe that they don’t care about the environment (circular logic: if they really cared about the environment then obviously they wouldn’t work in oil and gas) and they believe that oil and gas interests have paid off politicians to ensure that their dirty pipelines go ahead, that any discussion of the drawbacks of wind, hydro or solar are necessarily sponsored by the evil, environment trashing oil and gas capitalists.
Unfortunately most people don’t have the attention span to really learn about the complexities of the energy industry. They don’t try things out for themselves, or think them out for themselves. The same goes for basically every topic you care to discuss, I don’t know what the answer is but dismissing the majority of people as insane is to mistake intellectual laziness for insanity.
One cannot utter any complete sentence without inserting Putin somewhere.
A year ago it was covid; before that, Brexit.
The point is that the invasion of Ukraine by mad Vlad has, or ought to, wake people up about the control of energy and other resources. That is why much of the Green movement, and indeed the thicker ends of the Western public, are playing into his hands. We often allow those we disagree with to say “never let a crisis go to waste”. Well, maybe we should do the same, and “use” the Ukraine horror to make some points of our own.
So I am going to continue injecting Putin into issues where I think there is a point to be made. I am sorry if this offends, but I have just been on the phone with a guy out there fighting the Russians, and I am done with Putin apologetics or “whataboutism”. Fuck the lot of them.
I live in a village in East Yorkshire not far from Hornsea. There is a gas drilling operation happening close by and every other house has a sign up with the legend “Green fields not gas fields” on it. It would be difficult to cram any more stupidity into just five words. It goes without saying that most of these fools heat their houses with gas.
On intellectual laziness. Sorry to bring up the subject of swimming again like a single issue obsessive. This year I have taken on a challenge to try to swim 500 miles in a year for the local guide dogs charity. The number of people I meet who really don’t think that this is a very big deal has been a mild shock. I’ve been asked if I go swimming more than once a week. At the end of February my next door neighbour asked, “Have you done it yet?” Without doing a few simple sums, swimming 500 miles in a year doesn’t seem that hard.
The Hollywood celebrities are helping Mr Putin (the dependence of the world on his hydrocarbons) – but either they are too stupid to know that, or they just do not care.
As for “First Nation” land rights – fair enough, which person owns which bit of land? Who does the company offer money to?
“No you do not understand Paul, the land is communally owned by the tribe – and may not be sold as it is sacred”.
The real “Chief Seattle” (there actually was such a person) down the way from B.C. in Washington State never said the stuff that is attributed to him in Progressive history books (those lines were MADE UP in the 1960s and 1970s – yes as recently as that) – the real man was happy to sell land.
What has happened is that Progressive WHITE people have imposed their Collectivist ideas of “the Noble Savage” and communal and unsellable land on people – and brainwashed them into thinking those lines are their own.
Even land sold many years age is now subject to regulations (regulations made up by WHITE people) that supposedly protect its “sacred” status. “Sacred status” from WHITE people who have nothing but hatred and contempt for, for example, Christianity. The same white leftists who make up LIES about “unmarked mass graves” in Canada (the grave markers were made of wood – and wood “biodegrades” over time, very “Green”) and encourage both the burning of churches (many churches have been burned in Progressive Canada) and the banning of church services (“Covid” was given as the excuse for what they wanted to do anyway) now claim to be devoutly interested “First Nation religions”.
As for “communal land rights” and “public services for all” – the Progressives do not just want all that Collectivism for “First Nations” – they want it for other people as well.
Look at PINE RIDGE in South Dakota – the Reservation.
It has followed all the doctrines of socialism for a long time (prisons do the same – housing for all, food for all, healthcare for all….) – just look at it.
Yet according to the Progressives – Pine Ridge and other Reservations have it right (communal land ownership under tribal councils – and all the rest of it) and the rest of South Dakota has got-it-wrong.
And, of course, the “evil” capitalist South Dakota did not have a “Covid lockdown” – whereas the Reservations did.
If your food (and everything else) arrives by magic – then you can have “lockdowns” and so on.
“RACIST, RACIST, RACIST, RACIST, RACIST…..” – have a look at the Governor of South Dakota some time, a close look at her face. Or at the face of Rick Perry – the former Governor of Texas.
This is not about “race” (the “American Eagle look” did not come from mating with birds) – it is about which path you go down, Communal Collectivism (tyranny – the Progressive path), or individual liberty – private property rights.
The Canadian “First Nations” are the people who ethnically cleansed the Zeroth Nations to points farther south.
Lights and air conditioning, you say? Might want to have a glance at nitrogen fertilizer, used in some 70 % +/- of agriculture globally. After that it might be instructive to contemplate the connection between say natural gas and nitrogen fertilizer because you’re goi9ng to find out soon enough. Funny, it’s almost as if it were all by plan somewhere, somehow.
Paul Marks: What has happened is that Progressive WHITE people have imposed their Collectivist ideas of “the Noble Savage” and communal and unsellable land on people – and brainwashed them into thinking those lines are their own.
You are on fire at the moment, Paul. Absolutely. It turns out that many “native” peoples had views of property not so different from those who came later, but it suits the collectivist mindset of some to imagine that Native Indians, or whoever, were all living in a sort of American version of the Israeil Kibbutz, and happy in that state. As with so many other stock images, this turns out to be quite different. I found this doing a fast internet search: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1879&context=vlr
Willis Eschenbach (a wise and experienced man) had an article on his blog concerning Aboriginal Rights.
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2020/07/08/will-whoever-stole-the-black-hills-please-return-them/
Johnathan Pearce – yes, the ideas come Rousseau (no private property in a “state of nature”) a man who know nothing about North America – but thought he knew everything.
The revolt against morality comes from Rousseau as well – Karl Marx and Frederick Engels covered up their own conduct (having sex with the maid, fathering children on random women – and so on), but Rousseau boasted about it all – his “Confessions” it is not really a confession, it is a long boast. How he fathered children – and then left them in Foundling Homes where many of them would die, a sort of post-birth-abortion (what we used to call infanticide).
The French Revolutionaries thought Rousseau was wonderful – which shows the left (for they were the original left) have always been rotten.
It used to be said that the left were nice people with silly opinions – but they are not nice at all, have a look at how they behave in places such as Seattle or Portland. These are NOT poor people and they are mostly NOT from “non white races” – they are actually mostly white, male heterosexuals from well off families (as they smash, burn and shoot people for such “crimes” as wearing MAGA hats).
The French Revolutionaries were much the same – for example Robespierre a lawyer who resigned from the pre Revolutionary court system because he was against the death penalty for murder, but was very keen indeed on the death penalty for disagreeing with him, or violating his price control regulations.
Murder – fine. Breaking my price control regulations – death.
Sums them up.
I am sure he would be out shooting unarmed people to death for wearing a MAGA hat, and looting stores in the name of “Social Justice” (price controls are organised looting – see Venezuela).
Of course the big internet corporations are fine with the looting and burning of stores – gets rid of the competition. But their turn will come – for example “Social Justice” Amazon is moving out of its offices in Seattle because its staff keep getting robbed and murdered.
What is special about Amazon staff? Amazon was fine with robbery and murder when it was “Trump” supporting shop keepers getting robbed and murdered.
As for the Hollywood Celebrities and Davos Super Rich – you have very big houses and lots of nice stuff, but you do not have many “Rednecks” (whom you despise) to protect your property for you. Because you have driven most of them out – with your taxes (which you do not pay – but they have to) and regulations.
That is really interesting, I wonder how long before “Social Justice” comes to their doorstep.
Is there a Latin American Revolution that the Hollywood types have not celebrated? Why not a Revolution in Hollywood – to “distribute” their stuff?
Note that it’s the hereditary chiefs, not the elected leaders of the Wet’suwet’en who are quoted. The elected leaders want the development to go ahead and the majority of Wet’suwet’en voters approve as well.
I like these lists. What with the scads of movies available on Netflix and Amazon etc it helps me winnow the stinkers quicker.
In the deadline article they link to the Celeb letter and a further link to send a message to the Canadian bank. I used their handy tool, overwriting the boilerplate bilge they had. I suggested there are millions of people who support development of natural resources for every one of these idiot celebs. Nice of them to allow me to over write their pre-written note to the bank.
Perhaps some people see Mr Putin as a modern-day Prester John, when the evidence points to him being Old Nick.
No, demand they should do so.
If “celebrities” were to live in tents, then they’d consume even more energy (for whatever indoor temperature that they find tolerable).
What Nicholas said: the elected Band Councils have already agreed to Coastal GasLink, and the peoples will benefit greatly from them.
The protests are a fringe group of hereditary chiefs (and hangers-on), which the media tends portray as representative of all FN people in the area. The situation is more akin to the Royal Family and a few monarchists trying to subvert an Act of Parliament. These celebrities, environmentalists, etc. are actively working against the elected representatives of the FN people.
Nicholas has indeed made an interesting point.
Worse than that. The Royal Family at least has some standing and dignity and a colorable claim. The lefty-chosen First Nations “hereditary tribal chiefs” are somewhat of a joke.