Award-winning actress and Greenpeace supporter Emma Thompson held up a placard that read: “Tony Abbott Climate Change Is Real And I’m Standing On It,” a message directed at the Australian Prime Minister while on a campaign for protection of the Arctic against global warming in the eastern part of Greenland known as the Smeerenburg glacier.
Thompson, who won two Oscars for Best Actress in 1992 for “Howards End” and for Best Supporting Actress in 1993 for “In the Name of the Father,” travelled recently to the Arctic region with her 14-year-old daughter Gaia Wise, in an effort to encourage governments across the globe to take measure in the protection of the North Pole.
Emma Thompson And Greenpeace: Tony Abbott Climate Change Is Real
Over Five Million Signatures for the “Save the Arctic” Petition
Alongside environmental activist organization Greenpeace, Thompson considers climate change as “possibly the most pressing challenge” of the 21st century. In a blog that she wrote, Thompson implored people to support Greenpeace and pressure their government leaders to meet the challenge of global warming by writing to them and attending rallies in support of protective measures to halt global warming.
Known to be vocal about climate change, Thompson is also a humanitarian activist who travelled to Mozambique, Ethiopia, Burma, Uganda, and Liberia on behalf of ActionAid, of which she is an ambassador. Thompson endorsed an online petition called “Save the Arctic” that has amassed over five million signatures to date.
Retreating Glaciers: One of Global Warming’s Casualties
According to Thompson, people need their governments “to stand up” to industries that have “merely” responded to a greedy public’s needs. Standing on the deck of the ship Esperanza, which means “hope” in Spanish, Thompson said these industries should give people the ability to live their lives “in a more sustainable way.”
Thompson had another photograph in which she held up a sign with the words, “where I stand should be ice,” referring to a retreating glacier, one of several already affected by global warming, a condition which Thompson hopes will draw people’s attention and convince them to participate in the environmental issue.
Thompson has sent personalised messages to other world leaders such as U.S. Barack Obama, French President Françoise Hollande German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Thompson’s friends and co-celebrities such as Tom Hanks, Steven Fry, and Russell Crowe have expressed support for her as shown in their Twitter accounts.
A long-time active supporter of Greenpeace, Thompson’s recent trip was only part of a much bigger Greenpeace campaign to “Save the Arctic” not only from climate change. Gas and oil exploration and toxic chemicals, all of which do not originate anywhere in the Arctic, are also threats to the region.
Thompson singled out the Australian leader presumably after Abbott’s announcement that climate change, to him, is “crap,” and the dismantling of carbon pricing, a first in world economics. The 2003 BAFTA Best Supporting Actress winner is also supporting the call by Greenpeace for the declaration of the Arctic as a legal sanctuary as a protection against industrial fishing and oil drilling.
According to a published study in a 2013 issue of Nature magazine, the ice in the Arctic has been melting for nearly 30 years, doing so at an alarming rate of 8% every decade, a direct consequence of temperatures in that region warming up to abnormal levels. Thompson said electric cars should be more accessible and cheaper and bike lanes should be safer and “in every big city.” The author of several children’s books as well as being an award-winning actress, Thompson said plastic should “be banned for good.”
