Left-wing Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo, known for his role as the Hulk in the smash hit Avengers movies, is slamming President Obama on his outright hypocrisy for presenting himself as a “green” president while permitting fracking and other fossil fuel extraction that goes against the environmentalist ethos.
Ruffalo recently spoke at a Los Angeles rally against the Dakota Access Pipeline and man-made climate change which has seen an increase in protests the last few weeks. He told the crowd: "President Obama, it is immoral for you to keep drilling in our state lands, in our federal lands, off our federal waters, while at the same time calling yourself a climate change leader."
Those are interesting comments coming from someone who called upon Obama to pass an Executive Order to defund police departments and to declare Flint, Michigan a “national” disaster.
Ruffalo both narrated and produced Dear President Obama: The Clean Energy Revolution Is Now, a critical documentary on the lame-duck president's environmental legacy.
In an op-ed for Variety earlier this year, Ruffalo complained that he was “gravely disappointed” by Obama’s “cheerleading for the oil and gas industry over his two terms in office. Unlike leaders such as Cuomo, who stood up to corporations to protect the health of Americans, Obama has wrongfully continued the toxic legacy of the Bush Administration’s energy policy, paving the way for fracking’s expansion.”
Actresses Shailene Woodley and Susan Sarandon joined Ruffalo for the five hour event that drew a crowd of around 800 people at MacArthur Park in downtown LA.
Woodley, famous for her Divergent film franchise, was arrested at the Dakota Access Pipeline earlier this month and charged with criminal trespass and engaging in a riot. She told the crowd:
"Indigenous people, for the most part, and marginalized communities, are the first communities to get compromised and get taken out by the fossil fuel industry…Their lands are flooded from dams being built, their fish are taken and put in other countries, their mountains are compromised without any regard to their sacred ancestry and their traditions."
Sarandon chimed in:
"The world is a mess. We've got wars, we've got the Mother Earth being raped constantly…Not only is it an environmental, but it's a problem in terms of social justice. We can do it. We can stop fracking. We can stop the pipeline."
