Disney-Marvels’ The Avengers star Mark Ruffalo is threatening City National Bank with a Hollywood boycott if its parent company doesn’t cave to pressure from environmental activists over the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Canada.
In an op-ed for Rolling Stone magazine, Mark Ruffalo demanded that the bank’s parent company, the Royal Bank of Canada, immediately divest from the Coastal GasLink “or Hollywood and many others will just divest from them.” Los Angeles-based City National Bank is known as the “Bank to the Stars” for its celebrity clientele and deep financial ties to the entertainment industry.
The Coastal GasLink has become a target of celebrities and environmental activists who are demanding the defunding of the pipeline at a time of soaring energy prices around the world. They claim the pipeline, which transports natural gas across the Canadian Rockies in British Columbia to the Pacific coast, contributes to global warming and violates indigenous rights.
‘We oppose this fracked-gas pipeline not only for immediate threats, but also longer-term dangers of locking in decades of potent climate pollution,” Ruffalo wrote in the op-ed, which was co-written with Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, spokesperson for the Gidimt’en Checkpoint on Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia.
“Trampling Indigenous rights, threatening drinking water, and exacerbating the climate crisis — all in the name of shareholder payouts.”
Ruffalo was part of an earlier celebrity pressure campaign against City National Bank in March that saw stars including Leonardo DiCaprio and Jane Fonda sign an open letter demanding the Royal Bank of Canada divest from the Coastal GasLink pipeline.
He told MSNBC this week that President Joe Biden should see soaring gas prices as a “gift” to help his administration push climate legislation.
Fossil fuel pipelines have become a favorite target of left-wing celebrity activists. Last year, they successfully pressured President Biden to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office, effectively killing thousands of jobs with the stroke of a pen.
They are also demanding the killing of the Dakota Access and the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline replacement.
Pipelines are among the most efficient and cost-effective way of transporting fossil fuels. Without pipelines, oil and natural gas would have to be transported on trucks, which makes them more expensive to consumers.
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