Disney-Marvel movie star and anti-fossil fuel activist Mark Ruffalo warned Republican candidate for New York governor, Lee Zeldin, to get out of the way of Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul.
He based his support on Hochul’s declared opposition to fracking and the construction of new gas power plants, urging Democrats to get the vote out in her name while calling Zeldin “a far right extremist wacko.”
Hochul has served as 57th governor of New York since August 24, 2021. The NY state legislature permanently banned fracking in its Fiscal Year 2021 Budget.
Ruffalo wrote Friday on Twitter: “New Yorkers, join me in telling Republican candidate for Governor Lee Zeldin to #FrackOff! Let’s get out the vote for Democratic Gov. @KathyHochul! She will protect New York’s fracking ban & lead on climate action.
“Like & RT my video & vote — early voting starts tomorrow!”
His video then set out his arguments alongside abuse of Zeldin.
Zeldin is pressing for a reversal of New York’s ban on the natural gas extraction process, one that supporters have argued would bring much-needed jobs and people to parts of upstate.
Ending a ban on hydrofracking — put in place administratively in 2014 by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and in law by the Democratic-controlled Legislature last year — would also help alleviate high energy prices now dominating across the country under President Joe Biden.
This is not the first time Ruffalo has gone public with his opposition to fracking.
As Breitbart News reported, as far back as 2016 the actor-director wrote an editorial for tinsel town’s Variety blasting then President Barack Obama for supporting fracking and announcing the release of his film, Dear President Obama: The Clean Energy Revolution Is Now.
Ruffalo claimed in 2010, while living with his family of five on an “idyllic” 50 acre estate in southern New York’s Sullivan County near the Pennsylvania border, he heard about fracking “coming to our town.”
He went on to add he discovered “Drinking water had been poisoned, the air was polluted with toxins, and families described health impacts including skin lesions, clumps of hair falling out, projectile vomiting, terrible migraines and digestive problems. In some cases, tap water was so full of methane gas that you could light it on fire.”