...to think Bleeping Dame Emma Bleeping Thompson can bleep off back to Los Angeles?

[MockerstheFeManist]

...I'm out of bleeps. What a fucking cheek, flying five and half thousand miles spewing pollution all over the skies to stop people getting on a bus????

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47987891

Wonder if she wants a cab to take her to the airport?

I think isoscelessandwich had it right:

But the protests aren’t about the actions of individuals, they’re about the inaction of our government. Yes, we all need to take personal responsibility. Would you be more likely to buy an electric car if it were cheaper than petrol/diesel? Probably. Would you use the train more if it was cheaper than driving? Probably. Would you fly with an airline that didn’t use dirty energy over a polluting one? Probably. These are all things the government can change, but hasn’t. We need legislation to clean energy cheaper than dirty energy. Until that happens, our individual actions are unlikely to stop the climate warming past the devastating 2 degrees that’s on course to happen if we carry on as we are. Get pissed off about that. Not Emma Thompson

It's about calling on the government to take action. This protest isn't about individual responsibility or hypocrisy. It's about legislation, action on a national rather than individual level. As a small example, look what happened when supermarkets had to start charging for plastic bags, rather than just hoping individuals would take responsibility and use less.

She could fly economy though and lower her carbon footprint couldnt she? But more leg room and champagne is obviously more important than the environment. Hypocrite.

Emma says if she could fly cleanly she would. She doesn't have to fly at all though. She is rich, 60 years old, famous, has a second home in Scotland. If she was really committed she would take acting jobs in UK, she could retire from acting even, she could holiday in UK or her Scottish estate. She doesn't need to fly at all.

Planting trees in lieu of flying just means that air travel will be for rich people only.

She neatly sums up the whole thing.

She’s shown a total lack of self-awareness flying over to join the protests, and scored a massive own goal for the movement. If I was one of those protesting I’d have been furious that she’d hijacked. It’s almost as though she’s in the pay of Trump loving climate-change-deniers!

But it would be a massive shame if her sanctimonious and self-absorbed actions undermine the message of this movement, and gave Government the excuse and cover to do nothing.

Planting trees in lieu of flying just means that air travel will be for rich people only.

Yes, that's what I didn't like about her statement. The smug undertone of well I can afford to plant trees so I can do what I want.

So your typical family off to Spain for a week who can't afford to plant trees shouldn't be flying and should have a week at Camber Sands instead because they're not rich enough!

I just think people get irritated at being told what to do by those who have no intention of changing their own lives, who think it's okay to disrupt the work and holidays of ordinary people in the fill knowledge that they can swan off on holiday at any time themselves and their work won't be affected.
And Jessie literally no one said going to university either now or in the past was bad, only that some appreciation for the benefits this country has provided ET wouldn't go amiss. Very easy for her to complain, while ignoring all the opportunities and advantages life here has given her. Yes, she retains her right to say whatever she likes about her own country but I retain the right to think it just makes her sound rude and ignorant!

This argument keeps showing up - the protest is hypocritical because each person is in some way a hypocrite. To be credible they'd have to all be wearing burlap sacs and wandering barefoot. If they were in burlap, no one would take them seriously either. It's a protest about changing the system. Strong government action is needed on climate change so that our children can have a basic standard of wellbeing in years to come. That shouldn't be left to individual action, and we shouldn't ignore what people have to say on the matter just because they aren't perfect.

Emma likes to think she is this rebellious socialist. She couldn't be more Establishment if she tried. She has an equally smug mother, a successful writer for a father, a Cambridge Footlights background. She is rich, connected, arrogant. Changing into a pair of dungarees after stepping off a business class flight does not an eco warrior make, it just suggests she is playing another part.

(Her sister seems nice though, completely not smug!)

I'm not ignoring what she says, totally agree that it's important. But yes, I do see that the problem is of such a scale that govt action is probably more important than individual action.

Emma and the rest of her luvvie activists should do the world a favour and go on strike and refuse to make any more films until climate change has been resolved.

I’d pay to see a film that didn’t have Emma Thompson in. In fact, I frequently do.

Imagine if her flight had been disrupted by the protesters. She may have missed the whole protest!

Strong government action is needed on climate change so that our children can have a basic standard of wellbeing in years to come. That shouldn't be left to individual action, and we shouldn't ignore what people have to say on the matter just because they aren't perfect

^^ this

It's like if someone campaigned to ban plastic bags but you proved they used more plastic bags than average. It does make them a hypocrite but it doesn't actually undermine what they're calling for.

Trivial Thesps [snort with laughter]

All thesps are trivial.

But in a list of significance of British screen and stage actors I’d put Emma Thompson a bit above the woman who plays Charity Dingle but well below Hattie Jacques.

Every single one of those people protesting will not be “perfect” environmentalists, including ET.
And whilst I agree that what they are doing is extremely annoying for many people, they are trying to make our Goverment wake up and start fulfilling promises already made!

ET and her flying over is just a distraction and the Govt will be so thankful that they’re inaction has been taken off the front page, and a famous women is getting all the flack!

"This protest isn't about individual responsibility or hypocrisy.*

Good job really going by the mess of plastic they left behind them. Which the refuse collectors won't be recycling.

I’m more sorry for those cleaning up when they tackle the home-made privys.

I recognise what the movement is trying to achieve, I'm worried about climate change and what it means for the future. At the minute however I'm
more worried about the struggles of working on the frontline of the nhs and trying to make ends meet and juggling the care of a very poorly relative, To listen to ET virtue signaling and then having the gall to slag off the UK from her very privileged wealthy position sickens me. How dare she sit there on her lofty perch and act like she isn't part of the problem. If she doesn't like it here then best she fuck off permanently. She is a smug hypocritical sanctimonious preachy leftie and she should be ashamed of herself.

There is a massive difference between perfection and not using plastic water bottles and single use cups that you dump in the street for others to clean up. Individual actions do make a difference, if enough people do them. A ban on single use plastics will have an effect eventually after legislation has been passed. A million individuals using reuseable water bottles and cups and taking their rubbish home to recycle will save money that can be used on other public services and have a much speedier effect on cafes and restaurants as we have seen, who all give incentives for using reuseable coffee cups and now think about their distribution of single use items. They have shot themselves in the foot so many times.

And police being taken of the streets to haul away frightfully nice ladies from the Home Counties yelling ‘I don’t usually do this sort of thing, aren’t I naughty?’ Is hardly good use of police time (or taxpayers money) when young people are being stabbed on what seems like a daily basis.

The thing is it would be true to call the vast majority of the protestors hyspocrites. It’s pretty much impossible to live without causing environmental destruction. Even if you live off the grid and sustenance farm you’d be contributing to desforestatuon and carbon emissions. The focus needs to shift away from humans vs nature and toward how we can safely alter the earth to meet our needs.

The protesters not being perfect environmentalists does not mean that we don't need to do something urgently about climate change, but it does mean that their message becomes 'other people should do something so I don't have to'.

@noodlenosefraggle a lot of people will just start using reusable items as disposables-just as we have with plastic bags. Better recycling facilities and insentives is a better solution.