actor Pete Postlethwaite
I enjoyed his characters. RIP sir.
Pete Postlethwaite may hand back his OBE
Pete Postlethwaite, supposedly Steven Spielberg’s favourite English actor ever since he appeared in Jurassic Park, is threatening to hand back the OBE he received in 2004 if the Government gives the go-ahead to the controversial Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent.
Speaking after the London premiere of his new climate change movie, The Age of Stupid, which was held on Sunday in London, the Oscar-nominated actor (pictured) said: “We tried to stop Tony Blair going to war in Iraq. But this time we’re not having it.” He then added, rather grandly: “I can’t be an officer of the realm if Kingsnorth goes ahead.”
The premiere of The Age of Stupid was used to launch an awareness campaign called Not Stupid, with the aim of turning everyone who sees the film into a green activist. Postlethwaite signed a pledge card to the climate change minister Ed Miliband, who was in the audience on Sunday, which said: “If you commission a new dirty coal power station at Kingsnorth - thereby increasing our emissions when we should be massively decreasing them - then you are clearly unfit to represent the people of Britain at the Copenhagen climate change summit.”
Miliband responded: “I hear what people like Pete Postlethwaite are saying and we can’t build any unabated coal-fired power stations. But we can’t do it with renewable energy alone.” The Government is due to announce its decision on Kingsnorth this autumn - with the energy company E.ON fully expected to be allowed to build the plant.
Unlike some high profile environmental campaigners, Postlethwaite has put his money where his mouth is. He has done extensive work on his Shropshire home to make it as green as possible, adding in the past year a small wind turbine, better insulation and a wood-burning stove. To further enforce the film’s message, all of the notables who attended the premiere, apart from Miliband, arrived in cars powered by cooking oil while the projector that screened the movie was powered by batteries charged from solar panels.
LAST UPDATED 10:51 AM, MARCH 16, 2009