Edward Norton, the actor and director known for films such as American History X, Birdman and Fight Club, has joined the Guardian’s campaign to keep fossil fuels in the ground. He told us why: “it’s time to change the paradigm and stop ruining the world for our kids”.
Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP in Brighton Pavillion agrees, paying tribute to the campaign at our You Talk They Listen election event at the University of Sussex on Wednesday. We were also delighted to discover a Sussex University divestment campaign in the audience. Lucas told us: “this is a bold and urgent campaign and I urge everyone to join it. It’s about climate and social justice right now – and, ultimately, the home we plan to leave for our children and theirs to inhabit. What can be more important?”
180,000 reasons to divest
Norton and Lucas join other high profile people who have backed the campaign, including activist Bianca Jagger, actor Tilda Swinton and chef Yotam Ottolenghi.
But they are just five people – there are 180,000 others who have signed our petition so far.
We thought it was time to let the world’s biggest charitable foundations know what a movement like that looks like. So we have published all of the names of those people – from 170 countries around the world – who are asking the Wellcome Trust and the Gates Foundation to divest from fossil fuels and their reasons why.
Can you find yourself among them?
Keep it in the ground in the news
The campaign has been hitting the headlines in the US. Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger appeared on CNN on Wednesday and was also interviewed for NPR’s programme On the Media. You can listen here.
He has also appealed to scientists to speak up about divestment in the science journal Nature.
In case you missed it...
Hitting the front page this week was an announcement by the World Bank, which is calling on governments to stop subsidising the fossil fuel industry.
Speaking to the Guardian, President Jim Yong Kim said: “We have a whole new generation which is interested in climate change. Fossil fuel subsidies send out a terrible signal: burn more carbon.”
We also revealed the billions that BP invested in green energy projects in the 80s and 90s – which they then abandoned, locking away the research in the process.
The divestment movement was alive and kicking in the US this week, with the launch of a week of direct action on the campus of Harvard, the world’s richest university. Meanwhile in the UK, the University of Edinburgh edged closer to divestment from coal and tar sands companies.
Are you a climate denier? We haven’t forgotten you. In fact, we’ve created you a personalised guide to getting rich from fossil fuel divestment.
Ever wondered how much fossil fuel has been used in your lifetime? Find out here. You can even embed the interactive on your own website.
Stay in touch
Do you have the Guardian’s app on your phone? If you want to keep up to date on the campaign, you can add it to your home screen. Our digital director Wolfgang Blau explains how:
You're using the Guardian App and want to add our #keepitintheground project to your app's home screen? Here is how: pic.twitter.com/AWxfDTnE5r
— Wolfgang Blau (@wblau) April 14, 2015
Got an idea for the Keep it in the Ground campaign? Email the team at keep.it@theguardian.com
