Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon have long been advocates for environmental issues. So too has Mark Ruffalo, as one of the most vocal celebrities on the issue of fracking – hydraulic fracturing of the earth to release and harness gas.

Last month, along with several other actors, Ruffalo addressed the investment by City National Bank which has extensive ties to Hollywood (and their related company, the Royal Bank of Canada), on its investment of $160 billion in a 670-kilometer Coastal pipeline. It transports natural gas from northeastern British Columbia to a liquefied natural gas facility in coastal Kitimat, where it is exported to global markets. Although legal, the Wetsuwet’en Nation, whose territory the pipeline would cross, is against it.

However, nothing is ever clean. While the Wetsuwet’en Hereditary Chiefs and other leaders are calling on the Royal Bank of Canada to withdraw its support from the northern B.C. pipeline, the National Post ran a piece challenging Ruffalo’s advocacy for disinvestment. In an op-ed piece, it was suggested that the people of the Haisla territory saw the development of the pipeline ‘akin to the aspirations of B.C. Aboriginal people for a future free from unemployment, free from welfare, and free from hopelessness and despair.’

Back in 2014 while Ruffalo was promoting The Normal Heart, I asked him about his vocal environmental stance and the repercussions.

“I do sometimes wonder if I’m driving people crazy or if they even want to hear it,” he said.  “I think it’s important. I understand what it’s like to fight for something that seems like it’s impossible, whether it’s personal or something you believe in, that you find important, and you’re called on to be the kind of person you think you are. You are tested. I happened to find myself in one of those moments in the environmental movement. It came out of my relationship with my community and the idea of NIMBY – Not in My Back Yard.

“The whole world is our backyard. There’s no difference between here or across the world because we are all interconnected. That started it. I was terrified. Honestly. People were turning to me that were victims, saying, “Help us. No one will listen. We have gone to everyone. No one will listen.”

He paused trying to recollect his mindset at the time. “I thought I can’t do this; I am just an actor.” But that night he couldn’t sleep.

“I thought I am a phony unless I help those people. That’s my community, my neighbors, and my kids one day. Slowly I stuck myself out there. I had some people call me mean names, but whenever I’d turn to them and say, ‘What if it were your family?’ Some colorful replies included, “Oh you are just liberal tree-hugging expletive-face.”

He grinned. “Their arguments sort of fall apart. When you are right about something, when you are standing with the truth – you are unassailable. You come from your heart. If you are coming from your ego or your head, you get killed,” he said.

“There are truths out there. The world isn’t ambiguous. There are quantifiable things that make things true.”

On April 4th, 2022, the United Nations Environmental Program concluded that without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting Global Warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is beyond reach.