Robert Redford calls for direct action against Trump’s environmental assault

The Legendary American actor and legend, Robert Redford is allying with the Natural Resource Defence Council -an American NGO made of relentless lawyers and scientists referred as “the most effective lobbying and litigating group on environmental issues" by The Wall Street Journal- for an immediate response to Trumps dispositions towards environmental policy.

NRDC is urging to fight back through a call for donations on its website allowing the lobby group to take on the Trump administration “in and out of the courtroom” to defend the environment on all fronts. Donations can be made here.

Robert Redford as respected environmental activist is backing up the call. “We as a society are going to have to mobilize to protect our planet from climate change” he was quoted saying in a press release.

The actor has recently taken hinting steps to attract attention on environmental issues, notably at the opening of this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Utah which preceded Inauguration Day. The actor referred to a “darkness closing in around them,” when asked about the election the Chicago Herald Tribune reported. Right after the speech Redford proceeded to introduce the filmmakers behind “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” the follow-up to the 2006 climate change documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”, both documentaries hailed by environmentalists and derided by conservatives.

To make matters more coarse, during the festival Trump’s budget priorities had just been announced, these called for the outright elimination of federal arts support, targeting the perennially beleaguered National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities in particular. It’s a very symbolically charged bird in the context of the indie film festival.

Evidently since inauguration day worries have become even more blatant with Trump trying to place Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency, Rex Tillerson of Exxon as Secretary of State, and Rick Perry, current governor of Texas, as Secetary of Energy. This ‘Grand Crus’ of appointed global warming deniers has been dubbed by NRDC “the cabinet of horrors”.

How ironic given that if Trump was to adopt a progressive political agenda regarding climate this would in actuality help him achieve the goals he  presented during his campaign. Susand Casey-Lefkowitz, chief program officer at NRDC, pointed out that such an agenda would  in fact “create numerous jobs, promote technology, and guarantee long-term American global supremacy” in a statement.