Wednesday 10 August 2022 07:07 PM Three oil scions PAYING hundreds of eco activists $25,000-a-year to be ... trends now

Three American oil scions have been bankrolling mobs of eco-zealots who have terrorized the world by slashing tires, blocking traffic and attacking firms.

Aileen Getty, Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert and Peter Gill Case, who are heirs to their families' huge fortunes, are paying the salaries for thugs through their non-profits.

Getty, whose grandfather created Getty Oil, has so far splashed out $1million through her California-based Climate Emergency Fund.

Lambert and Case, who are both members of the Rockefeller family that founded Standard Oil in 1870, have forked out $30million on The Equation Campaign.

They have put eco-activists from groups such as Just Stop Oil on the payroll for around $25,000 as well as pumped money into the organizations themselves.

It comes as eco-warriors have been continuing to wreak havoc across the world in recent months, including in the US, Europe, the UK and Australia.

SUV cars tires have been slashed in America, Britain and Australia, while famous oil paintings have been targeted across EU countries.

Meanwhile huge protests with thousands of activists taking to the streets have descended on large cities across the globe.

Getty told the New York Times she backed the effectiveness of the activists she was bankrolling and revealed she had put $1million of her own cash into the Climate Emergency Fund so far.

She said the civil disobedience of the grassroots organizations was supposed to only be an alarm but said their destruction was minimal compared to what was at stake.

She told the newspaper: 'Let's not forget that we're talking about extinction. Don't we have a responsibility to take every means of trying to protect life on Earth?'

The Climate Emergency Fund was started three years ago and believes causing issues for millions is an important way to get its message across.

It has splashed out just over $7million on causes it believes in, with executive director Margaret Salamon comparing it to suffragists, civil rights and gay rights activists throughout history.

She said: 'Action moves public opinion and what the media covers, and moves the realm of what's politically possible. The normal systems have failed. It's time for every person to realize that we need to take this on.'

She dismissed the idea her group was helping spread misery across the world by saying Martin Luther King had a poor approval rating in the years before he was assassinated.

The Climate Emergency Fund has also dished out $170,000 to Save Old Growth, a Canadian group which blocks roads used by loggers in British Columbia.

Co-founder Zain Haq said: 'We're not trying to be popular. Civil disobedience historically is about challenging a way of life.'

Meanwhile in Britain the eco-zealots form Just Stop Oil was handed nearly $1million and help with paying 40 protestors and organizers.

Miranda Whelehan, who is part of the group, said: 'Obviously, you can only do so much as volunteers. Huge oil companies have millions, if not billions.'

And in the US the Climate Emergency Fund chucked $100,000 at Scientist Rebellion - which counts NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus among its ranks - to pay for consultant wages and travel costs.

He said he had been looking for ways to save the planet for 16 years but decided the best way to do it was to cause mayhem for ordinary citizens.

He joined around 1,000 scientists in 25 different countries in blocking traffic and chaining themselves to notable buildings - including the gates of the White House.

After the attack, Kalmus said: 'I get messages every day from people who said it had given them hope. It seemed to communicate that urgency far more than anything else.'

Meanwhile Lambert and Case have been pumping money into The Equation Campaign, which was founded in 2020 to give financial backing and legal advice to those trying to stop fossil fuel expansion.

The fund has helped those who have hammered through gas pumps, glued themselves to paintings and chained themselves to banks.

About $30million was pumped in by the two members of the Rockefeller dynasty, with both looking to right the supposed wrongs of their family.

Case said in an email to the New York Times: 'It's time to put the genie back in the bottle. I feel a moral obligation to do my part. Wouldn't you?'

The Equation Campaign has seen relative success at stopping oil and gas expansion, having helped cancel an extension of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

It is also campaigning against other fossil fuel projects and is helping eco-warriors targeted by what it claims are exaggerated charges and false arrests.

Executive Director Katie Redford said: 'For the climate and literally for humanity to win, we need them to win, and to stop the industry from building more stuff that puts greenhouse gases into the environment.'

The Equation Campaign and Climate Emergency Fund stressed their groups only pump money into legal activisits including training, education, travel and recruitment.

They also shot back at claims paying the activists made their work less authentic, saying receipts have to be shown to ensure nothing illegal has taken place.

The eco-warriors have said to money is desperately needed, with some ditching school or juggling multiple jobs to spend their lives protesting.

The most recent protest to hit the US took place last week as demonstrators tussled with cops before being wrestled to the floor and carried out of the stadium at the Congressional baseball game in DC two weeks ago.

Some of the activists managed to enter the Nationals Park stadium, and unfurl banners. Outside, three people were arrested as the game between Democrat and Republican lawmakers unfolded.

One man rushed officers, and was swarmed on and pushed to the ground. Another pair of demonstrators tried to get in to the venue, but were marched backwards, smirking, by a burly security officer.

When they tried to walk past the Metropolitan Police officer, he shoved one of them hard, causing him to fall backwards. Still trying to enter the area, he was surrounded by police who shepherded him away.

A blond woman was seen being carried by her arms and legs from the scene, while another activist stood nearby, zip ties on his wrists.

A group called Now Or Never claimed that they were behind the demonstration. 'Tonight we converged on the Congressional Baseball Game,' they tweeted.

'We are living through a climate emergency. Yosemite is on fire. An ice shelf the size of NYC just broke off of Antarctica. We're dying by the million from pollution.

'Congress must seal the deal. It's time.' They added: 'Baseball can wait. The climate cannot.'

The group said they want Joe Biden to declare a 'climate emergency', and Congress to spend billions on clean energy.

'We are deeply offended that our elected leaders continue to play games in the face of our impending doom,' said Michael Steffes, a spokesperson for the group.

'Our congresspeople are choosing to play ball while the world burns around them. Unless they treat this as a climate emergency and take immediate climate action, we are doomed to climate hell.'

The group said they were angry at politicians 'wasting the world's time with their indefensible antics,' and said evidence of the scale of the problem was all around.

'St Louis is underwater, California is on fire, Lake Mead is running dry, the country's glaciers are melting, and drought is hammering the midwest, stretching the country's ability to cope with the growing number of people whose lives have been upended by the crisis,' they said.

'The one time that they come together in agreement is to play a literal game.

'Unless the United States government takes immediate & drastic climate action, they are sentencing billions of people to an unlivable future on a dead planet.'

THAT'S how you deal with the eco mob: While British and US police stand by helpless, it's been a different story in Europe this summer, with protesters dragged away with no hesitation

Furious civilians and police officers in Europe are putting the rest of the world to shame by refusing to allow eco protesters to disrupt events and bring roads to a standstill - with the activists being dragged away with no hesitation.

From Italian security guards tearing protesters' hands off a Botticelli painting at a Florence art gallery to Tour de France fans angrily removing a group of eco activists from the middle of the road, the Europeans are taking matters into their own hands.

In stark contrast, security guards at London's National Gallery simply watched on when eco-zealots covered John Constable's priceless painting The Hay Wain with their own version and stuck their hands to the frame with glue.

Here, MailOnline takes a look at how Europe is fighting back against eco protesters.

Italy 

While British police officers have stood by helplessly as eco-protesters have blocked roads and vandalised priceless paintings, the Italian authorities have dealt with the activists without hesitation.

On Friday, an Italian security guard tore protesters' hands off a priceless Botticelli painting at a Florence art gallery and dragged them away. 

The security official stormed over to the young activists and pulled their superglued hands from the Renaissance masterpiece shortly after they began their short-lived protest in the Uffizi Gallery.

The unnamed man and two women were from climate activist group Ultima Generazione ('Last Generation') and had rolled out a banner which read: 'Last Generation No Gas No Coal'. 

The activists, who had paid for tickets to get into the gallery, were removed from the gallery by police after the security guard dragged them away from the painting.

It struck a jarring contrast to the inaction shown by British guards at the Trafalgar Square gallery this month, where Just Stop Oil zealots were allowed to cover over John Constable's The Hay Wain with their own version.

More than an hour later, Brighton students Hannah Hunt, 23, and Eben Lazarus, 22, were finally arrested.

Meanwhile, Extinction Rebellion activists were forcibly removed from a motorway by furious Italian motorists after they blocked the busy road in Rome last month.

Demonstrating over environmental issues, the protesters sat in a row across Rome's Raccordo - the city's main ring-road and one of its busiest - holding banners.

A video shot from the side of the two-lane road showed the demonstrators using road-block protest tactics also used in Britain, causing a huge traffic jam to snake back as far as the eye could see, with no police officers or vehicles in sight.

In response, irate Italian motorists at the front of the queue jumped out of their vehicles to take action - dragging the protesters across the tarmac and dumping them on to the side of the road.

One man ripped an orange banner from the hands of the Extinction Rebellion activists and threw it over the side of the motorway barrier. A woman, dressed in a summer dress while still carrying her handbag, tore a second sign from their grasp.

After removing the banners, a second man joined the first in forcibly dragging the protesters by their arms across the tarmac to the side of the road, making enough of a gap for several vehicles to get through and past the demonstration.

However, as the first man was dragging the remaining protesters off the road, the activists he had first removed saw an opportunity and ran back into the middle of the road, and in front of the on-coming traffic - only to sit down again with their

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