Pete Postlethwaite says he’ll return his OBE to the Queen if the government allows E ON to build a new coal power plant in Kent this autumn.  Speaking at Leicester Square’s greenest film premiere ever  for The Age Of Stupid – a new feature film about the devastating effects of climate change -- the actor, who stars in the movie,  voiced his anger at the UK government and at Ed Miliband as he stood next to him!

He signed a public pledge saying “Dear Ed Miliband, 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…. I can't be an officer of the realm if Kingsnorth goes ahead."

The government is due to make a decision on Kingsnorth this Autumn, a decision that has been delayed after green pressure groups like Friends of the Earth campaigned for a review of the UK’s coal policy. 

The celebs are really getting behind climate action at the moment, with Brad Pitt leading the charge in the US (he’s no Postlethwaite, but he can draw a crowd). Whatever your views on their personal carbon footprints and lifestyle, the stars have an important role to play in generating excitement and building public support for climate issues, which will be essential for achieving anything useful in Copenhagen this year.

If you haven’t been to see the Age of Stupid yet we highly recommend you do… and become one of their 250 million activists.

We’ll keep you up-to-date on Kingsnorth as events progress. You can follow the No New Coal campaign here.

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