Getty Heiress donates $1M to Just Stop Oil

Written by The Daily Mail on October 21, 2022. Posted in Current News

An heiress to the billionaire Getty Oil fortune has donated $1million to eco-zealots who have caused chaos and infuriated the public with their disruptive protests in the UK.

Aileen Getty, who lives in the United States, is bankrolling an organisation that has given money to Just Stop Oil as it creates havoc with its demonstrations demanding an end to the issuing of new oil and gas exploration licences by the British Government.

The 65-year-old’s money is funnelled to protesters in the UK through the Climate Emergency Fund, a US non-profit that gives grants and funds to activists around the world.

This has sparked accusations from one MP that ‘foreign millionaires’ are funding eco-mobs ‘to do their dirty work without any intention of coming out of the shadows and exposing themselves to democratic accountability’.

To date Ms Getty has thought to have given more than £800,000 ($1million) of her own money to the organisation, which has also counts Hollywood director Adam McKay among its supporters.

The CEF in turn has given out more than £6million to groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, the latter of which have caused havoc in the UK in recent months.

The protest group’s disruptive tactics have provoked outrage, with activists forcing the closure of the Dartford Bridge for one-and-a-half days, blocking multiple roads in the capital and throwing soup on Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ all in the last week.

Earlier today it took part in its 20th consecutive day of action, with supporters spraying the outside of Harrods department store in central London with soup, as well as sitting down in the road to block traffic.

Ms Getty is the granddaughter of J Paul Getty, an oil tycoon who was at one time the world’s richest man, and MPs are questioning how a ‘foreign millionaire’ is allowed to have such an influence, the Telegraph reports.

She has been a prominent voice on social issues over the last few decades having campaigned over homelessness and ‘climate change’, as well as AIDS awareness, having being diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s and was once photographed with Princess Diana at a clinic in London.

The mother-of-two was formerly married to Christopher Wilding, the son of actress Elizabeth Taylor, and has never been directly involved with the ‘fossil fuel’ industry herself, while the Getty family left the oil trade in the 2000s.

However, her involvement sparked Tim Loughton, a former minister and member of the Home Affairs Committee, to tell the Telegraph:

‘It is bad enough that these arrogant self-entitled individuals think they have some right to disrupt the lives of our hard-working law-abiding constituents.

It adds insult to injury that foreign millionaires are funding them to do their dirty work without any intention of coming out of the shadows and exposing themselves to democratic accountability.’

There are questions over what the Government can actually do to stop this happening, with one unnamed MP telling the paper:

‘There may be some old obscure law around treason for accepting funds from foreign interests intent on harming the British state.’

In 2019 Ms Getty donated $500,000 to climate activists Extinction Rebellion claiming that ‘disruption’ is needed for there to be action.

She said:

‘Whether the resources I have come from oil or not, I feel an urgency and it’s a privilege to give whatever resources you have.’

The Climate Emergency Fund has come to her defence after allegations of hypocrisy that someone whose family is drenched in oil money is bankrolling protests against its use.

On Twitter it wrote:

‘Seeing a lot of hate for our co-founder Aileen Getty. First of all, Aileen was never in the fossil fuel industry. That’s her Grandfather. In the past. But she is wealthy from it.

So ask yourself: if you were in her shoes, how would you use your money for good?

Aileen’s answer has been to become a philanthropic leader, in housing, HIV/AIDs, and disruptive climate activism.

She co-founded Climate Emergency Fund and has donated over a million dollars to brave climate activists. We don’t tell them what to do. We support them.

So to summarise: The planet is on fire and the public is asleep. Activists can wake us up. The activists are heroes. Aileen is a hero. Let’s go rock the boat and save the world.’

It added:

‘Should a person be held responsible for the sins of their deceased grandfather?’

Getty told the New York Times earlier this year 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 organisations 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 CEF was started three years ago and believes causing issues for millions is an important way to get its message across.

On its website a profile for Ms Getty describes her as ‘the Founding Donor’ of the non-profit.

It said:

‘She has been an active philanthropist throughout her adult life.

With a focus on improving the quality of life of individuals and communities in the US and around the world, she has supported a number of causes including homelessness, HIV/AIDS research and treatment, the greening of urban spaces, the arts, community building in Africa, meditation in schools, and peacebuilding in the Middle East.

In response to the dire climate situation, she has shifted the bulk of her time and resources to supporting projects focused on bringing urgent solutions to the climate emergency.’

It has splashed out just over $7million on causes it believes in, with executive director Margaret Salamon comparing it to suffragist, 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 realise 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.

Ms Getty did not respond to a request for comment from the Telegraph last night. MailOnline has contacted her for comment.

A spokesman for the CEF told the Telegraph:

‘Climate Emergency Fund supports non-violent disruptive activism, because it is the fastest way to create transformative change, and we are out of time.

We are a grantmaker that makes strategic investments in emerging organisations like Just Stop Oil that look to disrupt everyday life to put tremendous pressure on governments to treat the climate emergency with the urgency it demands.

We help fund these courageous groups’ recruitment, training, and capacity-building efforts.

All activities we fund are fully legal, and foundational to a functioning democracy. As a non-endowed fund, we raise all the funds that we grant.

We provide donors with a safe, legal way to support the disruptive climate movement. Just Stop Oil is part of the A22 network, an international activist network with 11 member groups that we proudly fund.’

In recent months Just Stop Oil has waged waves of protests as it calls for the Government to stop issuing new licences and consents for oil and gas exploration.

More than 500 supporters of the group have been arrested for blocking roads, running onto football pitches during matches, sabotaging petrol stations and pumps and running onto the race track at the F1 British Grand Prix.

Earlier today a group of protesters sprayed soup on the outside of Harrods department store in Knightsbridge, central London, and blocked the road before being arrested by police.

There has been 20 consecutive days of protest by the group in October, with previous days seeing further attempts to block traffic in the capital.

On Monday two eco-zealots scaled the Dartford Bridge, which links the M25 between Kent and Essex, and refused to come down for one-and-a-half days, forcing police to close one of the busiest roads in the country.

And over the weekend two other protesters threw soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpiece painting ‘Sunflowers’ at the National Gallery in London, a move which drew outrage from across the world.

See more here dailymail

Bold emphasis added

Header image: Getty Images

Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method

PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. 

Trackback from your site.