Climate crisis makes protests by environmentalists more radical

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Mashed potatoes in a Monet painting, tomato soup in a Van Gogh canvas and pie in the face of a wax figure of King Charles III. Climate change activists have staged a series of protests in European museums in recent weeks and are preparing to intensify the agenda of demonstrations in the context of COP27 (UN climate conference), which takes place in Egypt from the 6th to the 18th of this month.

Several groups decided to raise the tone of public actions because they consider that world leaders have been ineffective in relation to the climate emergency.

In addition to actions in museums, environmentalists have also carried out a series of acts of civil disobedience in cities across Europe, especially in Germany and the United Kingdom, currently the epicenter of action by more radical groups.

The British Just Stop Oil (simply stop oil, in free translation) have been the most active, with shares recorded every day of October.

Responsible for the museum protests, these activists also stopped traffic on several London streets, including the iconic Abbey Road, and splashed orange paint on the facades of car dealerships and fossil fuel lobbyists.

In Germany, the role of the Scientist Rebellion (rebellion of scientists) has been highlighted.

Formed by scientists who want to draw attention to the climate crisis and demand real commitments from governments, the group carried out a series of media impact actions, with emphasis on a “camp” of activists, including people with their hands glued to the ground, in the Porsche exhibition centre, which belongs to Volkswagen.

“The climate is so connected with everything else that it ends up being, in fact, the crisis of our lives. If there is no food, people’s cost of living will increase. If there are more diseases because of the ecological crisis, so will impact health. All of this, in turn, can create social, security and political problems”, says Portuguese activist Teresa Santos, 30, who is part of Scientist Rebellion’s Portugal arm.

The young woman participated in protests in Germany and was detained three times for her role in peaceful acts of civil disobedience, which included raising the fire alarm during the World Health Summit in Berlin. The activists interrupted a moment of political, not scientific, discussion during the meeting.

A doctoral student in biology and attentive to the vast scientific production that attests to the seriousness of global warming, she believes that protests and acts of civil disobedience have been of great importance in putting the issue on the international media agenda.

“The people who have carried out the actions in the museums have always taken care not to damage the works of art. [todos os quadros atingidos tinham proteção de vidro]. But these are very visual actions, and the truth is that it puts these themes in the news, which is something we have a hard time doing,” he says.

“I’m sure no one wants to damage artwork, just as I didn’t want to be doing what I was doing at all. Being arrested three times was an absolutely terrifying process. No one was happy to be there, but that’s right. that feeling that if we don’t do it, no one will care”, he adds.

Also a member of Scientist Rebellion, which is already present in 30 countries, Portuguese scientist João Carvalho, 32, highlights that the group also has concrete demands for the authorities, such as the demand that the German government put pressure on the IMF (International Monetary Fund) to forgive the debt of the countries of the economic South.

“This huge debt prevents countries from developing their economies more sustainably, because it is cheaper to invest in polluting fossil technologies than in cleaner energy sources. Germany had its debt forgiven after the Second World War and therefore it would be nice to forgive those from other countries”, he explains.

According to the researcher, who is doing a doctorate in biology in Lisbon, the fact that scientists engage in activism helps to give more weight to the warning made by the group.

“The fact that we are scientists lends credibility to the movement and the message we want to convey. We want to take advantage of this to pass on an important message”, adds Carvalho, who says that researchers must make an effort to break a certain elitism still present in some segments of the academy. .

In the scientific world, there is already a broad consensus on global warming, as evidenced by the latest IPCC (United Nations panel of experts) report. The document details that humanity is on its way to an environmental catastrophe, with melting glaciers, a substantial rise in sea levels and an intensification of extreme events.

Even so, the pace of effective actions to meet the targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions established in the 2015 Paris Agreement is far from what was promised. The Covid-19 pandemic and the War in Ukraine also posed new challenges to the targets.

Frustration with the lack of concrete progress is one of the main fuels of dissatisfaction for activists, explains French journalist Marc Lomazzi, a scholar on the subject and author of the book “Ultra Ecologicus: Les Nouveaux Croisés de l’Écologie” (ultra ecological, new crusades of ecology), which analyzes the emergence of radical environmentalism in France.

According to him, there is also a deep dissatisfaction with capitalism and the consumption and production model, with its consequent exploitation of the planet’s resources.

“In Europe, this movement [ambientalismo radical] is from the younger generations. In France, it is very connected to students, mainly from big cities, not in the countryside. Most have university degrees, many having gone through the ‘grand schools’ of French universities,” he explains.

In Lomazzi’s assessment, concern for environmental and climate issues contributes to sympathy with activists. “Public opinion in France, as in several countries in Europe, is very sensitive to climate causes”, he explains.

The author considers, however, that actions such as the closing of roads, which make life difficult for part of the population, and interventions in museums have already had negative impacts on public opinion for this type of activism.

“However, as long as the demonstrations remain peaceful, many must remain sympathetic to the movement,” he predicts.

Even so, activists have been criticized on social media and in part of the European press, especially with a more conservative orientation.

In the United Kingdom, the government went further and proposed a law that should practically make demonstrations like the current ones unfeasible. Named the Public Order Law, the project expands the powers of police action and establishes a new type of crime, that of interfering with infrastructure (such as roads and airports), among other measures.

The legislation, which has been widely criticized in several sectors, has already been passed by the House of Commons and is now on its way to the House of Lords.

The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.

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