City climate change activists join in global protest
DUNEDIN climate change activists joined an international protest yesterday, raising the issue of sea level rise by staging a dinner party in the Anderson Bay inlet.
Extinction Rebellion Dunedin coordinator Jen Olsen said the group wanted to depict sea level rise ‘‘in a fun way’’.
The event had a serious message, however.
‘‘While people are just carrying on with everyday life, business as usual, climate change is happening around us, and sea level rise is going on.’’
The protest was part of an international week of action.
There have been more than 400 arrests linked to Extinction Rebellion protests across London as protests there reach their fourth day.
On Tuesday, protesters briefly stopped traffic to a halt at a central Auckland intersection.
Ms Olsen said the London members had ‘‘gone to the next level’’.
The group was relatively new in New Zealand, but wanted to take part in the week of action, and let people know it was active here as well.
The action was timely, considering the Government’s justreleased Environment Aotearoa 2019 report, which noted polluted waterways in farming areas, the country’s myriad species under threat and high percapita emissions.
Ms Olsen said Extinction Rebellion had begun as a group in Dunedin, and would do whatever necessary to get action on climate change.
More action would be taken in future.
LONDON: Teenage protesters staged an emotional protest at political inaction on climate change near London’s Heathrow Airport yesterday, a further day of actions that have caused transport snarlups in the British capital.
The Extinction Rebellion group of climatechange campaigners stood weeping and singing in a peaceful roadside protest less than a mile from Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3.
About a dozen teenagers, some as young as 13, held a banner which read ‘‘Are we the last generation?’’.
The group has called for nonviolent civil disobedience to push the British Government to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025 and to stop what it calls a global climate crisis.
Extinction Rebellion has blocked several locations in central London in recent days after it staged a seminude protest in Parliament earlier this month.
The group of young people stood singing protest songs near a road busy with Easter holiday traffic. Police officers, who far outnumbered them, approached to warn them of potential arrest for trespassing.
More than 500 people have been arrested this week and 10 charged so far, police said on Thursday.
‘‘I fear for my future’’ Oscar Idle (17) said. ‘‘That fear gives me courage to act.’’
Heathrow said it was working with authorities to address any threat of protests which could disrupt the airport on the busiest travel days of the year as the Easter getaway began. — Reuters