Two members of Just Stop Oil, the direct action climate campaign, were arrested last week after they spray-painted the words “1.5 is dead” on the grave of Charles Darwin in London’s Westminster Abbey.
The protest followed the news that 2024 was the hottest year in human history, with the average global temperature rising by 1.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
One protest organiser, Alyson Lee, told reporters “2024 was the hottest year on record. We have already passed through the 1.5 degree that was supposed to keep us safe. Millions are being displaced. California is on fire. And three-quarters of all wildlife has disappeared since the 1970s”.
Alyson, a 66 year-old retired teaching assistant from Derby, said “ten years on from the Paris Agreement, we have already exceeded the so-called safe temperature rise of 1.5 degrees, and are heading for over 3 degrees of warming. This rapidly accelerating crisis means huge parts of the world will become unable to support life, resulting in millions of refugees, social collapse and extinction for countless species”.
She believes Charles Darwin would approve of their protest “because he would be following the science, and he would be as upset as us with the government for ignoring the science”.
The other protester, Di Bligh, a 77 year-old former CEO of Reading Council said “Darwin once said ‘it is not the strongest of the species, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works cooperatively against common threats’.
“Last year was the hottest since modern humans evolved. If we do not work together to rein in the corporations and billionaires driving us beyond our means, humanity will not be able to adapt to what is coming. We are on course to lose everything, and politicians are doing nowhere near enough to prevent it. How many will we have to bury as a result of climate breakdown and who will be left to mourn them?”
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