Climate protests hit UK, Greta goes to White House
WASHINGTON/LONDON: Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg took her mission to President Donald Trump’s doorstep on Friday with a climate protest outside the White House. Hundreds of mostly young people gathered across the street from the White House to meet her, carrying signs reading “People or Profit?” and “Warming!”, chanting “This is a crisis, act like it!” and “Business as usual is not enough.”
In Britain, police arrested two people inside the perimeter of London’s Heathrow airport on Friday ahead of a planned climate-change protest. Activists who hoped to bring Europe’s biggest airport to a standstill found instead that it was their drones that struggled to get off the ground. Flight operations were not affected, said the airport.
Climate activists glued themselves to a door and poured out a “bleeding” red carpet at the opening of London Fashion Week on Friday, seeking to draw attention to the apparel industry’s impact on the environment. Protesters from the Extinction Rebellion group have vowed to disrupt the five-day event, where Burberry, Victoria Beckham, Erdem and other luxury brands are presenting their spring 2020 womenswear collections.
In Washington DC, many protesters laid down and kept still for 11 minutes for a “die in” representing 11 years they said that scientists believe the world has to make changes needed to stave off dangerous climate change.
The demonstration marked the first high-profile event of Thunberg’s six-day visit to Washington, intended to pressure the Trump administration ahead of a United Nations climate summit, where world leaders will be asked to ramp up their carbon-cutting ambitions to fend off global warming. Trump is among a minority of global leaders who openly questioned the science of climate change.