Extinction Rebellion make a bigger point about climate change as Brits battle heatwave
Extinction Rebellion protestors have taken to smashing windows and graffitiing walls outside News UK in London in protest against outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch and their failure to address the climate crisis behind the UK’s sweltering heatwave.
Sharing video footage to social media, you can see members of the group strategically cracking the entrance windows to Murdoch’s press headquarters near London Bridge and urging the media to “Tell The Truth” via spray-painted messages etched onto walls outside the building.
Why are we taking this action against the Murdoch press? A scientist explains pic.twitter.com/pRzt4lOguo
— Extinction Rebellion UK 🌍 (@XRebellionUK) July 19, 2022
The incident occurred around 6:30am on Tuesday morning, with two protestors taking to the windows and four more tagging the walls with the urgent climate message whilst another filmed the scenes.
Shortly after, one of the protestors who claims to be a scientist and wore a ‘Tell The Truth’ jacket explained the reason behind the group’s actions.
As he details: “It’s the hottest day of the year, temperatures are breaking records in the UK and across the world. People are dying and you would hope that newspapers would take responsibility for giving the public information that they need to keep themselves safe.”
The night time record has been broken… now for the dayhttps://t.co/u5N9IZqAJe
— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) July 19, 2022
Gesturing to pasted front pages published by outlets in recent days and weeks, he goes on to as that “News UK have consistently been printing articles like you see here of people happy in the sun, women in bikinis and totally making light of the situation”
He concludes the video with a definitive statement: “Ultimately we need to stop using fossil fuels as quickly as possible because the situation is escalating. I’m a scientist and the science has been clear on that for decades”.
In an extensive statement issued by the group following the demonstration, they quote Steve Tooze, a member of Extinction Rebellion and former journalist at The Sun and Daily Mail who says: “These newspapers have spent 30 life-or-death years denying or ignoring the climate crisis to ensure that ‘Business As Usual’ keeps the money flowing into their already obscenely-bloated bank accounts…
“Newspapers that treat a deadly heat wave as an invitation to a fun day on the beach and use it to advance their puerile and divisive culture war nonsense are not newspapers at all. They are propaganda sheets for two very rich and evil men. We are no longer prepared to sit at home feeling angry and despairing at the lies and disinformation.”
it's just the weather pic.twitter.com/lUYeXNmxf8
— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) July 18, 2022
Related links:
- Calls to set a ‘too hot to work’ law to send Brits home as heatwave expected to hit 41C
- Just Stop Oil protestors glue themselves to Van Gogh painting in climate change protest
- Greta Thunberg demands ‘justice’ in inspiring speech on climate crisis at Glastonbury 2022
