Kicking off a week of peaceful protests that will culminate in a mass demonstration at London's Parliament Square on Saturday, activists blockaded the United Kingdom's energy department on Monday to raise alarm about the government's support for fracking and, more broadly, "its criminal inaction on the climate emergency and ecological crisis."
Activists with Extinction Rebellion and Christian Climate Action as well as reporters shared updates on social media from outside the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as some protesters glued themselves to the entrance.
#ExtinctionRebellion shuts down energy dept https://t.co/fFnn2L13YX pic.twitter.com/7HsZDSVcsb
— roger harrabin (@RHarrabin) November 12, 2018
Courageous individuals from @ExtinctionR and @CClimateAction have glued themselves into the entrances at @beisgovuk to protest at lack of action on climate change! #ExtinctionRebellion pic.twitter.com/v0J88UUckJ
— Mike Pepler (@MikePepler) November 12, 2018
Bell Selkie, 48, centre, farmer from Wales, locked on and glued to the doors of the department of business, environment and industrial strategy: "I live on a farm and the harvests are failing and it's very obvious to me that climate change is hitting now."#extinctionrebellion pic.twitter.com/P0MWndqsLx
— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) November 12, 2018
Organizers of the actions leading up to Saturday's Rebellion Day demand that "the U.K. government immediately declares a climate and ecological emergency; reduces to zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2025; and creates a citizens' assembly to oversee these changes." They are also calling for an end to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which recently resumed in the country after a seven-year ban.
Despite warnings from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the international community should urgently stop burning fossil fuels that drive global warming and work to remove greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere to avert a planet-wide climate catastrophe, the U.K. government currently plans to reach "net zero" emissions by 2050.
"The IPCC report in October gave us six to 12 years, and this is known to be a conservative report. If we don't respond with a war-style effort now we are all fucked, all of us. My heart is breaking and I've got to do something, and I'm putting my life on hold," Bell Selkie, a 48-year-old farmer from Wales who glued her hand to the door of BEIS, told the Guardian.
Police forcibly removed and arrested some demonstrators at the building's entrance—including Simon Bramwell, one of the activists who sprayed anti-fracking slogans on the building with removable paint.
*** BREAKING NEWS:
Simon Bramwell, activist with #ExtinctionRebellion, has just been arrested for spray painting anti #fracking slogans (in removable paint) on the front of @beisgovuk offices.
Here is his video testimony: https://t.co/33WlynSxe8 pic.twitter.com/hSNRPXCtVY
— Extinction Rebellion (@ExtinctionR) November 12, 2018
"Frack off" #extinctionrebellion protester spray paints department for business energy and industrial strategy as they escalate the #ClimateBreakdown demonstration pic.twitter.com/K2FsFDNXPU
— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) November 12, 2018
Fr Martin Newell arrested as part of the #ExtinctionRebellion #ClimateChange protest today.
When all other means have been exhausted, nonviolent direct action is the only way to push for justice.@ExtinctionR@extinctsymbol pic.twitter.com/2bgeHADqF0— Christian Climate Action (@CClimateAction) November 12, 2018
"The time to take action against climate injustice is now. The political system is failing us from local councils to central government," Becky Daniels, a protestor from the Preston New Road fracking protest site in Lancashire, said in a statement.
"If we do not act now, we face extinction. At the very least we will witness the breakdown of society as we know it," she added. "The impacts of climate injustice will be felt around the world. We are imploring you to stand with us in solidarity and declare a climate emergency."
