The New York Times - 08.10.2019

A18 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NEW YORKTUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2019

Tourists and workers on Wall
Street on Monday were met by a
jarring spectacle: protesters,
some lying in pools of fake blood
outside the New York Stock Ex-
change, some dancing and others
chanting, all to call attention to
people killed by climate-related
disease and disaster.
“Drowned in attic,” read one
sign in the shape of a cardboard
gravestone that was lying next to
a protester playing dead; another
read, “Couldn’t Outrun Wildfire.”
The demonstrators, led by the
protest group Extinction Rebel-
lion, were kicking off five days of
civil disobedience planned across
the city, the country and the rest of
the world.
By disrupting several land-
marks in the heart of New York’s
financial district and by blocking
traffic on Broadway, the group
hoped to start building up its rela-
tively small American movement
with the kind of street muscle and
influence it has quickly amassed
in its birthplace, the United King-
dom.
About 90 people were arrested
on Monday, according to the New
York Police Department.
Founded less than a year ago,
Extinction Rebellion, which has
thousands of members around the
world, has shut down swaths of
London and other cities, recruited
followers across Europe and be-
yond and pushed climate higher
on the political agenda.
It stands out among envi-
ronmental groups by disrupting
“business as usual” with mass
protests that mix doomsday
mourning with sometimes-joyful
street theater. The demonstra-
tions demand governments “tell
the truth” about the severity and
immediacy of climate change, and
ask them to reduce carbon emis-
sions to net zero by 2025, years
earlier than any official target.
Now, the group’s American
members — at least 200 protested
on Monday — are importing those
tactics to a country where climate-
change denial is more common.
Organizers and onlookers were
unsure if the group’s tactics —
demonstrators getting arrested,
shutting down traffic — could
work in the United States. But
they agreed that with climate be-
coming more prominent on the po-
litical agenda here, it was worth a
try.
“The political situation is so dif-

ferent, with people not even

agreeing that there is a climate

crisis,” said Jack Baldwin, a news

media liaison for the group.

Organizers say New York —

with its liberal population, vulner-

ability to sea-level rise, growing

youth climate movement and am-

bitious new city and state climate

legislation — is a good place to ac-

celerate the group’s push into the

United States.

And Wall Street, a center of the

global financial system that the

group blames for the continued

use of fossil fuels, was a good first

target.

But to succeed in the United

States, said Russell Gray, an or-

ganizer with Extinction Rebellion,

the group will have to improve on

its efforts to form coalitions with

poor communities of color, which

have been disproportionately af-

fected by environmental prob-

lems.

“For people who are just trying

to live their lives, freaking out

about climate change and won-

dering what they can do about it,

Extinction Rebellion provides a

theory of change: using mass pro-

tests against corporate power to

force systemic change,” said Mr.

Gray. “If it works, it can solve

those other problems too,” he said,

like issues of education, health

care and inequality that may seem

more pressing to many Ameri-

cans.

Most passers-by seemed un-

bothered and largely supportive

of the protest on Monday, al-

though one shouted, “Get a job!”

“The cost of these profits is the

blood their money is soaked in,” a

man with a bullhorn called out at

the corner of Wall and Broad

Streets, where the imposing col-

umned facade of the New York

Stock Exchange overlooks one of

the country’s oldest streets. Mo-

ments earlier, protesters had held

a “die-in” under the famous

“Charging Bull” statue, dousing it

with fake blood.

Another speaker blamed “Wall

Street oligarchs” for the warming

seas that have likely intensified

hurricanes in places like Puerto

Rico and the Bahamas.

A man in a fuchsia paisley tie

and pinstriped suit pronounced

the protest “nonsense,” adding,

“Human activity has nothing to do

with the sun heating the earth!”

and then calling the demonstra-

tors “shills” for “whoever’s paying

for it.” (Though Extinction Rebel-

lion recently received a $350,

pledge from millionaire philan-

thropists via the Climate Emer-

gency Fund, organizers say most

of its support comes from small in-

dividual donations.)

Trading was not disrupted —

most is done online nowadays —

but at least one financial company

commented on the protests: UBS

issued a statement promoting

“sustainable investments” like

electric cars.

The crowd consisted of people

of all ages and styles: a “grim

reaper” in a white skeleton mask

and cloak; a gray-haired woman

in a gauze-and-feather fascinator

and a pearl necktie; a group call-

ing itself the Red Brigades, whose

members wore red costumes with

white face paint.

Danica Novgorodoff, a mother

of two and a graphic novelist from

Brooklyn working on a children’s

book about climate change,

marched with her 7-week-old

daughter, Ada, in a stroller.

“I want to make sure there’s still

a livable world for them to live in,”

she said.

Disrupting Business as Usual to Bring More Attention to Climate Change

Protesters with Extinction

Rebellion lying in fake blood

near the “Fearless Girl” statue

at the New York Stock Ex-

change on Monday. Left, about

90 people were arrested.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEPHANIE KEITH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By ANNE BARNARD

Stephanie Keith contributed
reporting.

Targeting New York

landmarks to build an

American movement.

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