Several ostentatious climate stunts in Europe have recently captured the world’s attention, particularly when activists splattered Vincent van Gogh’s priceless “Sunflowers” painting with tomato soup at London’s National Gallery last Friday.
Meanwhile, much bigger (albeit underreported) protests have erupted across Europe to rally against the untenable cost of living that is, ironically, caused by green energy policies promoted by environmentalists like the van Gogh vandals.
It appears the climate protesters believe they are demonstrating on behalf of families suffering during the energy crisis. One of the soup-throwers with purple hair cried out: “The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of the oil crisis. Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families. They can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup.”
Indeed, the cost of living crisis is part of the oil crisis, but the oil crisis was in part caused by irresponsible and damaging environmental policies supported by the likes of the aforementioned activists. For decades, the rich and powerful members of the World Economic Forum have pushed governments into adopting their socialist master plan for transitioning economies away from their reliance on coal, oil, and natural gas by “[p]ricing the alternatives to green energy out of the market.”
While climate activists like the van Gogh defacers will argue that reliance on Russia signals a need for more so-called green energy, the truth is, these alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power have proved insufficient. To fill in the gaps, 15 of the 19 EU countries consequently depended on Russia for about half of their natural gas before the war in Ukraine. After the war started, Russia rolled back gas production, and prices shot up almost 400 percent.
Recent government measures to curtail the energy crisis and put the climate agenda on hold have sparked many of the environmentalist demonstrations. On Monday, Germany moved to postpone the scheduled closure of its three nuclear plants. On Friday, British officials launched their first oil and gas licensing round since 2019, “aiming to award more than 100 licenses to ramp up domestic oil and gas production and reduce dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels,” according to OilPrice.com.
However, other European elites are doing nothing to mitigate the effects of the harmful World Economic Forum climate agenda, and, as CatholicVote reports, they are actually “doubl[ing] down on aggressive green energy goals, compounding the effects of the recession on middle-class and low-income Europeans.”
The bizarre move to vandalize paintings for the climate agenda is not the activists’ only tactic; they target anything or anyone that stands in their way. This includes everyday people who use vehicles, car companies, government officials who allegedly don’t promote the green agenda, and dairy providers, since activists argue nitrous oxide and methane emissions from livestock harm the environment.
Animal Rebellion, an organization that opposes eating animals and wants a “plant-based food system,” enlisted activists to dump milk out on the floor of an Edinburgh Waitrose store on Saturday. The demonstration is one of many similar Animal Rebellion protests that took place across the United Kingdom last weekend.
Climate activists for the same organization responsible for the van Gogh defacement also vandalized an Aston Martin showroom in Central London on Sunday. Protesters from the environmentalist group “Just Stop Oil” sprayed orange paint over the luxury British sports car manufacturer’s building.
The Roman magazine “Wanted in Rome” shared a video last Friday depicting Italian drivers arguing with climate activists who were blocking an ambulance from driving through.
A woman sprayed paint over a sign for New Scotland Yard in another Just Stop Oil demonstration last Friday to protest the detainment of the van Gogh vandals. Protesters also reportedly blocked the road in front of the Metropolitan Police’s headquarters.
Two Just Stop Oil protesters scaled the 450-foot Queen Elizabeth II bridge at the Dartford Crossing connecting Essex and Kent, which led “to lengthy closures of the M25 motorway and delays of more than two hours for motorists” on Monday.
In Berlin, climate activists from the group “Scientist Rebellion” put a halt to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s speech during the World Health Summit on Sunday by setting off a fire alarm. Other protesters glued themselves to the sidewalk outside the hotel where the event was taking place, and some glued their hands to the glass doors leading into the hotel.
Two activists from the environmentalist group Extinction Rebellion glued their hands to a famous Picasso painting in Melbourne, Australia.
It remains unclear how vandalizing beloved paintings, making people late for work, slowing down ambulances, and wasting milk is supposed to inspire people to join the climate cause. One thing is for certain, though — more families are bound to freeze and go hungry this winter if the climate cult has its way.
