Environmental News – What’s happened this week?

Enjoy a round-up of environmental news. This week with a focus on activism which made the headlines.

Police arrest climate protestors after causing traffic on M25

Eleven people were arrested for staging a protest at junction 3, the Swanley Interchange in Kent. The arrests took place early on Wednesday morning at 7:30am. 27 members of the activist group, Insulate Britain, blocked a roundabout at the junction causing serious traffic jams. This protest echoed the Extinction Rebellion protests flooding headlines two years ago, with a similar message: the Government is not doing enough for climate change. They summarise their campaign in a statement released responding to arrests: “Boris get on with the job.”

“Fridays for Future” kicks off again

1,400 events in 80 countries saw climate activists taking to the streets. On the 24th of September the global climate strike made a comeback with their campaign “up-root the system”. Gaia Pacciani, who lives in Florence, attended the climate strike in the city shared some photos from the protest:

(trans: there are seven million of us and we are in great danger)

Greta Thurnberg criticizes world leaders at Youth4Climate 

At the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Greta openly criticized the “empty words and promises” of world leaders. She summarized their pledges as nothing but “blah, blah, blah”. People saw this as a direct response to Boris Johnson’s speech at the UN as she quoted many of his lines saying, “Build back better, blah blah blah.” However aside from mocking the likes of Johnson she also provided great encouragement for activists who want change in how their leaders are relating to climate change:

“Hope is not passive (…) Hope is taking action”

 “This is not the time to give up”

Watch her whole speech here.