Arrests and pepper-spray punctuated the mostly peaceful daylong protest, which bore some similarities to the Occupy Wall Street rallies of yesteryear. Protesters — wearing blue to symbolize the rising seas — banged drums, chanted, sat in the streets and occasionally clashed with police while advancing the message that addressing the warming globe requires fundamental changes in society.
One environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, said its executive director and a co-founder were among those taken into custody. “World leaders have failed all of us on the climate crisis, and frustration has hit a tipping point — not just for the environmental movement but for people around the globe,” the group’s executive director, Kieran Suckling, said in a statement.
Photographs posted on Twitter showed a diverse group being detained, including an activist in a polar bear costume and two green-haired women dressed as the superhero “Captain Planet.” Capital New York reported that police arrested 102 people in a sit-in Monday night at the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway, in addition to two arrested earlier in the day and four people in wheelchairs who received criminal-court summonses.
“I came out here because I think, in order to address climate change, which is the most pressing issue facing humanity, that we actually need to change the system,” one protester, 31-year-old Matthew McHale, said earlier in the day.
Others held signs with slogans like “Capitalism = climate chaos,” “Consumerism is killing everything” and “Carbon tax the ecocidal maniacs.” One website promoting the protest urged people to “shut down the institutions that are profiting from the climate crisis.”
The protest came one day after an estimated 400,000 climate activists paraded with celebrities and VIPs through midtown Manhattan, determined to show the world that Americans want action on climate change, and one day before President Barack Obama and other leaders are due to take up the call at a United Nations climate summit.
But Monday’s message did not quite mesh with Obama’s “all of the above” energy platform — including his embrace of natural gas and praise for the domestic oil boom. Also absent were Al Gore, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other A-listers from Sunday.
The White House did not comment specifically on Monday’s Wall Street protest, but spokesman Josh Earnest called Sunday’s march and other demonstrations over the weekend a sign that the climate issue is resonating. Organizers of Sunday’s march said more than 2,000 related events took place in 162 countries.
