Extinction Rebellion targets the Royal Opera House

Extinction Rebellion targets the Royal Opera House

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norman lebrecht

July 02, 2019

The climate protesters will rally at Covent Garden at 6pm, targeting the arrival of audience members to an ROH performance of Carmen, which is sponsored by the oil company BP.

The protest is organised by a sub-group known as Culture Declares Emergency.

More disruption details here.

Comments

  • christopher storey says:

    The problem with children is that they do not have the experience to form informed judgements about the present relative to the past. If they had been in London in the 1950s, 60s and 70s ( and even a century before that ) they would have discovered what it means when the atmosphere is really polluted

  • Alan says:

    Oh would they ever bore off with themselves. Pathetic losers with nothing better to be doing with their lives.

  • Anonym says:

    At least they’re doing it for a good cause

  • James B. Knickerbocker says:

    The new religion that replaces Christianity in the West: multiculticlimatism. Unbelievers will be taxed.

  • Simon Behrman says:

    Some of the comments here display such wilful ignorance, or perhaps stupidity. Climate change is a scientific fact, not an opinion. You might as well say the existence of oxygen in the air is a matter for debate.

    In some ways pollution was worse in London in the 50s and 60s, and it is the long term effects of all that coal use that is part of the awful legacy we are seeing today. That said, London air quality is one of the worst in Europe still today. Just because you can’t see it with the naked eye doesn’t mean it’s not there.

    Best of luck to the protesters tonight. Thanks to them and others like them we finally seem to be waking up to the full extent of the problems of climate change.

    • christopher storey says:

      I am sorry, Simon, but your contention that ” it is the long term effects of all that coal use that is part of the awful legacy we are seeing ” is just arrant nonsense . The particulates in the current atmosphere are nothing to do with coal , but are in part the result of widespread diesel use and in part the result of the debris shed from tyres and other artefacts which come into contact with the road surfaces

      • Simon Behrman says:

        Where are you getting this information from? See NASA’s analysis here, as an example: https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/ You might also want to read the latest IPCC Report from 2018, which gives a good layman’s summary https://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf

        It is standard climate science that the accummulation of CO2 in the atmosphere over the past 150 years has been one of the key factors in global warming. Fossil fuels, including coal, are the major source of this increase in CO2s. These remain trapped in the atmosphere and thus the current crisis is a result of the accummulation of all these emissions

        • Saxon Broken says:

          Er…the two of you are answering different questions.

          One of you is talking about global warming and the rise in CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels.

          The other about local air quality (in London, mostly caused by driving cars and other vehicles) and its effect of health.

          The increase in CO2 really isn’t causing a local health issue (as far as anyone knows). The local health issue comes from particulates (which mostly can not be seen). And these come from motor vehicles.

    • Allen says:

      “…..it is the long term effects of all that coal use that is part of the awful legacy we are seeing today.”

      That’s rich, coming from someone so quick to point out “wilful ignorance, or perhaps stupidity” in others.

      Astonishing.

  • christopher storey says:

    I should also add that if you seek the opinion of anyone who has studied the history of climate change , the highly educated view is that we are indeed entering a period of global warming, which is indeed a threat, but that it results not ( except in the most minuscule way ) from human agency but as part of the long term cycles which have been going on for several million years . This is, of course, a bleak view because it means that there is next to nothing we can do about it

    • Saxon Broken says:

      Er…this is the “lunatic fringe” of the academic debate among those “highly educated”. Anyone who claims that is either a charlatan or a fool.

      Anyone who has properly studied global warming understands that there is a direct relationship between the earth’s temperature and the level of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere. And that we have been busily releasing carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere for hundreds of years (with most of it released comparably recently).

      [Other greenhouse gases, such as methane (carbon-hydrogen) also cause problems]

  • Karl says:

    Why don’t the climate protesters give Covent Garden the money to sponsor Carmen? Or maybe they could make themselves useful by building some new nuclear power plants?

  • Sue Sonata Form says:

    Old Testament fire and brimstone. Gimme that old time religion…!!

  • Don Fatale says:

    Did anyone see the protest? I haven’t heard anything about it on the news.

  • Alan says:

    Feel free to take arms and use them.
    Please don’t allow them to disrupt your evening.

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