At least 16 US climate activists arrested at global protests against private jets
At least 16 activists faced arrest for shutting down the entrances to airports serving private jets across the United States on Thursday as part of worldwide climate protests led by groups including Extinction Rebellion, Scientist Rebellion, New York Communities for Change, and the New York City chapter of the youth-led Sunrise Movement.
According to a representative of New York Communities for Change, seven demonstrators faced arrest at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey—the nation’s busiest private jetport—while four activists faced detention at Van Nuys Airport outside Los Angeles, police took four protestors into custody at Wilson Air Terminal at Charlotte International Airport in North Carolina, and at least one person faced arrest in Seattle.
“The rich are burning down the planet and the damage is irreversible,” climate scientist Peter Kalmus, who the police arrested at Charlotte, said in a statement. “We must stop them. Banning private jets would be a start.”
Referring to the billionaire founders of Amazon.com and Microsoft respectively, Scientist Rebellion member Gianluca Grimalda said: “It is obscene that Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates can fly their private jets tax-free, while global communities starve. It’s only fair that wealthy polluters pay the most into climate loss and damage funds to help the most vulnerable countries adapt.”
While private jets account for a tiny fraction of global greenhouse emissions, the world’s richest 1% produce more than double the emissions of the poorest 50%, and a single billionaire produces a million times more emissions than an average person, as an Oxfam study reported by Common Dreams earlier this week explained.
“Taking a private jet while the planet is on fire is utter insanity,” said Will Livernois, a bioelectronics researcher at the University of Washington who was arrested at a protest in Seattle on Thursday. “The science has been clear for half a century and we have not changed trajectory. The elite who have funded this crisis must pay back what they have taken from our world.”
Originally published at Commondreams.org.
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