WASHINGTON (AP) — Indigenous groups and other environmental activists marched to the Capitol Friday as they continued a weeklong protest demanding that Congress and the Biden administration stop new fossil fuel projects and act with greater urgency on climate change.
Nearly 80 people were arrested on the fifth day of the “People vs. Fossil Fuels” protest. That brings the total arrested during the week to more than 600, organizers said.
Under a banner declaring “We did not vote for fossil fuels,” activists pressed President Joe Biden to stop approving new pipelines and other fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency. Demonstrators urged members of Congress to “listen to the people” who sent them to Washington and take urgent action to phase out fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.
Capitol Police said 78 people were arrested on obstruction or crowding charges. Three of those arrested also were charged with assault on a police officer.
"Multiple injuries were sustained by security personnel, and one officer has been transported to a nearby hospital. Medics representing both the Department and the protesters were present. Secretary Haaland is traveling and not in Washington, D.C.
— Melissa Schwartz (@MSchwartz3) October 14, 2021
Speakers said Biden was not following through on his promises to act on climate change.
“It’s ridiculous. He promised, just like they’ve done in the past, ‘We’ll talk about it, we’ll bring it to the table.’ Where’s our seat?” asked Isabelle Knife, 22, who traveled to Washington from the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota.
“We haven’t had a seat. We haven’t been heard,” Knife said. “It takes youth to be on the frontlines. It takes us to put our bodies on the line.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration was “listening to advocates and people who have been elevating the issue of climate for decades.″
Environmental activists “have important voices, and they’ve put climate on the front of the agenda when it wasn’t 10 years and 20 years ago,″ Psaki said Thursday.
“Let’s go!” one protester yells while trying to climb in through the door. People cheer in support and crowd the steps as police continue to physically block the one entrance that is not locked. pic.twitter.com/aye5ydPKSa
— Ellie Silverman (@esilverman11) October 14, 2021
She encouraged activists and anyone who supports action on climate change to look at Biden’s proposals in a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a larger Democratic-only plan to address social and environmental issues.
“He’s trying to push across the finish line … an enormous investment and commitment to addressing the climate crisis,″ Psaki said. “That’s in his legislative agenda that’s currently working its way through Congress now. It doesn’t mean his climate commitment ends once he signs this into law; it just means that’s what our focus is on now, and it will have a dramatic, important impact.″
The Capitol protest followed a sit-in Thursday at the Interior Department in downtown Washington. Demonstrators clashed with police as they challenged pipelines and other fossil fuel projects and called for declaration of a climate emergency. More than 50 people were arrested.
An Interior Department spokeswoman said a group of protesters rushed the lobby, injuring at least one security officer who was taken to a nearby hospital. Police and protesters clashed outside the building, and officers used Tasers against several unarmed protesters, a spokeswoman for the protest group said.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet member, was traveling Thursday and was not in the building during the protest.
The protest was part of “a historic surge of Indigenous resistance” in the nation’s capital that started on Monday, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, outside the White House, said Jennifer Falcon, a spokeswoman for the Indigenous Environmental Network, a part of the coalition that organized the protest. More than 100 people were arrested as protesters linked arms and sat along the White House fence line to urge faster action to combat climate change.
The Andrew Jackson statue at the center of Lafayette Park across the street from the White House was defaced with the words “Expect Us” — part of a rallying cry used by Indigenous people who have been fighting against fossil fuel pipelines.
Protesters also climbed a flagpole outside the Army Corps of Engineers office, demanding a stop to Line 3, an oil pipeline upgrade that was recently completed in Minnesota. The pipeline will bring tar sands oil from Canada to Wisconsin.
“In November we made a choice to vote for a president who said he would be the climate president, who said he would stop pipelines, and right now we are seeing a betrayal from the White House and Congress,” said Zanagee Artis, co-executive director of Zero Hour, a youth-led climate justice organization.
“We need climate action now. We are out of time to address this issue,“ Artis said, adding that he campaigned for Biden and called voters on his behalf.
“Black and brown people voted in droves” for Biden, and young people voted in record numbers for a president who promised action on climate change, Artis said. Now Biden has the power to revoke permits for Line 3 and other pipelines “and he has not. He has the power to revoke fossil fuel leases and he has not.”
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No cries of insurrection ?? Or is that only reserved for conservatives.
Only for conservatives…
Guess there wasn’t a large enough mob for the libs to call that protest an insurrection, besides there were “minorities” involved and they don’t want to upset that crowd, that’s where their votes come from. Wonder if those fools actually believe that we can function in this world without using fossil fuel? I haven’t seen anything about an all electric airplane, or a solar battleship, or cargo ships, so I wonder how we can operate our society with out fossil fuel?
I’m waiting for Airhead Of the Century to propose building a fleet of sail-powered submarines.
It could have been a MILLION folk, rioting. THE LEFT WOULD STILL never call it an insurrection…
Logical thinking is not a strength of the current administration or congress…
How did all of these so called climate change people get there to protest? In their fossil using cars or by airplane. How do these people heat their homes? Fossil fuels. Hypocrites / communists! All of these climate change people should live in caves. I am sure, that in the wintertime, a campfire will keep these idiots warm, when it is ten degrees below zero.
ITs just like all those ‘climate activists’, who FLY PRIVATE JETS to their shindigs…
No. Burning wood creates smoke. They will have to brush the snow off their solar panels.
and unfreeze their bird / bat killing windmills.
By Dem definition, that is an insurrection. Better get that Jan 6 committee to launch a second investigation.
BUT you can BET pelosi, won’t even CALL For an investigation.. LET ALONE push to get congress to LEAD said investigation.
Climate activist are garbage. Outright liars.
Dance with the Devil and sacrifice your soul to get elected, and he eventually comes back to two-step you right back out of office. The solutions and companions he offers to satiate your greed for sex and/or aspirations for power always give the opposite negative results of what he promises, just like his reflected image of the great CONSUMER political following victim’s promises to others who sell their souls for power and success that always end up to be fleeting at best, and lethal at worst and result in the opposite of what gets promised. Lying becomes his tribal native tongue. The promises offered by these indigenous native Americans disguised as peaceful noble savages, will ignobly turn the entire country into tent cites that look like their own failed poverty-stricken Reservations of unemployment, where drugs, alcohol and violence replaces the promised social solutions that always get rejected when they prove to be unrealistic, where the social progression offered just regresses America back to tribal warfare when horses and buggies are offered to replace sleek SUVs and sportscars. Just another liberal failed attempt to take successful America a notch or two down to their own failed self-chosen regressed existence dressed up and served up on a platter named Progressive. These are not people vs fossil fuels, but fossils trying to take People back to a stone age existence.
“Speakers said Biden was not following through on his promises to act on climate change.”
Surprise!!! Biden hasn’t followed through on any promise except open borders.
“Black and brown people voted in droves” for Biden, and young people voted in record numbers for a president who promised action on climate change, Artis said.
Well this proves that “Black and brown people and young people are not very bright. They listen to and believe the traitorous, dishonorable, dishonest, socialist Democrat Party’s political lies and propaganda.
“Where’s our seat?” asked Isabelle Knife, 22, who traveled to Washington from the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota.”
I wonder did Isabelle Knife or any of the other protesters rode a bicycle to the protest? Or did they use fossil fueled cars and airplanes to get to the protest against fossil fuels??? 😯
Ban mining and drilling. Let the ******** freeze in the dark.
I have often said, ALL THESE libtard states who “HATE ON fossel fuels”, should have ALL GAS AND POWER cut off from them…
Remember that the biden is a follower of satan and therefore is doing what satan says.
Would that be the Black & White Satan ?
Still the Big Con has a hold on these fools…. As one with an Actual minor in atmospheric physics from an engineering school – but – with zero vested interest in pushing any agenda, I can say that the first question I’d ask these dummies is : “Exactly WHAT climate to you want to have IF it were possible to create it?” Some mouth breathers in the Mainspleen media suggest “Pre-Industrial” levels of temp and weather metrics, to which a person without dependency upon grants, tenure, or high salary might ask at least two follow up questions: 1) How do you think you can kill off about two Billion people to get the human population within sustainable levels for that kind of climate, and 2) Given the climate of Earth is constantly evolving, exactly how do you geniuses (and you’d have to be) intend to KEEP those climate parameters in a fixed state? (Buzzzzz—answer— you CAN’T).
Like the comedian from Texas says– “you can’t fix stupid!”
I love Ron White! Great comment BTW…I’d love to see AOC’s or Bernie’s reply to your questions. My guess is that you’d get a look closely resembling a goldfish in a glass bowl…
If their message is falling on deaf ears right now it will be worse in a few months when winter is in full swing and fuel prices are extremely high. When people are unable to pay for their heating and are either going into debt to do so or living in dangerous conditions the ‘shut down pipelines’ call isn’t going to be more popular.
I’m guessing these people came to the protest in cars, buses, and planes not canoes, by foot, or by horseback. They are wearing clothes and holding signs made with fossil fuels (yes, polyester is made with oil and so are the vinyl signs). I’m sure many of them are carrying smart phones and/or computers and those too are made with fossil fuels.
As for the tribal people instead of wasting time trying to get Bejing Joe to live up to his “whatever it takes to get ‘elected'” promises spend your energy and time making things better on the reservations. The level of poverty, dispair, and hopelessness is sky high on most reservations. Kids are not going to school, drugs are rampant, and government handouts are the norm. Fix that and you’ll do more for your people than any ‘climate change’ activism.
IF anyone should be cut off from getting heating in winter, ITS THESE ninconpoops!
Why are thse idiots upset? Senile ********* Joe shut down domestic production and caused the price of oil to skyrocket. Or is this really about the fact that the price everything else skyrocketed? What do these idiots expect when oil is needed to make the containers for food and is used to produce food and transport all consumer goods all over the country? These people are a bunch of stupid wimps. Not one of them would last 5 minutes if this country could turn the clock back to 1840 and everyone had to live under those conditions.
Are the rioters that have been arrested going to be housed in jail under the same conditions as those from Jan. 6th? Remains to be seen.
Those from Jan 6th are being tortured in different ways, they are being treated in cruel and inhuman ways, one guy has a broken wrist that has never been taken of, one another person was beaten by the guards another needed a laceration stitched up never happened. The rioters are being treated 1000 times better they get hot food where as the Jan 6th people are getting cold food .
Hell, you can bet they will BE ALL GRANTED bail swiftly. Unlike those who are STILL being held without bail, from the sixth of jan!
Yeah let’s ban all fossil fuels and finish destroying what’s left of the economy, at this point in time what does it really matter, hahahahaha.
The satan worshipping DEMONcrats care absolutely nothing for the economy or the people the one and only thing they care about is what they want for themselves, the DEMONcrats care nothing for the country or about the people that are getting hurt by the decisions that they make. All too soon things will be far too gone for anyone to care and that is what the SATAN WORSHIPPING DEMONCRATS want they want the people to give up all their rights and everything else, the SATAN WORSHIPPING DEMONCRATS only want total power and control over the people. Those in iffice truly are SATANIC ON EVERY LEVEL that you can think of, just look at how they act and the way they talk about people, they don’t care.
Does anyone feel like this protest was all scripted to get US, Normal people to start believing this B S on climate change!
I know of some fossils that would have been nice to drop on these idiots.
Pity we can’t drop THEM INTO a fossil!
but we can drop them n the middle of the ocean, that is, if we have the guts to.
If these climate change activists want to blame fossil fuels for all the changes to our environment, how do they account for the end of the Ice Age and the retreat of glaciers, long before man developed machines and the fuels to operate them?
these fools need to get a life and a dam job.
WOULD YOU hire one of these fools??
If these irrational protestors would be responsible citizens, they would be too busy working at their jobs to have time to spend a whole week protesting at the Capital. Another consequence of our corrupt federal Government paying people not to go to work!
And more than 600 people arrested during the protests proves that many of them were not intent on have a “peaceful protest.” This is what you can expect from people who are for the most part, a very Godless group of people. They believe they have more to do with controlling the climate than God does. (or that there is no God at all) It is a form of believing that every person is their own “god,” and that we can actually take control over things that God never intended mankind to try to control.
What we need is a do not supply list. If you protest fossil fuels, you should be made to put your actions where your loud moth is. Bar them from purchasing gasoline, CNG, and electricity generated from fossil fuels. that includes recharging from charging stations powered by electricity from fossil fueled plants. Run their homes and transportation from solar panels and windmills.
AND force them to ONLY eat what they can GROW themselves, as they can’t shop in evil stores that use gas guzzling vehicles to ship food…