Hundreds of climate activists shut down D.C. streets on a busy Monday morning in an extension of Sept. 20’s official climate march demanding world leaders take climate change seriously. The “climate rebels” shut down intersections from Capitol Hill to downtown, parts of K Street, Dupont Circle and Connecticut Avenue, as well as Fourth Street and New York Avenue NW.
32 people were arrested throughout the day but were eventually released the same day.
According to The Washington Post, law enforcement noted 15 locations that were blocked at various times, forcing motorists to navigate blockades at some of the city’s busiest intersections. According to Shut Down DC, the organizers of Monday’s “climate rebels” protests, people were asked to flood D.C. streets to bring “the whole city to a gridlocked standstill” as close as possible to the offices of “climate criminals.”
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The protest on Sept. 20, the youth-led climate march, occurred in more than 150 countries ahead of the U.N. climate summit on Monday.
“I think that we were very successful in holding the majority of the blockades people had planned,” Kaela Bamberger, a spokeswoman for the coalition behind the demonstration, told The Post. “We significantly impeded traffic in some of the main areas we were in for about three hours.”
Along with shutting down traffic, “climate rebels” chained themselves to a boat to block the intersection of 16th and K streets NW in downtown Washington, three blocks north of the White House grounds. Police had to use power tools to cut the bonds in the morning.
“I’m doing something that’s right, moral and just,” one of the protestors told a Washington Post reporter. “I’m doing this so I can look my kids in the eye one day.”
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