Charles Darwin’s grave painted with dire environmental warning: ‘1.5 is dead’
By Issy Ronald, CNN
London (CNN) — Environmental activists in the UK painted Charles Darwin’s grave in Westminster Abbey on Monday with the words “1.5 is dead,” referencing the critical climate threshold that the world temporarily passed in 2024.
The two Just Stop Oil activists entered London’s Westminster Abbey, where Darwin is buried alongside some of Britain’s most famous figures, at around 10 a.m. local time, according to London’s Metropolitan Police and a statement from the group.
There, the activists said: “We have passed the 1.5 degree threshold that was supposed to keep us safe. Millions are being displaced, California is on fire and we have lost three quarters of all wildlife since the 1970’s,” according to the Just Stop Oil statement.
Scientists confirmed last week that 2024 was the hottest year on record and the first calendar year to pass a crucial climate goal — the pledge to restrict global warming to within 1.5 degrees above average temperatures before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels.
Last year was 1.6 degrees Celsius hotter, according to new data released on Friday by Europe’s climate monitory agency Copernicus.
Scientists are more concerned with breaching 1.5 degrees over decades, rather than individual years, as above this level humans and ecosystems struggle to adapt. But they say the 2024 record is another alarming sign of where the planet is heading.
The protestors also referred to the biodiversity crisis.
“Darwin would be turning in his grave to know we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction,” said the activists, who are demanding that the UK government works to phase out the extraction and burning of fossil fuels by 2030.
Some scientists say we’ve entered a sixth mass extinction, with huge numbers of species being wiped out in a crisis driven by humans, who have destroyed habitats and unleashed a climate crisis.
Pictures released by Just Stop Oil showed two protestors – a 66-year-old and a 77-year-old – sitting cross-legged on the floor near Darwin’s grave, which Just Stop Oil said they had painted with spray chalk, a type of washable, non-toxic material.
Met Police told CNN that two women had been arrested on “suspicion of causing criminal damage with what is believed to be powdered paint at Westminster Abbey.”
Just Stop Oil have staged several protests in response to the climate crisis in recent years, including throwing tomato soup over Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” and spraying orange powder paint onto Britain’s most famous prehistoric structure, Stonehenge.
There have been more than 3,000 Just Stop Oil activist arrests since the group formed in 2022, according to the group. Most of those arrests have been for planning or carrying out direct actions, including slow marching – a tactic usually used to block traffic. Other activists, who have defaced famous artworks and buildings, have been arrested and charged with criminal damage and trespassing.
In September 2024, five Just Stop Oil activists received what are believed to be the longest in the UK’s history for non-violent protest.
CNN’s Kara Fox and Laura Paddison contributed reporting.
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