Climate Activists Block Traffic with Sailboat in Middle of Washington DC Intersection

Climate change activists pushed a small sailboat in the middle of a busy intersection in downtown Washington, D.C., Monday, September 23, drawing attention to a U.N. Climate Summit that will be attended by leaders from about 60 countries.

The city-wide protest, called Shut Down DC, was aimed to pressure U.S. government workers to participate in international climate negotiations, said Kaela Bamberger, a spokeswoman for Extinction Rebellion, D.C.

President Donald Trump, who is not scheduled to attend the U.N. climate meeting on Monday and is pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris accord, has rolled back Obama-era rules on emission cuts and wants to maximize U.S. energy output.

Monday's protest also seeks to support the strikes of Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who traveled to New York in a sailboat and is participating in the U.N. summit.

[themaxdg]

What good does blocking traffic do? You're just making the cars take another route and burning more gas!

[awesomejb]

And mean while in LA a huge group of people have already cleaned up tons of garbage from the streets. 😀😀💪💪

[Chris-yypj]

Who knew idling engines helped the environment

[dw]

How much fuel did it take to:
Lift that out of the water?
Drive to get trailer?
Drive to get to city, with tripled weight load?
Drive through city?
Drive to get back to water?
Drive to return trailer?

[Rberg]

This is why you should have your mental health checked regularly

[BonnieSumo]

How about protesting outside the Chinese and Indian governments instead of stopping working class people getting to work.

[m]

Isn't blocking traffic bad for the environment? They have to travel farther and the cars are idling.

[MB-jtgs]

Damn, that boat caught a lot of land whales.

[crucialfarmsurbanandfresh]

These people in the street aren't helping anything or anyone. Lol

[eskimocommotion]

That says it right there! These people would rally for just about anything.

[dustylense]

nothing like stopping running cars to clean the environment.

[turkeytrailhoneybeefarmgeo]

They should take the boat to pick up plastic out of the bay. Or just pick up what they threw down so it doesn't end up in the bay.

[jacknemo]

How do they have the right to impede other citizens going about their business. Just ram the blockade, they die, then they die.

[WuFluChan]

They pulled the boat there with an electric truck right????

[TheNecessaryEvil]

Surprised they don't say, hands up don't pollute 🙄

[kurumauzamaki]

Isn’t this gonna cause more pollution the cars are being stopped keeping them running when they could go to work after a period of time and be turned off

[rasubosu]

Seems like Imagination land is running rampant

[JohnBrown-trzg]

They got arrested for substantial disruption. Not for protesting . Just so everyone is clear

[blipsmann]

I wonder how many plastic bottles you throw out of that thing in the middle of the ocean when they are no cameras around to feed your

[eskimocommotion]

The big picture is these people legally kidnapped every person they physically restrained by impeding traffic! The may not have put hands on anybody but they did hold them against their will.