Radical eco-activists targeted Rome’s famed Trevi Fountain on Sunday, turning the waters black with dye to protest the supposed impending doom of climate change.
Several Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) activists dumped buckets of black dye into the 17th-century Trevi Fountain in central Rome in reaction to what they claim to be a connection between climate change and the recent deadly floods in Italy, which claimed the lives of 14 people.
“Financing fossil fuels is killing the future of this country, including its artistic heritage… We are not here to seek your sympathy. We are here to remind you that the disasters we are experiencing and will experience are your responsibility,” Ultima Generazione said.
“It is your responsibility to demand a future, to demand that your money is not given away to the real eco-vandals: the fossil fuel multinationals,” they continued.
One of the participants in the action, 19-year-old Mattia took aim at the government’s subsidies to energy companies, saying: “Our government… continues undaunted to give the fossil industry public funding worth tens of billions of euros every year. We have decided to rebel against those who are sentencing us to death.”
Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri said that luckily there does not appear to be a risk of permanent damage to the world-famous fountain, however, he noted that because it is a water recycling fountain, authorities will be forced to drain and dispose of 300,000 litres of water to get rid of the dye.
Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano said: Attacking monuments by eco-vandals is becoming a tired ritual which, unfortunately, however, has an economic cost for citizens and perhaps even causes damage,” adding that he plans on introducing heavy fines for similar actions.
The eco-radicals were quick to link climate change to the flooding in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy over the past week, which has caused widespread devastation and resulted in the deaths of at least 14 people.
However, what is often ignored by eco-activists and legacy media outlets that fear monger over the allegedly impeding climate crisis is that climate-related deaths, from natural disasters such as flooding, have precipitously fallen over the past century during which time the world was provided with the bountiful and cheap energy that allowed for the fortification against the — now largely forgotten in the first world — harsh and inhospitable nature of the Earth.
As Danish author and president of the Copenhagen Consensus Bjørn Lomborg notes, a century ago — before widespread access to fossil fuels — there were nearly half a million deaths every year as a result of droughts, floods, extreme temperatures, storms, and wildfires and in 2020, the world saw a comparatively low 14,000 natural disaster-related deaths.
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