Say “businesses, CEOs and shareholders should pay for climate transition”
Climáximo, Portugal’s equivalent to England’s Extinction Rebellion, has cemented up various holes on the Paço do Lumiar golf course, in Lisbon.
The reason? It believes the course is used by the top brass of big business, which, in its opinion, should be paying for the ‘energetic transition’.
The vandalism took place overnight, with the ‘invaders’ leaving flags wedged into their handiwork, with the message“disarm the weapons”.
According to reports, ‘the weapons’ in this context are identified on the flags as airplanes.
Climáximo’s efforts to disrupt in the name of trying to ‘save the world before it’s too late’ have been coming thick and fast over the last few days, with various members now facing criminal charges over various stunts.
Observador remarks that last night’s “action” is a repeat of a protest organised by Climáximo in Oeiras in July. At the time, supporters of the collective also entered a golf course and covered the holes with cement, criticising the “unequal access to water and the increased responsibility of the upper class for the climate crisis“.
Today, the group’s post over social media explains: “These spaces (golf courses), inside cities, instead of being converted into forests, homes, urban allotments or other kind of public use, serve for the luxury of the rich, at the cost of an absurd quantity of water”.
This statement needs challenging, as golf courses in the 21st century are, on the whole, ahead of the curve when it comes to water conservation.
But that detail clearly does not fit with Climáximo’s narrative in which golf courses are synonymous with economic groups destroying the planet.
Say reports in the media, “for the group, golf courses are an ivory tower where those guilty of these crises hide while the population suffers from drought and heatwaves”.
It is unclear what support Climáximo has outside of its inner circle. Certainly, the country’s environmental NGOs have distanced themselves from recent activity. Even comments on the group’s own Facebook page see them being told they are vandals; that they are shaming their parents and their country and “should get a job”…
