Eco activists Just Stop Oil deface Charles Darwin’s grave in Westminster Abbey in latest fossil fuel protest
13 January 2025, 10:30 | Updated: 13 January 2025, 10:39
Environmental activists have spray painted the grave of Charles Darwin inside Westminster Abbey.
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Two Just Stop oil activists daubed orange paint over Charles Darwin's marble headstone in the nave of the Abbey.
Just Stop oil said that two members of the group "entered Westminster Abbey and proceeded to use spray chalk to write ‘1.5 Is Dead’ on Charles Darwin’s grave.
"This was referencing the news on Friday that the world has exceeded the ‘safe’ 1.5 degree warming limit agreed by world leaders in Paris in 2015," the group added.
Protester Di Bligh, 77, a former CEO of Reading Council, said in a statement: "Darwin once said - ‘It is not the strongest of the species, nor the most intelligent that survives.
"It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works cooperatively against common threats."
Alyson Lee, 66, a retired teaching assistant from Derby, said: “Ten years on from the Paris Agreement, we have already exceeded the so-called safe temperature rise of 1.5 degrees, and are heading for over 3 degrees of warming.
"This rapidly accelerating crisis means huge parts of the world will become unable to support life, resulting in millions of refugees, social collapse and extinction for countless species."
