Furious commuters clashed with a group of climate activists blocking traffic on a highway in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.
The protest was organized by Declare Emergency, a climate group that believes “billions of people will starve to death in the coming decades” unless the world stops using fossil fuels. “We still have two to three years in which we can avert the worst consequences of the climate catastrophe,” the group’s website states.
The climate activists have taken to blocking traffic in hopes of pressuring the Biden administration to declare a state of climate emergency.
On Saturday morning, the group staged their third traffic block in Washington, D.C., within a week, the New York Post reported.
Angry motorists raged at the protesters, yelling at them to move and ripping signs from their hands.
A male driver shouted, “I want to go to work!”
A female commuter yelled, “Get the f*** out of here! We have to go to f***ing work! We’ve got kids to feed!”
Other motorists attempted to reason with the climate activists, pleading with them to relocate their protest elsewhere.
“You guys aren’t going to get people to join you like this,” one driver stated. “We’ve got places to go.”
A nearly 20-minute video posted by News2Share captured the tense interaction. Eventually, police arrived at the scene and gave the protesters one warning to disperse. The activists were then arrested, clearing the roadway for commuters.
“We just want President Biden to declare a state of climate emergency before it’s too late, before there’s nothing that any of us can do to stop the carbon emissions from destroying our planet, from destroying our human race, from destroying countless other species upon this planet,” one of the protesters told News2Share.
Declare Emergency posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, stating, “For us, this was a great way to honor the legacy of Dr. King and to carry on his tradition of disruptive, nonviolent civil disobedience!”
According to the group, getting arrested “is an important strategy of historical nonviolence movements that demanded system change from their governments.”
“Every time the state imprisons us for nonviolently demanding a livable future, we win a moral battle. The more the state oppresses those asking for the right to live in a sustainable world, the less tenable its moral stance becomes in the eyes of the greater public,” the group said.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!