Politics

The latest environmentalist madness: blocking flights worldwide

Defaced monuments, defaced canvases, hands stuck to concrete and traffic blocked without warning. The protest of the eco-militants of Ultima Generazione has chosen to raise the bar by targeting the heart of air transport in Europe: Frankfurt airport which, with its 60 million passengers per year (2023 data), represents one of the main hubs of the Old Continent. Transmission belt for both European and international traffic.

Last Generation (Ultima Generazione) decided to take millions of people hostage for a few hours on the morning of Thursday, July 25. A group of militants forced the entrances to Frankfurt airport by positioning themselves along the runways with the – desired – result of forcing the authorities to suspend activity throughout the airport, asking passengers not to show up at least for a while and to check the status of their flights on the websites.

A chain reaction of discomfort that spread throughout Europe. The German police intervened immediately and stopped the demonstrators, but the damage was done. According to the press release Last Generationthe action was timed to ask the Berlin government to “participate in drafting and signing a legally binding international agreement” that would provide for the “global phase-out of oil, gas and coal by 2030.”

Nothing feasible, at least in these terms and with these timings. The only result obtained was the multiplication of delays and inconveniences and a further overcrowding of air traffic in the skies of Germany and Europe to try to guarantee a slow return to normality. Not without surplus pollution. The occupation of the runways of Frankfurt airport follows that of Cologne-Bonn which had forced the suspension of flights for several hours because on that occasion the militants had chosen to stick to a runway, forcing a long and difficult intervention to free the asphalt.

A strategy that doesn’t pay off, but that is very popular with those of Ultima Generazione who have announced a season of blockades in airports around the world. It is the evolution of the protest and civil disobedience actions that have characterized the last few years in a crescendo of dissent from ordinary people. Those who when they book a flight (for work or pleasure) hope to be able to leave without problems, or don’t like to see the works of art and monuments of their cities defaced and who are finding it increasingly difficult to show solidarity with a highly ideologized war whose objectives they understand little and even less the tools used to achieve them.

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