Climate Activists Blocking Highway Prevent Man From Getting To Hospital

A group of climate activists walked onto a busy highway in Washington, D.C., bringing rush-hour traffic to a halt and preventing a man from being with his wife as she gave birth.

The activists said they were blocking traffic on I-395 Wednesday morning in an effort to convince President Joe Biden to declare a “climate emergency,” according to a video taken by journalist Ford Fischer. The group has successfully blocked the highway on two other occasions over the past two weeks, Fischer tweeted.

THREAD: This morning during rush hour, climate activists once again blocked I-395, their third time doing so in two weeks.

They hoped to draw attention to climate change and encourage President Biden to declare a "climate emergency." pic.twitter.com/bIRkfOTBEf

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) April 13, 2022

“We are asking President Biden to declare a climate emergency and to stop all extraction on federal and indigenous land,” Jon, one of the protesters, told Fischer as he refused to get off the highway.

“We have a brief and rapidly closing window to address the climate crisis,” he added. “The government isn’t listening.” 

The activist added that the Biden administration is acting in contradiction to its climate rhetoric by recently encouraging new oil drilling. The White House, though, has repeated a debunked argument that energy producers can drill for fossil fuels on 9,000 unused leases, rather than hold new lease sales.

Fischer’s video showed the moment when the activists walked onto the highway and were met with angry drivers and the honking of horns as drivers realized what was happening.

One man got out of his car and told the activists that while he agreed with their message, they were preventing him from getting to his wife who was in labor.

“I gotta get to my wife, she’s pregnant. What the f**k?” the man told the protesters, according to the video. “I need to get to her to have my child.”

The man then told the activists to leave the highway and go speak with lawmakers directly. An activist told the man that they were blocking traffic on behalf of the man’s unborn child.

“That’s why we are doing this because we care about everybody,” the unnamed protester said. “It’s really a bad situation. We only have a few years.”

Police officers with the Metropolitan Police Department eventually removed the group from the busy highway, according to additional video of the scene. Three officers were forced to carry one woman off the road.

“This is how women got the vote, this is how civil rights were passed,” one of the protesters told Fischer as his fellow activists were being arrested and put into a police cruiser.