Climate activists vandalise Stonehenge monument

Sub: Economy

Sec: Monetary Policy

Context:

Climate activists from the ‘Just Stop Oil’ group sprayed orange powder on the prehistoric Stonehenge monument, at Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England.
The act occurred a day before the summer solstice, a significant time when crowds gather at the site for rituals.

Details of the events:

The group called for an end to oil and gas burning and extraction by 2030.
Message: “Standing inert for generations works well for stones- not climate policy.”

Stonehenge monument:

Stonehenge, built between 3000 BCE and 1500 BCE, aligns with the sun’s trajectory during solstices, marking its importance for historical rituals.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury.
The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice.
The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds).
Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon.
The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage; the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.

Just Stop Oil:

Launched in 2022, Just Stop Oil describes itself as “a coalition of groups working together to ensure the government commits to halting new fossil fuel licensing and production”.
Led by organisers from climate groups Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain and funded through donations, the group propagates “Non-Violent Direct Action” and asserts non-violent civil resistance as a way to “demand their rights, freedom and justice… use tactics such as strikes, boycotts, mass protests and disruption to withdraw their cooperation from the state”.

Source: TH