It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, July 19, 2022
XR protesters smash windows of News UK over coverage of Britain’s heatwave
Activists target London HQ of Rupert Murdoch’s media company after UK weather treated as upbeat story
Extinction Rebellion protesters after cracking windows at News UK. Photograph: Denise Laura Baker
Extinction Rebellion protesters have smashed windows at the London headquarters of Rupert Murdoch’s media company, in protest at his outlets’ coverage of the climate crisis.
Activists targeted the News UK building next to London Bridge station early on Tuesday morning, destroying glass panels and putting up posters reading “tell the truth” and “40 degrees = death” next to the entrance used by journalists at the Sun and the Times.
Extinction Rebellion said it was taking nonviolent action to highlight the way that the record-breaking heat in the UK was being treated as an upbeat story in parts of the media.
A spokesperson said: “Instead of warning readers of the increased risks from such heatwaves as the climate crisis intensifies, the Sun chose to cover their front pages in images of women in bikinis, beachgoers and happy toddlers with ice-creams.”
They also criticised Monday’s front-page headline in the Daily Express, owned by rival newspaper publisher Reach. It featured the words “It’s not the end of the world! Just stay cool and carry on …” over a picture of the union flag.
Extinction Rebellion protesters have previously held protest marches outside the News UK building. In 2020, they also successfully blocked printing presses used by Murdoch’s News UK and other newspapers, disrupting distribution of titles such as the Times and the Sun.
Some journalists at News UK pointed out that they have regularly covered the extent to which the climate is changing due to human influence, including in front page articles in recent weeks.
Climate change has been a contentious topic within Rupert Murdoch family, with his son James issuing a strongly worded statement in 2020 criticising “ongoing denial” among the company’s Australian outlets about the impact of climate change.
Murdoch’s other global media interests have adopted more stridently sceptical positions on the climate crisis. They include the Fox News channel in the US, as well as Sky News Australia and numerous newspapers in his native country.
On the hottest day in UK history Extinction Rebellion protesters stencil slogans on the walls of News UK. Photograph: Denise Laura Baker
Caspar Hughes, one of the Extinction Rebellion protesters, blamed the power of a small group of rightwing newspaper owners over British climate policy: “The biggest issue stopping government, business and civil society from responding sensibly to the climate and ecological crises is the billionaire owned media. If Murdoch, Rothermere and Dacre supported net zero Policy the rest of us would follow suit.
“Currently they are key destroyers of what little hope we have left to secure a safe, secure future for ourselves and our children. It is long past time for them to bring their power to bear as we try to stop our civilisation from collapsing in the coming decades.”
CLIMATE CHANGE; HERE AND NOW
UK breaches 40C for first time, heat records tumble in France
Western Europe continues to sweat under an intense heatwave: the mercury is rising on heat records across the region, Britain reaching 40C for the first time on Tuesday.
A punishing heatwave fuelling ferocious wildfires in western Europe pushed temperatures in Britain over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time on Tuesday and regional heat records tumbled elsewhere.
After the UK's warmest night on record, the Met Office said a new high of 40.3C had been recorded at Coningsby in eastern England.
At least 29 locations in Britain beat the previous record of 38.7C set in Cambridge, eastern England, in 2019.
Experts blamed climate change for the soaring temperatures – and warned that worse is yet to come.
"They (heatwaves) are becoming more frequent and this negative trend will continue... at least until the 2060s, independent of our success in climate mitigation efforts," UN World Meteorological Organisation chief Petteri Taalas told reporters in Geneva.
"In the future these kinds of heatwaves are going to be normal, and we will see even stronger extremes."
The high temperatures have triggered an unprecedented red alert in much of England, where some rail lines were closed as a precaution and schools shuttered in some areas.
Grassland fires erupted on the edge of London, threatening nearby houses.
Meanwhile, all trains were cancelled from usually busy Kings Cross station, leaving many travellers stranded.
"It's a little frustrating," said US tourist Deborah Byrne, trying to reach Scotland.
But with road surfaces and runways melting and fears of rails buckling, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps conceded much of Britain's infrastructure "is just not built for this temperature."
Tim Wainwright, chief executive of the charity WaterAid, said it served as "the wake-up call the world needs to stop climate change from claiming any more lives."
In France, 64 different areas registered record high temperatures on Monday, the national weather service confirmed, most of them along the western Atlantic coast where temperatures also soared above 40C.
But the all-time high for mainland France, set in 2019 near Montpellier, of 46C did not appear under threat this week.
The heatwave – the second to engulf parts of Europe in recent weeks – has contributed to deadly wildfires in France, Greece, Portugal and Spain, destroying vast tracts of land.
Firefighters in France's southwest were still struggling to contain two massive fires that have caused widespread destruction and forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes.
Nearly 1,700 firefighters from all over the country, supported by significant air resources, are battling the two blazes that have so far burned more than 19,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of forest. 'Heartbreaking'
"It's heartbreaking," said Patrick Davet, mayor of La Teste-de-Buch, the site of one inferno which has prompted mass evacuations.
"Economically, it's going to be very difficult for them and very difficult for the town because we are a tourist town, and we need the (tourist) season."
In Brittany's Finistere region, hundreds of firefighters, specialised vehicles and waterbombing aircraft were tackling blazes.
In Greece, authorities called on residents in nine villages to evacuate out of the path of a fire north of Athens.
The Greek fire department said that, in the past 24 hours, it had dealt with 39 fire outbreaks across the country.
In Spain – nearly 10 days into the latest heatwave – more than a dozen fires continued to rage Tuesday, including in the northwest province of Zamora, which already experienced a huge fire last month.
Known as one of the largest wolf reserves in Europe, it saw nearly 30,000 hectares of land reduced to ashes during the June blaze.
Nearly 6,000 people had to be evacuated from there this week after flames destroyed several thousand hectares of meadows and forests, regional authorities said.
Rail traffic between Madrid and Galicia, in the northwest, remained suspended after fires on either side of the tracks.
Several people have died in recent days due to the blazes while separately, an office worker in his 50s died from heatstroke in Madrid.
In Portugal, nearly 2,000 firefighters were tackling fires in the centre and north of the country, buffeted by strong winds and a rise in temperature.
A forest fire in the Vila Real region in the far north of Portugal involved more than 800 firefighters and saw three villages evacuated.
Murca mayor Mario Artur Lopes said the fire, which began on Sunday, has devastated between 10,000 and 12,000 hectares of forest.
Wildfires in Portugal had already killed two other people and injured around 60.
'Major losses'
Elsewhere, the Netherlands recorded its third-highest temperature since records began -- 39.4C in the southern city of Maastricht, public broadcaster NOA said, quoting the national meteorological office.
Dutch authorities spread roads with salt in some areas to prevent the asphalt from melting and being damaged by the weight of vehicles.
In Amsterdam, council workers sprayed bridges over the famed canals with water to keep them cool, amid fears that steel in the structures could expand and prevent them opening to let boats pass.
Car parks at the beach in Scheveningen, near The Hague, were full by midday, and hundreds of beachgoers sheltered under the pier to escape the sun.
"It's just like a holiday in Majorca," said Norwegian tourist Ane Herber, 25.
In neighbouring Belgium, big state-run museums, primarily in Brussels, took the unusual step of offering free access Tuesday to over-65s to help them stay cool.
Two nuclear reactors located near Antwerp had to reduce their production power by more than half in order to limit the temperature of water discharged into nearby rivers.
In Germany, the hot summer so far has raised fears of drought, with the German Farmers' Association president warning of "major losses" in food production.
Henning Christ, who grows wheat and other crops in Brandenburg state, told AFP his farm was 20 percent below its average annual yield.
"We've had almost no rain for months, coupled with high temperatures," he said.
"We have become used to drought and dry periods to some extent, but this year has been very unusual."
by AFP / Joe Jackson
Flights halted out of UK air base after runway melts due to heat wave
Zach Schonfeld Mon, July 18, 2022
Scorching heat in Britain led officials to shut down runways at an air base and a commercial airport in London on Monday.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) halted flights to its Brize Norton Base, located about 75 miles northwest of London in Oxfordshire, while London Luton Airport also announced it would also temporarily suspend flights.
“During this period of extreme temperature flight safety remains the RAF’s top priority, so aircraft are using alternative airfields in line with a long-established plan,” the Royal Air Force said in a statement. “This means there is no impact on RAF operations.”
At London Luton Airport, which largely serves low-cost carriers, airport officials said they identified a “surface defect” on the airport’s lone runway.
“Flights are temporarily suspended to allow for an essential runway repair after high surface temperatures caused a small section to lift,” the airport said in a statement.
Although the runway defects have only affected a small number of airports, the shakeup comes amid a turbulent moment for the airline industry.
This summer has seen a resurgence in demand for air travel, leaving airlines scrambling after cutting back on their staffing levels during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The situation has become particularly dire in Europe, where many workers have gone on strike and some airports have trimmed flight schedules. London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports were among some of the airports who recently asked airlines to cap their flight numbers.
France fires map: Where the French wildfires have hit as blazes also spread in Spain and Portugal
Temperatures have soared into the mid-40s in some regions, with wildfires raging across tinder-dry countryside in Portugal, Spain and France
The heat has caused hundreds of deaths, and the fires have devastated hundreds of thousands of acres
The heatwave is expected to spread to Germany and Belgium in the coming days.
Where are the wildfires in France?
In France, wildfires had spread over 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) in the south-western region of Gironde.
More than 14,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, regional authorities said on Sunday afternoon, and officials have announced plans to evacuate an additional 3,500 people from towns threatened by raging flames.
A map of the wildfires in France, Spain and Portugal
Around 1,200 firefighters were trying to control the blazes, the authorities said in a statement.
The French Government issued red alerts, the highest possible, for several regions, with residents urged “to be extremely vigilant”.
Lieutenant-Colonel Olivier Chavatte, from Gironde’s fire and rescue service, said firefighters faced a “Herculean job” to control the blazes.
Meanwhile, authorities in the French Alps have urged climbers bound for Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain, to postpone their trips due to repeated rock falls caused by “exceptional climatic conditions” and drought.
What about the rest of Europe?
Almost 600 heat-related deaths have been reported in Spain and Portugal, where temperatures reached 47ºC last week.
With fires burning thousands of hectares in Galicia, Castille and Leon, Catalonia, Extremadura and Andalusia, Spain mourned the death of one firefighter in the north-western province of Zamora on Sunday evening. Almost the entire country faces a extreme fire risk.
“There are never words to thank the immense work of those who fight the fires tirelessly,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Sunday night in a message of condolence via Twitter.
More than 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) have burnt in Spain so far this year, the worst year of the past decade, according to official data.
Last month, a huge wildfire in Sierra de la Culebra, Castille and Leon, ravaged about 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of land.
More than 1,000 firefighters, backed by 285 vehicles and 14 aircraft, were battling nine ongoing wildfires, mainly in the country’s northern regions, authorities said.
'Apocalypse': Hundreds dead as extreme heat wave broils Europe; UK could break record
Doyle Rice Wales reported its hottest temperature on record Monday of 95.5 degrees.
British authorities have described the heat wave as a "national emergency."
In France, heat records were broken and swirling hot winds complicated firefighting in the country’s southwest.
An extreme heat wave that meteorologists call an "apocalypse" broiled much of Europe and the United Kingdom on Monday, and hundreds of people died because of record high temperatures and ferocious wildfires.
At least 748 heat-related deaths have been reported in the heat wave in Spain and neighboring Portugal, where temperatures reached 117 degrees this month.
Wales reported its hottest temperature on record Monday of 95.5 degrees, the U.K. Met Office said.
All-time heat in Britain?
The U.K.'s high-temperature record is in jeopardy this week, AccuWeather said. The record stands at 102 degrees from the Cambridge Botanic Garden on July 25, 2019. Although that record was not broken Monday, it could be surpassed Tuesday, meteorologists said.
British authorities described the heat wave as a "national emergency" and portions of the nation are under an “extreme” heat warning for the first time.
In Britain and most of Europe, few homes, apartments, schools or small businesses have air conditioning, making residents vulnerable.
"Extreme heat can be dangerous to human health," said Eunice Lo, a climate scientist at the University of Bristol. "On average, about 2,000 extra deaths in England are related to heat waves each year. It is important to stay hydrated, stay indoors or under shade and check on friends and family during a heat wave."
At least four people were reported to have drowned across the U.K. in rivers, lakes and reservoirs while trying to cool off.
The high temperatures affected airfields in Britain. London’s Luton Airport, which serves mostly low-cost airlines with flights to other countries in Europe, reported a runway defect around 4:30 p.m. local time on Monday afternoon. The airport’s operator said arriving flights were diverted and departures were suspended while repair work was done.
"Following today’s high temperatures, a surface defect was identified on the runway,” Luton Airport said in a statement. “Engineers were called immediately to site and repair works are currently in progress to resume operations as quickly as possible. We would like to apologize for the inconvenience caused.”
The heat is also intense in mostly un-air-conditioned Switzerland, where Geneva resident Michelle Levesque said that in her apartment, her shades are down, the windows are closed, and the fans are on. "It makes me hate summer," she said. "I'm looking forward to September."
The high in Geneva on Monday was a blistering 98 degrees. Unrelenting wildfires
In France, heat records were broken, and swirling hot winds complicated firefighting in the country’s southwest.
“It never stops,” David Brunner, one of 1,500 firefighters battling to control a wildfire in France, told The Guardian. “In 30 years of firefighting, I have never seen a fire like this.”
Authorities evacuated towns, moving 14,900 people Monday from areas that could find themselves in the path of the fires and choking smoke. More than 31,000 people have been forced from their homes and summer vacation spots in the Gironde region of France since the wildfires began July 12.
Is climate change to blame for the heat wave?
Scientists said heat waves are more intense, more frequent and longer because of climate change.
“Climate change is driving this heat wave, just as it is driving every heat wave now," said Friederike Otto, a scientist at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College in London. "Greenhouse gas emissions, from burning fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil, are making heat waves hotter, longer-lasting and more frequent.
"Heat waves that used to be rare are now common; heat waves that used to be impossible are now happening and killing people. We saw this with the Pacific Northwest heat wave last year, which would have been almost impossible without human-caused warming," Otto said.
Contributing: Zach Winter and Claire Thornton, USA TODAY; The Associated Press.
JULY 18, 2022
Climate change's fingerprints on ever hotter heatwaves
As Europe sizzles, experts predict more to come. Increased frequency of heatwaves here to stay, and an undeniable symptom of climate change.
AN AERIAL PICTURE SHOWS THE FALLING WATER LEVEL AT WEIR WOOD RESERVOIR, NEAR CRAWLEY, SOUTHERN ENGLAND ON JULY 17, 2022. THE UK'S METEOROLOGICAL AGENCY ON FRIDAY ISSUED ITS FIRST EVER "RED" WARNING FOR EXCEPTIONAL HEAT, FORECASTING RECORD HIGHS OF 40 DEGREES CELSIUS NEXT WEEK. | AFP/LEAL DANIEL
Hotter, longer, more frequent. Heatwaves such as the one currently roasting much of Europe, or the record-shattering hot spell endured by India and Pakistan in March, are an unmistakable sign of climate change, experts said Monday. CAPITALI$M Humans to blame
"Every heatwave that we are experiencing today has been made hotter and more frequent because of human induced climate change," said Friederike Otto, senior lecturer at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute for Climate Change.
"It's pure physics, we know how greenhouse gas molecules behave, we know there are more in the atmosphere, the atmosphere is getting warmer and that means we are expecting to see more frequent heatwaves and hotter heatwaves."
In recent years, advances in the discipline known as attribution science have allowed climatologists to calculate how much global heating contributes to individual extreme weather events.
The India-Pakistan heatwave, for example, was calculated to have been 30 times more likely with the more than 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming that human activity has caused since the mid-nineteenth century.
The heatwave that shattered records in North America in June 2021, leaving hundreds dead as temperatures soared to 50C in places, would have been virtually impossible without global heating.
And the last major European heatwave, in 2019, was made 3C hotter by climate change.
"The increase in the frequency, duration, and intensity of these events over recent decades is clearly linked to the observed warming of the planet and can be attributed to human activity," the World Meteorological Organisation said in a Monday statement
However unbearable temperatures get this week, scientists are unanimous: there is worse to come.
At 1.5C of warming – the most ambitious Paris climate agreement goal – UN climate scientists calculate that heatwaves will be more than four times more likely than the pre-industrial baseline.
At 2C or warming, that figure reaches 5.6 times more likely, and at 4C heatwaves will be nearly 10 times more likely to occur.
Despite three decades of UN-led negotiations, countries' climate plans currently put Earth on course to warm a "catastrophic" 2.7C, according to the UN.
Matthieu Sorel, a climatologist at Meteo-France, said that climate change was already influencing the frequency and severity of heatwaves.
"We're on the way to hotter and hotter summers, where 35C becomes the norm and 40C will be reached regularly," he said. Danger of death
The heatwaves of the future depend largely on how rapidly the global economy can decarbonise.
The UN's climate science panel has calculated that 14 percent of humanity will be hit with dangerous heat every five years on average with 1.5C of warming, compared with 37 percent at 2C.
"In all of places in the world where we have data there is an increase in mortality risk when we are exposed to high temperatures," said Eunice Lo, a climate scientist at the University of Bristol's Cabot Institute for the Environment.
It's not only the most vulnerable people who are at risk of health impacts from heat, it's even the fit and healthy people who will be at risk."
There is a real risk in future of so-called "wet bulb" temperatures – where heat combines with humidity to create conditions where the human body cannot cool itself via perspiration – breaching lethal levels in many parts of the world.
As well as the imminent threat to human health, heatwaves compound drought and make larger areas vulnerable to wild fires, such as those now raging across parts of France, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Morocco. They also menace the food supply.
India, the world's second-largest wheat producer, chose to ban grain exports after the heatwave impacted harvests, worsening a shortage in some countries prompted by Russia's invasion of key exporter Ukraine.
In Italy, we have long experience of “catastrophes that strike the country” and we also have a certain specialisation in “staging” them. Earthquakes, volcanic ...
Why do Britain’s roads melt and its rails buckle in heat?
Some countries have designed their transport infrastructure for wider extremes of weather – but that comes at a cost
Stranded passengers wait at Alnmouth station, Northumberland, on Monday after rail failure caused by the heatwave. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock
Extreme temperatures have led to widespread problems and disruption on Britain’s railways, with trains running at slow speeds and mainlines closed. Airport runways and some roads have also shown they can be susceptible to heat.
Railways
Steel rails expand and tend to buckle in the heat – whatever the climate. According to Network Rail, railways worldwide are designed to operate within a 45C (113F) range, according to the local conditions. In the UK, steel rails are “pre-stressed” to summer temperatures of 27C, whereas in countries with hotter climates, rails are pre-stressed to higher temperatures.
Sleepers and ballast must keep the rails in place in the British winter and summer. When the temperature hits 40C, rails can reach 60C and expand and buckle. A train travelling fast over rails can hasten that process through the heat caused by friction, and could be in more danger should buckling occur – hence the widespread speed restrictions.
The overhead wires on electrified routes also expand and sag in the heat, and contract in cold weather. Engineers have solutions, with the tension automatically mitigated by a pulley system. But eventually the counterweights hit the ground and wires sag – making them more likely to be tangled in a pantograph, the device on top of the train that draws power from the lines.
Roads
Motorways and strategic roads are built with modified asphalt surfaces that – so far – should not start melting, being resilient past 60C, or an equivalent air temperature of 40C, according to National Highways. However, basic asphalt materials used on local roads – the vast majority – can start to soften at temperatures of 50C. At that point, Prof Xiangming Zhou, the head of civil and environmental engineering at Brunel University, says: “The road can get soft and greasy, and it is difficult for cars to brake.” This is why councils have put gritting lorries, more usually employed in icy weather, on standby to coat roads in sand and dust. Tarmac and asphalt are cheaper and less abrasive to tyres than some materials, he says, but as they are black they tend to heat more quickly in baking sun
About 4% of Britain’s roads are built from concrete, which is more popular abroad for highways and motorways and can be more resilient, but is not immune to problems of extreme temperatures, as the closure of the A14 shows. The dual carriageway near Cambridge had been built with asphalt over old concrete slabs that expanded and buckled in the heat, creating a bump sufficient to close the road overnight for emergency repairs.
Rick Green, the chair of the Asphalt Industry Alliance, says that for a road to cope with all temperatures is “a significant challenge for design engineers”. In extremely high temperatures the surface “doesn’t melt, but the bitumen in it can soften”, “heightening the risk of deformation”.
Airport runways
Again, some can be concrete – but Luton’s asphalt was the problem once temperatures soared into the mid-30s, says Zhou. In the airport’s words, “high surface temperatures caused a small section to lift” – a buckle in the runway that engineers fixed within hours, but that still caused major disruption to passengers. Whereas local roads are often shaded by trees and houses, runways are fully exposed and under further heat stress from aircraft landing and taking off. Repairs and maintenance are frequent.
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Heathrow, which was even hotter than Luton on Monday, also had a runway issue last week, when overnight repair work did not finish in time for planes to land. However, it has two runways and was not forced to stop operations.
So what is the solution?
Network Rail is already spending hundreds of millions of pounds annually on climate change mitigation. Most of it, however, is to counteract erosion or damage through rainfall or storms. Future infrastructure could be gauged to a warmer climate – but then it could be more prone to failure and cracking in cold winter weather when rails contract. Some track materials, such as concrete sleepers, are more resilient at broader ranges of temperature and conditions – and significantly more expensive.
Rails are already painted white in critical spots to combat heat. Countries with extremes of weather carry out much wider seasonal adjustments to track, which is time-consuming and costly. Air-conditioning was not a standard feature of older trains still running. Resilience will become an economic and political choice – and it may be that a few days of outages for heat each year is seen as preferable to the bill for modifications.
AOC and Other Lawmakers Arrested for Supreme Court Protest
‘STAY TUNED’
At least 16 Democratic lawmakers were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police for “blocking traffic” during an abortion rights demonstration outside the Supreme Court.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and over a dozen other Democratic lawmakers were arrested on Tuesday by U.S. Capitol Police for participating in an abortion rights protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to the Capitol Police, the protesters were breaking the law by blocking traffic and were given several warnings. When demonstrators did not heed the warnings and refused to leave the street, they began making arrests and eventually cleared the demonstration.
According to the department, 34 arrests were made for the local charge of Crowding, Obstructing or Incommoding. The police also noted that 16 members of Congress were included in the arrest number. The lawmakers are expected to be released and fined.
When reached for comment, the Capitol Police told The Daily Beast they would tweet out all the info on the arrests and encouraged “the press to reach out to a Member’s office for any comments about a Member of Congress.” Outside of Ocasio-Cortez, who has been outspoken about protesting against the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that overturned the federal right to abortion, other progressive members of the so-called Squad were also detained by police following the demonstration. A member of Rep. Cori Bush’s office posted a video of the Missouri lawmaker getting led away by police alongside Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
“St. Louis sent me to Congress to do everything in my power to protect our rights and improve our lives. That’s why I’m fighting with everything I’ve got for my community,” Bush later said in a statement, adding: “Today was not the first day I’ve put my body on the line for our freedom, and I’m willing to do it again. As I’ve said before, we need to be doing everything in our power to secure reproductive justice and access to abortion.”
Omar also shared a video of her arrest on Twitter, which she described as taking place “while participating in a civil disobedience action with” her fellow lawmakers.
“I will continue to do everything in my power to raise the alarm about the assault on our reproductive rights!” she added with an emoji of a raised fist.
“Civil disobedience has always been part of our history and fight for change. This moment and the fight for women’s and reproductive rights calls for it,” Tlaib declared in a statement. “The fight is far from over and we must push forward with bold action to protect and preserve our rights. We won’t back down.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s office also posted a video of the New York congresswoman being arrested and led away by law enforcement, noting that she was “protesting in support of abortion rights.” Other arrested members of Congress, according to reporters on the scene, included Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), assistant House Speaker Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), and Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), among others.
The Center for Popular Democracy Action, which held the civil disobedience action alongside the lawmakers, noted that over 150 protesters took part in the demonstration.
“Today, the CPDA network and Democratic members of Congress sent a powerful message to Republican lawmakers and SCOTUS: we will not back down,” said CPDA Co-Executive Director Analilia Mejia said.
Protesters arrested outside the Supreme Court were taken to an outside containment unit nearby, which featured a green-bandana-clad Levin telling the press that the Senate filibuster should be abolished so that Roe v. Wade could be codified.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), another lawmaker who was arrested, told Axios after the protest that there “is no democracy if women do not have control over their own bodies and decisions about their own health, including reproductive care.”
Speier, meanwhile, suggested that Democratic lawmakers could take part in additional demonstrations. “Stay tuned,” she said.
