They were dyeing for attention.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg and dozens of members of the radical Extinction Rebellion group earned a temporary ban from Venice after pouring dye into its iconic Grand Canal, turning its historic waterways bright green.
The vandalism, which risked permanent damage to the beloved UNESCO World Heritage site, was the environmental activist group’s latest stunt protesting climate change, specifically Italy’s opposition to including restrictions on fossil fuels in a deal struck at the COP30 summit in Brazil on Friday.
The group said it also dumped dye into lakes, canals, rivers and fountains in 10 cities around Italy, which it believes somehow will draw attention to what it calls “the massive effects of climate collapse,” the Washington Examiner reported.
After pouring the dye in Venice, the group hung banners reading “Stop Ecocide” from its famous Rialto Bridge spanning the canal and meandered their way flash-mob-style through tourist crowds decked out in red cloaks and veils and being generally creepy.
Italian officials, who slapped Thunberg and her crew of 35 with a 48-hour ban from the City of Canals and a meager $172 fine for their senseless antics, upbraided them for the “disrespectful act towards our city, its history and its fragility.”
Veneto Province Gov. Luca Zaia said the stunt was “a gesture that risks having consequences for the environment,” although the group claimed the dye was non-harmful.
The COP30 summit in Brazil, in which the US is not participating, boosted funding for poor nations to adapt to a warming climate but mostly steered clear from mentioning the role fossil fuels play in increasing global temperatures. European Union Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra called the plan “unacceptable.”
“I am saying it with a heavy heart, but what is now on the table is clearly no deal,” he told reporters.
Last month, Thunberg and her ragtag band of do-gooders took part in an aid flotilla of dozens of vessels which attempted to breach the maritime blockade around the Gaza Strip in protest of Israel’s war on Hamas.
Thunberg and more than 170 participants were intercepted by the Israeli Navy and deported to their home countries.
