- Climate protestors were dragged out of the New York International Auto Show after pouring liquid on the floor and onto an electric Ford F-150 Lightning.
- The group behind the action, Extinction Rebellion, says that EVs don’t do enough to avert a climate disaster.
- The group claims it is not protesting automotive enthusiasts but, instead, the infrastructure decisions that mean millions of Americans have no choice but to buy cars and drive.
Members of the climate activism group Extinction Rebellion were forcibly removed from the 2024 New York International Auto Show this weekend, after pouring what appears to be oil on an electric vehicle, as well as the show floor, while shouting that there are “no EVs on a dead planet.”
The protestors stepped in front of an all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning modified to tackle off-road conditions. The pickup truck had just been rolled out in front of a crowd of people as the auto show opened to the public. While it may seem counterintuitive, the group said it wasn’t protesting automotive enthusiasts, but rather the EV industry.
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“We are not protesting car lovers, we are protesting car dependence,” said Mark Graham, an Extinction Rebellion activist who participated in the action. “The vast majority of auto-based emissions, during both production and use, are caused not by people who want to drive, but by those who have no choice but to drive.”
The group claims that EVs don’t address the fundamental problems of the transportation industry, and replaces one wasteful means of transportation with another. Extinction Rebellion claims that manufacturing EVs still requires enormous amounts of natural resources like steel, the production of which is responsible for 11 percent of global CO2 emissions.
While some automakers are investing in green steel, progress is slow. The group also claimed that EVs are more carbon intensive to produce than traditional vehicles, which is true, but many analyses of lifetime emissions show that EVs are much better for the planet than internal combustion vehicles over the long term. Despite that, Extinction Rebellion representatives allege that a shift to EVs would fail to address the climate emergency we face.
“Electric vehicles don’t solve the real problem with cars: wastefully large infrastructure, needlessly complex and resource-intensive construction, and energy inefficiency, even in the case of electric cars,” said Miles Grant, an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson. “Electric vehicles are a popular investment because they don’t disrupt the status quo.”
As a result, the group wants discussions about environmental improvement to include smaller, greener vehicles, and public transportation. CBS reports that the same group protested a performance of the Henrik Ibsen play, “An Enemy Of The People,” on Broadway this month. The play focuses on a man who exposes an unpalatable truth publicly, and is punished for it.