A pair of bare-chested protestors coated themselves with mud outside the Senate building in Rome on Tuesday to protest the use of fossil fuels and to raise awareness of the dangers of floods caused by climate change. All nine activists present, including the two who smeared mud, were taken into police custody.
This is just the latest in a series of eye-catching events carried out by the Italian branch of Last Generation, an activist group which aims to raise public awareness, so as to convince decision makers to safeguard the environment.
Some of the most recent striking acts include pouring black liquid into the Trevi Fountain in Rome and sticking themselves to the glass enclosing the Botticelli masterpiece “Spring” in the Uffizi Galleries in Florence.
Covering themselves with mud symbolically served the protesters to bring attention to the devastating flooding that occurred in the Emilia-Romagna area of northern Italy last week, where hundreds of mudslides and 21 rivers overran their banks as a result of a significant concentration of downpours over dry ground.
At least 14 people were killed by the flooding, which also devastated farms and businesses, submerged homes and forced 36,000 people to flee their homes.
The floods was supposedly a result of a phenomenon brought on by climate change, which also includes protracted droughts punctuated by intense downpours that can’t be absorbed by dry ground.
