August 1, 2023

Environmental, climate, and vegan activists make their headlines by interrupting the public’s movement and events. Lately, activists are gluing themselves to UK, European, and Australian pedestrian crossings, roads, and runways.

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On Piers Morgan Uncensored, June 28, 2023, Just Stop Oil Activist Chloe Naldrett insisted disruptive actions are necessary because of “climate emergency.”

For today’s activists, an “action” means intentionally disrupting transportation or public festivities (sports events, theater productions, shopping, restaurant dining). I wonder how they’d react to the news that stopping traffic was originally conceived as a way to discredit, not communicate, an environmental message.

Decades ago, environmental activists didn’t inconvenience the public for attention. Banners were hung off buildings. Activists organized marches and gatherings, applying for permits to use public streets or parks. Groups printed and distributed leaflets, published magazines, and hired lobbyists. Even when environmental extremists spiked trees, endangering logger and sawmill workers, these sinister acts didn’t inconvenience the public.

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Change began as the 1980s ended. By spring 1989, “stopping traffic” was morphing from a synonym for attracting public attention to a method (eventually the method) for demanding public attention.

During summer, 1988, raw sewage and medical waste, nicknamed the Syringe Tide, regularly befouled New Jersey and Long Island beaches. After investigation, a New York State report offered no explanation for muck on miles of beaches, and suggested sewer runoff, illegal dumping, and unspecified other sources.

The state report didn’t mention routine disposal of New York City’s sewage. The sanitation department loaded untreated sewer contents into barges that emptied the waste into the Atlantic Ocean. Unlike previous dumpsites, where the waste stayed offshore, the new 1988 dumpsite allowed ocean currents to deposit the sewage on large stretches of shoreline.

An activist for Greenpeace, a born New Yorker named Kenny Bruno, came up with a plan. A daring and theatrical stunt would focus public attention to the actual cause and shame the city into addressing the issue. Key to Kenny’s plan was that, among the six bridges crossing the East River (where barges were loaded and dispatched), the Triborough Bridge had a unique architecture, with car and foot traffic on entirely separate decks.

A group of 13 activists would rappel from the bridge’s pedestrian deck, be highly visible from multiple points in the city, cause no obstruction to vehicle traffic, and could lower themselves to the water level to prevent the next scheduled sewage barge from traveling down the East River.

On the afternoon of Sept. 15, 1988, activists (half would rappel and half guard the ropes), walked up the pedestrian deck and got to work. The rappel team were up and over quickly, and securely in place before the first police arrived (since evening rush hour was just beginning, this took a while). In Astoria’s streets, word quickly spread — “there’s people on the bridge!”