Climate Change Activists Spray Stonehenge Orange

Two protesters connected with environmental activist groupJust Stop Oilwere arrested on June 19 aftersprayingEngland’s Stonehenge orange. Niamh Lynch, 21 and a student at Oxford, and Rajan Naidu, 73, of Birmingham, defaced the World Heritage Site in an effort to secure from England’s next government a “legally binding treaty to phase out fossil fuels by 2030.” The action took place two days ahead of the summer solstice, when many visitors flock to the rocky megaliths, and ahead of the UK’s July 4 general election.

“Either we end the fossil fuel era, or the fossil fuel era will end us,” said Naidu in astatementposted to the social media platform X by Just Stop Oil. “Just as fifty years ago, when the world used international treaties to defuse the threats posed by nuclear weapons, today the world needs a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to phase out fossil fuels and to support dependent economies, workers and communities to move away from oil, gas and coal.”

Naidufurther notedthat “the orange cornflour we used to create an eye-catching spectacle will soon wash away with the rain, but the urgent need for effective government action to mitigate the catastrophic consequences of the climate and ecological crisis will not. Sign the treaty!”

Speaking to theBBC, archaeologist and Stonehenge expert Mike Pitts explained that the ancient structures “are sensitive and they are completely covered in prehistoric markings which remain to be fully studied and any surface damage to the stones is hugely concerning.” English Heritage, the organization responsible for caring for Stonehenge, has said it is examining the monument for damage.

Lynch and Naidu were apprehended after two bystanders engaged with them in an attempt to stop the action. UK prime minister Rishi Sunak decried their actions as “disgraceful” while Labour leader Keir Starmer, with whom Sunak will face off in the upcoming election condemned Just Stop Oil as “pathetic.” Energy secretary Claire Coutinho accused the Labour party of projecting “faux outrage.”

Just Stop Oil said that the orange cornstarch will dissolve in the rain. The organization—like Riposte Alimentaire, whichmade headlinesthis past January when two of its members drenched the Mona Lisa with soup at the Louvre—is part of theA22 Network, which seeks to halt climate change through peaceful civil resistance.