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Honk for the Environment
Small but mighty group blocks access to Utah Capitol.
By Peter Holslin
Walking up the hill on State Street toward the Utah Capitol, protesters brought out the banners.
"DECLARE A CLIMATE EMERGENCY."
"GENOCIDE-ECOCIDE."
"ACT NOW."
Usually when activists stage a protest at the Capitol, they'll gather on the south steps. This time, environmentalists mounted their event in front of the Capitol. In the middle of the street. Blocking rush-hour traffic.
Cars honked and motorists screamed just after 4:30 p.m., Sept. 19, as members of the local grassroots groups Civil Riot and Elders Rising—along with a new group, the local chapter of U.K.-based Extinction Rebellion—manned their posts. Dozens of cars were backed up all the way down State, and members traversed the sidewalk, explaining to drivers why they were there. Another member of the group chanted and sang songs.
"When the people rise up, then the powers come down," they sang as cars and SUVs pulled U-turns and drivers screamed insults amid the snarl of stalled traffic stretching down the hill.
I was the only reporter who showed up to cover the protest. Interestingly, I probably wouldn't have been able to even attend if I hadn't walked to the Capitol—if I'd taken a car or a bus to get there, I would've been stuck in traffic and missed the whole thing.
"We're all so concerned about what's happening and we want the governor and all the leaders to declare a climate emergency and start doing what needs to be done," Jill Merritt, a 72-year-old member of Elders Rising, told me. "In 1992, at the Eco Summit in Rio, we allowed the issue to be framed as an environmental issue instead of a human rights issue. What the children are telling us is this has been a human rights issue all along. They have a right to air they can breathe and water they can drink, and they have a right to a livable planet."
"If you're under 30—I bet you are—you have a good chance of witnessing radical destabilization of life on Earth," she added.
Merritt explained that the activists were blocking the streets as a warm-up for the week's Global Climate Strike, a worldwide protest timed to coincide with the 2019 Climate Action Summit held by the United Nations in New York the following Monday. Hundreds of young Utahns ditched school to join in a march from the City and County Building up State Street to the Capitol, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
It was only a matter of time before the cops showed up. The activists' brazen approach made me wonder if this protest would take an ugly turn, but after a summer that saw an increasingly confrontational relationship between the authorities and grassroots activists, this time around, there were no aggressive actions and no arrests.
Two Utah Highway Patrol troopers consulted with protesters and then stepped in to redirect traffic. They also worked to defuse the situation when one woman jumped out of her car and started screaming at the protesters. A few SLC police officers showed up and helped clear out the street while making no effort to prevent the activists from holding up their banners.
After about 40 minutes, the activists packed up and seemed to call it a day. But as soon as they got to the bottom of State, they pulled out the banners once again to stage an impromptu, definitely unpermitted march down the middle of south State all the way to the City and County Building. They ended up blocking off yet more traffic while a motorcade of at least 10 police vehicles with flashing red lights—including squad cars, motorcycles and black police vans—followed behind.
"We insist that our leaders act now. If nonviolent direct action is the only way to get them to listen to the people, so be it," Extinction Rebellion local coordinator Adair Kovac stated in an emailed statement to media later that evening. "We must keep raising the alarm, and we will. The alternative is social and environmental collapse."
