With the conflict in Israel and Gaza heating up by the day and protests around the world spiraling out of control because of it, it can be hard to remember that there are other issues the left still takes very seriously and feels the need to protest. But, a reminder of their climate change obsession and willingness to protest over it came out of France, where a crazy video shows a nun running and tackling a climate change protester who appears to be making off with PVC pipe.
The incident apparently occurred at a construction site of a large Catholic centre in the town of Saint-Pierre-de-Colombier in Ardèche. The site has long been a locus of a tense dispute between the nuns, who want the Catholic center built, and green activists, who are trying to stop the construction because of climate change.
That dispute when from words to warfare on Monday, when the incident occurred and the man, running with two cylinders fo some sort, is laid flat by the nun’s rugby tackle, which leaves him deposited in a nearby hole. One of the many’s compatriots, however, then runs over and stomps on the cylinders, shattering them.
The video went viral thanks to Léo Chapuis, who tweeted, “Huge ! The good sister who dumps an environmentalist… a big spectacle in Ardèche where nuns defend the construction site of a future religious center against activists who are blocking it because of the impact on the environment.”
Watch the video, which has since racked up more than 4.5 million views as of the time this article was written, here:
Énorme ! La bonne sœur qui plaque un écologiste… du grand spectacle en Ardèche où des religieuses défendent le chantier d’un futur centre religieux face aux militants qui bloquent à cause de l’impact sur l’environnement.
🎥 @ferro_nicolas
☝️plaquage non réglementaire pic.twitter.com/3wSyO7s3LO— Léo Chapuis (@leo_chapuis) October 16, 2023
According to the news outlet France 3, the nuns arrived to counter-protest the green protests. They want to see the construction completed, and so tried to keep the green protesters out of the site and prevent them from causing trouble or delays by creating a human shield to protect the construction site. That evidently did not work, as shown by the video.
This fight comes amidst a wider campaign of environmental group chaos across Europe. In England, for example, Just Stop Oil protesters sprayed orange paint on universities in a bid to somehow stop gas and oil projects by vandalizing buildings.
A spokesperson for one of the universities affected by the vandalism campaign, the University of Leeds, said that while the school “support[s] the right to legal protest,” it was “hugely disappointed” that the demonstration had led to the vandalism.
Continuing, the spokesperson noted that the school has spent significant sums on climate projects, saying, “We are taking a robust approach to tackling the existential challenge of climate change, with a £174m Climate Plan which includes our target of delivering net zero emissions by 2030.”
The spokesperson then added that the school avoids fossil fuel companies of the sort Just Stop Oil is protesting, saying, “We avoid companies that are materially engaged in certain sectors, including thermal coal, the extraction of fossil fuel from tar sands, oil and gas extraction, production and refining.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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