Extinction Rebellion interrupts Dutch orchestra to compare the planet to ‘sinking Titanic’

Extinction Rebellion activists interrupted a concert in The Netherlands on Wednesday evening, comparing the government’s response to the climate crisis to the orchestra that played as The Titanic sank in 1912.

A protester stood up in The Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam during a performance of Verdi’s Requiem before saying: ‘We are in the middle of a climate crisis and we are like the orchestra on the Titanic that keeps playing quietly while the ship is already sinking.’

Three activists interrupted the performance at around 8.30pm local time to call on the Dutch Government to ‘do everything possible’ to reach carbon neutrality by 2025, as an audience member shouted at the chair-standing activist to sit down.

Extinction Rebellion activists interrupted a concert in The Netherlands on Wednesday evening, making a comparison to the orchestra that played as The Titanic sank

A protester stood up in The Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam during a performance of Verdi’s Requiem

In video from the concert hall, the activist could be seen being pushed over, before being dragged to the end of the aisle and hauled out of the venue as the audience booed. 

Extinction Rebellion Netherlands said that all three were dragged out of the hall by about 20 people, Voorburgs Dagblad reported. 

The protest group said in a statement: ‘The response of this room to the action is indicative of the way the Dutch elite deal with the climate crisis. 

‘People are already dying from the consequences of this crisis. But just as the orchestra continued to play on the Titanic – even when the ship was sinking for a long time – we in the Netherlands continue with our lives as if nothing is wrong.’

Climate scientists have calculated that The Netherlands must be climate neutral by 2025 in order to have a 66 percent chance of limiting the heating of the planet to 1.5 degrees, Het Parool reported. 

Orchestra e Coro Sinfonica di Milano was performing Verdi’s Requiem at the time of the protest.

Orchestra e Coro Sinfonica di Milano was performing Verdi’s Requiem at the time of the protest. file image of The Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam

It comes as two Belgian activists who targeted Johannes Vermeer’s iconic ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ painting in a climate protest last week were sentenced on Wednesday to two months in prison — with prosecutors saying their action ‘crossed a line’ of acceptable protest.

Half of the sentence was suspended by a judge in The Hague, meaning the men will serve one month. A third suspect is due in court Friday. Their identities were not released, in line with Dutch privacy rules.

One man glued his head to glass protecting the 17th-century masterpiece at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague while another poured a can of thickened tomato soup over his head. 

The second man, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Just Stop Oil,’ then glued his hand to the wall next to the painting. A third man filmed the protest.

The painting was not damaged, but the glass covering it had to be replaced and the protest caused other minor damage, prosecutors said. The painting was returned to its wall a day later. 

Police removes climate activists of ‘Ultima Generazione’ (Last Generation) as they block the road Via Guglielmo Marconi on Monday

A motorbike driver passes over a banner as Italy’s ‘Ultima Generazione’ (Last Generation) climate activists block a road to highlight the need to combat the climate crisis

On Monday, eco-zealots in Italy blocked the busiest motorway in Rome as climate protests began to sweep across Europe.

Protesters sat in the middle of the Via Guglielmo Marcon in the country’s capital holding banners aloft as part of Ultima Generazione, Italian for Last Generation, demonstrations.

The ‘civil disobedience’ movement was borne from Extinction Rebellion and the independent ‘Ultima Generazioneâ’ last year.

The protesters demanded that disused coal plants be reopened and called for a halt to a new drilling project for the research into and extraction of natural gas.

Eco demonstrations, which took place in London every day last month, included two environmental activists who glued themselves to an exhibition of a dinosaur skeleton at Berlin’s Natural History Museum to protest against the German government’s climate policies.