Supporters from Climáximo entered the Alcochete Shooting Range grounds, planting cork oaks on the land and unfurling a banner against the new airport. The symbolic action aims to call for climate resistance as the only way to stop destruction and build a fair and dignified present and future for all people.
This afternoon, supporters from Climáximo entered the grounds of the Alcochete Shooting Range, where the new Lisbon airport is planned to be built. They unfurled a banner reading “Aeroporto de Alcochete p’ró cacete – Nem aqui, nem em lado nenhum!” (“Alcochete Airport, no way – Not here, not anywhere!”), and planted cork trees in a symbolic protest against the construction of a new airport, as well as any new infrastructure that increases greenhouse gas emissions.
Bianca Castro states that “building a new airport is equivalent to releasing carbon bombs into the atmosphere, which will devastate lives around the world due to phenomena such as rising temperatures, melting ice caps, intensifying droughts, crop failures and extreme events such as storms and fires. Just a few days ago, scientists warned that rising sea levels will cause ‘catastrophic’ migration inland within our lifetime. This is the abyss that companies and governments are leading us towards when they plan to expand aviation. They know full well that these new projects and the continued burning of fossil fuels will kill and displace millions of people”.
“Last Sunday, we trembled as we watched the rise of the far right”, Bianca continues. “But we have known for a long time that the only way to stop the ongoing climate and social destruction is to resist in the streets, acting directly against this system built to fail, and taking into our own hands the task of building a massive global movement that implements a plan to cut emissions and defend life, not profit. This new airport project will not only increase emissions, but also involves cutting down at least 42,000 cork trees that currently act as a lung, filtering carbon from the atmosphere. So we planted more cork trees, a seed of resistance and perseverance, defying the death and desolation that a new airport would bring”.
The collective calls on “all those who are frightened and enraged by the election results” and who “know that the climate crisis must be stopped now” to mobilise on 1 June to “disrupt normality at Lisbon Airport, in a popular protest against airport expansion and the fossil fuel system, for the immediate elimination of useless flights such as Lisbon-Porto and private jets, for a drastic reduction in the aviation sector, and for free, electrified public transport for all”. The protest will begin at Alameda D. Afonso Henriques at 3 p.m.