Vita gazette – This time, climate activists, ignorant of art, culture and world heritage, attacked St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Last Generation activists throw mud at St. Mark’s Basilica.

Environmentalists have returned with a new protest action to once again demand a compensation fund for the damage caused by climate change. On December 7, they targeted the Basilica of San Marco in Venice by throwing mud at it with buckets. The authorities rushed to the scene and stopped the action. “Venice is condemned. It will disappear into the water and mud,” the young activists shouted. They then displayed a banner in front of the basilica: “Repair Fund”. The reference is to the campaign that the group of activists has been carrying out for months asking for a 20 billion euro fund to repair the damage suffered by citizens due to extreme meteorological events due to the climate disruption caused by the use of fossil fuels”.

“This does not justify actions.”

“I express my strongest condemnation for the action taken a short while ago by some climate activists who smeared the exterior of the Basilica of San Marco in Venice, one of the symbols of culture, architecture, and faith in the world, with mud. When the protest, even the most shared one, such as the concern for climate change, transcends into actions like these, which disfigure and damage, even if only temporarily, a work of art of immense value for the Venetian community and beyond, no can only be firmly blamed.” The president of Veneto, Luca Zaia, said.

“I respect everyone’s democratic protests to the maximum, especially if they concern issues as significant as environmental ones. We have just concluded COP28, and it seems that no great signs have emerged, but this does not justify actions with which buildings such as the Basilica of San Marco are defaced. The soiling entails, among other things, a series of consequences for the restoration of the monuments which contribute to increasing Co2 emissions: for the workers who will have to travel to clean up, for the electricity used, for the machinery that will be operated. It is a contradiction: protests must be done respectfully, not only of other people’s property but also of the climate.”