Climate protesters took responsibility for defacing a Tom Thomson painting of the Algonquin Park region at the National Gallery of Canada on Tuesday.
A group called On2Ottawa posted a video of one of their supporters splattering and smearing pink paint on the 1915 canvas Northern River.
On2Ottawa bills itself as “humans engaging in peaceful civil disobedience to demand action on the climate and ecological crisis.”
One man was arrested and is potentially facing criminal charges.
The gallery reports that the painting was unharmed as a glazed panel protects it.
Northern River was inspired by a sketch completed in the winter of 1914-15, likely from the Algonquin Park region.
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Erin Jones says
Protesting the use of fossil fuels is so dumb, as there is simply no replacement for them presently. Why doesn’t this group protest the rain? Water vapor in the atmosphere stores 1,000% more heat than does atmospheric carbon dioxide. There is actually a fair bit of evidence that atmospheric CO2 was much higher in eons past. Recently, a group of about 1,000 scientists (and many of them are climate scientists) has come out saying that there is no imminent threat of runaway global warming anyway. Whose word are we to take on this–that of real scientists, or a high school dropout like Greta Thunberg?
In any case, EVs are NOT capable of replacing gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles any time soon. It seems that most consumers are taking a pass on them (with the exception of the passionate eco-tyrants). When all environmental costs are considered, it has been determined that EVs cause more atmospheric pollution than the fossil fuel vehicles they replace.
Then, to add insult to injury, we are informed that there is the real possibility that the lithium-ion batteries that they contain can spontaneously explode in the garage and end up burning down one’s house. Fire-fighters have said that lithium-ion battery fires are very difficult to extinguish. Recently, officials in Paris have terminated their use of battery-powered buses, after two of them spontaneously exploded. (There is at least one video clip on the web, of a bus battery exploding and burning up the bus on a Paris street.) The dodos who designed the bus, put the battery pack on the roof of the bus where the cascade of fire would have effectively trapped any riders. Fortunately, the bus was uninhabited at the time when the battery pack exploded. I would NEVER have my child ride on a battery-powered school bus until they solve the exploding battery problem.
I am not paid by any fossil-fuel entity to say these things–nor do I own stock in any petroleum producer. Despite that accusation from the eco-tyrants, some of us are actually capable of reasoned discourse on the issue without any personal vested interests. .
Bill Beatty says
Simply put , protest of that nature is counter productive and not likely to attract supporters