Climate activists arrested blocking access to Trump fundraiser

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, June 11, 2019, 5:00 p.m. CT
Contact: Mary Lovell at (206) 502-3949 or [email protected]
Website: www.boldiowa.com

Climate activists arrested blocking access to Trump fundraiser
Dressed in black and wearing Depends, sign reading “Climate Denier in the White House scare the S#*T outta you? It does us!”

Todd Steichen, Miriam Kashia, Kathy Byrnes, Martin Monroe and Ed Fallon urging GOP and donors to demand urgent action of the President. Photo by Michel Younadam

DES MOINES, IOWA — With a crowd of supporters holding signs and chanting, five climate activists blocked President Trump’s event at the entrance to the Ron Pearson Center on Tuesday at 5820 Westown Parkway in opposition to President Trump’s denial of the escalating climate crisis and his pursuit of policies that further exacerbate the looming disastrous consequences.

“None of us want to go to jail,” said Bold Iowa director, Ed Fallon. “But given the severity of what scientists are telling us about the climate crisis, we feel it’s important to try to stop this fundraising event from happening. The funds raised at this event will be used to support further efforts to deny the global consensus of the scientific community on climate change, and they will also support the policies of this administration and of Iowa Republican elected officials.”

Miriam Kashia arrested. Photo by Michel Younadam

“With the recent science-based prediction of a million species facing extinction by the end of the century – very likely including human – we have a moral duty to do everything we can to halt and reverse the growing greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. And we now know we have a very short window of a dozen years in which to do it,” said Miriam Kashia of 100Grannies for a Livable Future.

“We’re justified to be present here today because of the climate emergency faced by the people of Iowa,” said Kathy Byrnes, a grandmother of three who lived on the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline. “We feel called upon to act in the interest of present and future generations and our planet. Iowa scientists and the Iowa DNR have warned us for years about the harm we are seeing. We need the GOP and its donors here today to demand urgent action of the President.”

Recently, the Iowa Supreme Court stated in its ruling in Puntenney vs the Iowa Utilities Board (the Dakota Access Pipeline case), “We recognize that a serious and warranted concern about climate change underlies some of the opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline.”Bold Iowa’s mission is to build rural-urban coalitions to (1) fight climate change, (2) prevent the abuse of eminent domain, (3) protect Iowa’s soil, air, and water, (4) defend the rights of farmers, landowners, and Indigenous communities, and (5) promote non-industrial renewable energy.

Stopping traffic. Photo by Shari Hrdina

Talking with police. Photo by Michel Younadam

Being arrested. Photo by Michel Younadam

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