Nine days after climate doom skeptics threw tomato broth onto Vincent Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery in London (National Gallery), the Last Generation group, which is aptly named, has tried a similar tactic, throwing mashed potatoes at Claude Monet’s Haystacks in Potsdam, Germany. Before they glued themselves to the wall, they settled in for a long, tedious day of climate hectoring and mythology, propaganda, and sloganeering Although it’s a stupid and annoying form of protest, it is not impossible to get used to.
Wir machen diesen #Monet zur Bühne und die Öffentlichkeit zum Publikum.
Wenn es ein Gemälde braucht – mit #Kartoffelbrei beworfen – , damit die Gesellschaft sich wieder erinnert, dass der fossile Kurs uns alle umbringt:
Dann geben wir euch #Kartoffelbrei auf einem Gemälde! https://t.co/TN1dFKsi94
— Letzte Generation (@AufstandLastGen) October 23, 2022
According to Sunday’s Guardian report, one of the climate clowns said after throwing the starchy treat at Monet that “people are starving, people freeze, people are dying.” Smart move. Let’s have food fights in museums because people are starving. However, climate activists wouldn’t engage in such stunts if they weren’t rational thinkers capable of critically evaluating what they’re being told and rejecting the climate propaganda they’ve been drilled into them since childhood.
The Last Generation cult member stated, “We are in climate catastrophe.” What are you afraid of? Science tells me that 2050 will not be enough to feed my family. Is it necessary to see mashed potatoes in a picture to get you to listen? If we have to fight about food, this painting will not be worth anything. When will you stop fighting over food and start listening? When will you stop doing business as usual and start listening?
To get you to stop destroying our climate, you heretic, your miscreant, these dogmatic religious fanatics decided that “this Monet” would be the stage and the public would be the audience.
The Van Gogh painting was protected behind protective glass, but it wasn’t damaged. But that doesn’t mean that protests like this won’t cause damage to a historical masterpiece. Dr. Jonathan Foley is the executive director at Project Drawdown, the “world’s most important resource for climate solutions.” He tweeted: “As someone who used run a museum this is concerning. It is not certain that glass will be able to protect valuable works of art from liquids. They were not designed to do that. This will also increase museum security and insurance costs. It’s a lot.
The last Generation won’t care if museums have to spend more on security. Protesters will likely increase their demands for more security as museums implement better security measures. They won’t stop trying to convince the world that the museum’s juvenile stunts aren’t helping them save the world from the imminent climate disaster they have been led to believe is coming. They will instead move away from playing harmless pranks on artistic masterpieces and into actually destroying them.
This is mainly because they have not faced any real problems with their protests thus far. It’s not even clear if the Monet vandals have been arrested. ABC News reports that police said they had responded to the incident but did not provide further details about charges or arrests. Ortrud Westheider, the museum director, stated that while she understood the urgency of climate activists’ concern, “I am shocked at the methods with which they try to give weight to their demands.”
She will be even more shocked when they bring hammers to Michelangelo. But it is coming. Fanatics are always more radical when they see that their demands are not being met and that there is no serious consequence to their actions. The last Generation is essentially a bunch of pawns. Climate hysteria is driven largely by the reckless propagation of pseudoscientific fantasies, fallacies, and conspiracy theories by groups much larger and more powerful that the fanatics who threw the Monet mashed potatoes. What is most striking about these forces is their cynicism. They clearly don’t believe the propaganda they are spreading, as Old Joe Biden and Barack Obama can attest. Is the world’s artistic heritage likely to survive this madness? We can only hope.
