As part of a new protest campaign, Greenpeace activists in London recently placed face masks on some of the city’s most famous public statues. The protest campaign is intended to spur action on the city’s significant air-pollution problems.
The activists, unsurprisingly, placed the face masks on the famous statues in the wee hours of the morning — beginning at around 4:00 am, reportedly, with the 52-meter Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square.
Altogether, the protesters placed face masks on “around” 17 statues (I’m not clear what “around” means here — there seems to be a dispute on the matter, I guess). These statues included: the Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square and the Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus.
“Monitoring shows that if these statutes were real people, many of them would often be breathing dangerous, illegal air,” stated Greenpeace campaigner Areeba Hamid. “That’s why we’ve given them face masks.”
The protest campaigners are requesting that the next London Mayor implement a “Clean Air Zone” in many portions of the city — rather than the incoming “Ultra Low Emission Zone” that’s slated to enter effect in 2020.