“Protest #11 on Saturday, 2019-06-22, Stockholm Arlanda Airport” (with paid protester)

Today I again protested against the contribution of air travel to climate breakdown between 13:00 and 16:00 pm on 2019-06-22 at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. A paid protester joined me today (see foto below), who I had to pay off afterwards with a visit at a fast-food restaurant (life is complex!). As usual I told the security guards that I was about to protest with police permission at the arrival area. We then showed our protest posters (“Air travel risks climate breakdown!”) and I distributed my “Bend the Carbon Curve” climate stickers while shouting “Info about the climate crisis, Information om klimatkrisen!”. In total, I raised attention of a few hundred passengers to the climate crises, although general interest was low, if don’t count willfully ignoring or avoiding me as interest. Some passengers smiled slightly embarrassed.  I distributed about 20-30 stickers to passengers, while my co-protester put a few stickers around the airport.

Highlights:

  • Fistbump by one of the airport hands after handing over a climate sticker and explanations what it was about.
  • A guy taking a sticker and recording a clip of my protest on video.
  • A short conversation with a pilot, who I asked whether values on carbon dioxide emissions on a flight Stockholm-Bangkok-Stockholm (4.2 tons CO2e) were correct. Unfortunately, he did not know, which I think reflects badly on the pilot and the airline he is working for.
  • A few short conversations on the climate crisis with younger guys.
  • Tips by the paid protester on how to approach people in a better way (ie, more smiles, emphasize that I actually gave away free stickers, because obviously everybody wants to have a sticker, hold poster higher, …).
  • In total we protested 2.5 hours + .5 hour break, and I realized that I got a mild headache after that, because I felt the exhaust fumes of the buses stopping and starting in front of me made the air quite bad.

The paid protester was quite excited at the being (eg heart racing, stressed), but calmed down after a while, got bored, and practice parcour jumps on the concrete blocks/barriers around, tried the escalators, and tried out how often he had to run between me and our stuff to transport all stickers in my hand back (44×2 times!). At the end he even wanted to stay longer, because he thought it was fun to put stickers around the airport. Just to mention, that I actually briefed the co-protester about the protest and his role and got his informed consent to join me.

After being back in Uppsala, I had to pay off my co-protester by a visit at the MAX Burger fast-food chain. I ordered a “green” Avocado PLANT BEEF burger with chips and coke light. When I tried the burger I felt sligthly guilty because the “meat” looked and tasted like beef, and I thought, that I had made a mistake while ordering or misunderstood that the burger contained Advocado plant & BEEF, or so. Only before we left, I asked the shop assistants whether the burger I ordered  contained beef meat or actually PLANT BEEF, and they confirmed that it is actually ALL PLANTS. I WAS BLOWN AWAY BY THE AUTHENTIC BEEF TASTE!

The must-have selfie of  a minimal-wage, child labour, paid protester and me on the bus back home:

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