SUMMER OF HEAT: Hundreds of Climate Activists Storm Citigroup in a Felliniesque Final Action of the Historic Summer of Heat Campaign
Thursday, September 5th, 8:30 AM
Faith leaders, climate scientists and even ‘orcas’ took part in a massive non-violent civil disobedience protest to demand Citigroup ends funding of fossil fuels;
The historic Summer of Heat on Wall Street reached over 600 arrests. Over 5,000 people participated in the campaign to end Wall Street’s financing of fossil fuels.
Those involved included hundreds of climate activists, Faith Leaders, Climate Scientists, parents and youth leaders, with support from Climate Defenders, New York Communities for Change, Planet Over Profit, and Stop the Money Pipeline.
In a final act, dozens of activists, faith leaders and scientists blocked the front doors of Citigroup’s headquarters at 388 Greenwich Street, in a sort of carnival of disobedience, wave after wave, to pressure the bank to stop funding the oil, gas and coal projects that are causing extreme weather events. The action highlighted many of the themes throughout the summer.
Throughout the morning, hundreds were arrested; others danced along to a marching band. Activists dressed as orcas engaged in civil disobedience; kids danced to Slavic Soul Party, who joined faith-based leaders against fossil fuels, who joined anti-war activists challenging the ways banks fund military industrial complex heating the planet, who joined feminists opposed to the bank bankrolling climate change. With a distinct splendor, melding fantastic theater as well as a realist civil disobedience, activists swarmed the Citibank headquarters in a furious, final wave of action in the three month long ‘Summer of Heat.’
Watching the waves of elders and orcas, the “too hot to go outside” dancing and Gaza blocs, people who have been out all summer long, it felt like a Fellini movie with countless characters pouring forth in a cavalcade of humanity. A sense of social eros expanded throughout the day, with a Marcuse like “kinship” expanding among those taking part, with notions of what could be possible blurring. I’ve only seen or experienced glimpses of this feeling, in ACT UP demos, Occupying Wall Street, biking through the streets of New York in a critical mass.
Getting arrested, many chanted: "We need clean air, not another billionaire!"
"What is it worth?” asked one man dressed in an orca outfit, held by two policemen. “What is profit worth if you put all at risk?” he implored bankers lined up to go to work, on his way to the police van.
"This about my future..." said a middle school student wearing a fish hat, dancing away. "This is about my future..."
"You're arresting the wrong people..." said another activist, wearing an I heart NY t-shirt, being dragged away. He was there the first day of the Summer of Heat, finishing the actions with a final flurry of action, of love among bodies in motion.
"Week after week, month after month we have been here fighting Citi profiting off death and destruction from the Gulf Coast to Haiti to Gaza. CEO Jane Fraser refuses to listen as activists, faith-based leaders from the Global South to New York. Until they stop pumping funds into climate destruction the problem will continue. Each investment fuels another pipeline, another war machine. As the summer is over, we know that we will continue to fight…”
“We will be back. We will be back, we will be back ..." we screamed in an emotional crescendo, as the last arrests ended.
Workers were lined up about the building, waiting to get to work. As the arrests were taking place, we tried to talk with the bankers, waiting after hours of delay. Did you take environmental science classes in college, I asked. Didn’t they have general education requirements, with some science at Warton? Do you think we’re making this stuff up? No reply, but an occasional, fuck you in ad hominem retort, signaling reason had gone out the door. The bank seems to be digging in, with a few little concessions around the edges. One never knows when a campaign is having an impact. It was hard to tell in Albany Georgia during the Civil Rights years. It's hard to tell mow. Change is a complicated thing to assess.
With each day, the campaign built on the previous day’s actions, extending a sustained campaign, engaging thousands, with some six hundred plus arrests. I was one of the first arrests on the first day of the campaign, on June 10th. That was three months ago. Each day, different constituencies took park, with activists connecting the dots between elders, those from the Gulf, migrants, refugees, anti-war activists, faith based leaders, including Micah, the Minister from Judson Memorial Church, cyclists connecting issues from fossil fuels financing, to funds bankrolling military industrial weapons, forwarding the perma war. Some days climate scientists took the busts; others elders, pleading for the future, for their grandkids. I participated in countless actions, went away to Berlin for six weeks, followed the campaign as charges escalated, along with the creative direct action, a cello player arrested in the square, performing Bach, elders in wheelchairs using their chairs to block the entrances to the bank.
A highlight of the campaign for me, I joined the feminists, with my kid on way to college, for their first formal arrest for non violent civil disobedience. We wore pink cowboy hats, dancing to the song “Hot to Go” in front of a sign declaring, “It's too Hot to Go Outside” reminding the world that a little joy is a vital ingredient in any movement or revolution. The message was the same.
“1, 2, 3, 4 the oceans coming to your door! 5, 6, 7, 8 you will lose your real estate!”
“Jane Fraser you can't hide, we charge you with ecocide.”
“Hey Fraser, get off it, the planet over profit!”
“Methane Jane, shame on you. We deserve a future too.”
The Summer of Heat on Wall Street was thousands of frontline community leaders, youth, elders, and climate activists coming together in New York City for a months-long campaign of relentless nonviolent civil disobedience.
With each day, the movement welcomed new members, providing jail and legal support afterwards, important parts of any campaign. No one was scolded. People felt engaged and invited in an open campaign of civil disobedience.
The movement’s main demand is for Wall Street to stop funding the oil, coal, and gas projects that are driving the climate crisis and the related widespread floods, wildfires, deadly air pollution, mass drought, and forced migration that kills and displaces millions each year.
Citigroup is the top banking target of the Summer of Heat. Citigroup is the world’s #1 funder of methane gas expansion since 2016 and the second worst funder of dirty energy projects in the world from 2016 to 2023, spending a total of $396.3 billion on coal, oil, and gas.
Since the campaign launched on June 10, over 5,000 people have joined protests as part of the Summer of Heat. And over 600 people have been arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience protests, urging banks like Citigroup to stop bankrolling new coal, oil, and gas.
This was the first time in history that climate activists held an entire season of sustained civil disobedience protests targeting Wall Street and big banks for their role in fueling the climate crisis.
With the conviction that cutting off the flow of money will stop the fossil fuel projects that are burning our planet, campaigners have set their sights on Citigroup after climate activists successfully pressured Barclays and HSBC to take steps toward ending their financing of oil, coal, and gas.
Climate Defenders, Planet over Profit, New York Communities for Change, and Stop the Money Pipeline are convening the Summer of Heat, which has been endorsed by more than 100 environmental and racial justice groups, including Rainforest Action Network, 350.org, Indigenous Environmental Network, Texas Campaign for the Environment, Stand.earth, Friends of the Earth, and the Vessel Project of Louisiana.
From the Bronx to the Gulf South, Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and low-income communities living on the frontlines of the climate crisis – and the ones least responsible for it – face the highest asthma rates and staggering cancer rates while an unprecedented number of people are dying from heat waves. Instead of staying home and hiding from the heat, organizers are calling on all New Yorkers and climate defenders from across the globe to take to the streets and demand that Wall Street stop destroying our future.
