Environmental activists shut down traffic at a major downtown Victoria intersection Friday afternoon to stage a "die in."
The group, Extinction Rebellion, stopped traffic at the intersection of Pandora Avenue and Blanshard Street for 11 minutes during the afternoon rush hour. Their goal was to draw attention to summer wildfire smoke in Victoria and its connection to climate change.
The 11-minute duration of the stunt was a reference to the number of years left before 2030. That's the date some studies have cited as the point at which it will be too late for humanity to avoid catastrophic damage from climate change.
"People say, 'Well the science has been sort of a little loose all along, so the deadlines they predict haven't happened,' and so on," said Rob Duncan, one of the organizers of the event.
"That's irrelevant when you consider what's at stake," Duncan said. "Science is not absolutely precise, but what they are predicting for sure is that there are going to be catastrophic changes if we don't change course."
