Activists deface Darwin’s grave at London’s Westminster Abbey

STORY: :: Just Stop Oil climate activists spray paint the grave of Charles Darwin at Westminster Abbey

:: London, United Kingdom

:: January 13, 2025

“2024 was the hottest year on record. We have already passed through the 1.5 degree that was supposed to keep us safe. Millions are being displaced. California is on fire. And three quarters of all wildlife has disappeared since the 1970s.”

“Our government’s plans, will bring us to three degrees of warming, three degrees of warming. This will destroy everything we love.”

The activists wrote “1.5 is dead” in orange over the surface of the white marble gravestone — a reference to recent news that global temperatures in 2024 had exceeded 1.5 Celsius above the pre-industrial era for the first time.

Reuters was able to confirm the date and the location of the video from the original file metadata, file images of Darwin’s grave at London’s Westminster Abbey and corroborating reports of the protest.

Darwin, best known for his theory of evolution by natural selection, died in 1882. He is buried in Westminster Abbey’s Scientists’ Corner, where Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking are also buried.