"Heathrow break", break for Heathrow, the activists have baptized their plan to paralyze Europe's largest airport. With several "pilots" they wanted to raise drones in the vicinity of the runways on Friday, so that the air traffic must be interrupted.
With their calculated breach of the law they wanted to set the most effective sign for climate protection and draw attention to the contradictions of British politics: Heathrow Airport is already a major CO2 emitter of the country, the planned third runway would further increase emissions. The government had only on 1 May - purely symbolically - proclaimed the "climate emergency".
By Friday noon, however, the air traffic at Heathrow was normal, the project has failed initially. The reason for this is likely to be the massive police presence in and around Heathrow. Already in advance, the authorities had announced that they would do everything in their power to stop the action.
"Heathrow Break" is a spin-off of "Extinction Rebellion". Founded a year ago, "Extinction Rebellion" is considered the largest movement of civil disobedience in British history. The arrest of "Heathrow Pause" supporter Roger Hallam was also part of the police strategy. The British activist is also the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and was arrested Thursday afternoon in a café in London immediately after a conversation with SPIEGEL. Here you can read the previously conducted interview.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Hallam, you want to launch a drone around Heathrow Airport. That is strictly forbidden. Are you ready to go to jail for it?
Roger Hallam: Yes.
SPIEGEL: Why?
Hallam: Because we are facing the biggest catastrophe in human history. Therefore, two things have to happen now: First, protest must have tangible economic consequences, because that's the fastest way to get attention. Secondly, people need to be emotionally honest: we are deliberately destroying the dreams of our children, and therefore deliberately. There is no greater crime than that.
SPIEGEL: Was there a moment in your life that explains why you think that only radical action can stop climate change?
Hallam: I'm an organic farmer and have grown vegetables for 32 years. Ten or fifteen years ago, it rained day for day in Wales for seven weeks. That destroyed my entire crop. All plants were washed away. I've lost hundreds of thousands of pounds, 25 people lost their jobs. I almost went crazy - stress, depression. This is how many small farmers around the world are doing.
At that time I had a deep understanding for me: if it gets too hot, too cold, too dry or too wet, then at best we only lose our wealth, in the worst case we experience the extermination of humanity. That's what's coming. That happens when people destroy the sky.
SPIEGEL: Democracy provides for ways to bring about necessary changes: demonstrations, elections, parliamentary engagement. Why do you instead rely on illegal blocks and break the law?
Hallam: Because this topic is bigger than democracy, or whatever you want to describe, what's left of it at the moment. When a society acts so immoral, democracy becomes irrelevant. Then there can only be direct actions to stop it.
Conventional forms of action such as demos, e-mail campaigns and lobbying are junk, they do not have the necessary effect. We have had a 60 percent increase in CO2 emissions since 1990, and they continue to rise despite all the statements made on climate change. The global politics are obviously incapable of bringing about the radical change it needs.
SPIEGEL: You once said: "A revolution is imminent." What do you mean by that?
Hallam: I said that as a structural sociologist and not as a revolutionary. In structural sociology, predictions are made about how stable a society is in the long term. A functioning society needs nothing more than a reform-oriented policy, because people are generally satisfied.
Other societies that are struggling with great inequality, that are pursuing some suicidal project or that are destroying their climate, can be sure that there will be huge upheavals. It's like a love affair in which one of the partners injects heroin every day - it's only a matter of time before the emotional explosion occurs.
Our elites are leading us into this heroin zone, the last stages of the CO2 disaster. Therefore, I have no doubt that it will come to a huge change.
Video: Roger Hallam arrested in London
SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty Images
SPIEGEL: What do you demand?
Hallam: The Heathrow Break action is part of a larger rebellion. We use an innovative method, namely flying drones to paralyze an airport. This is based on the idea that with large enough economic damage a major project such as the extension of the third runway at Heathrow Airport can be prevented. After all, there is no logical reason to expand Heathrow.
SPIEGEL: How did you come to this?
Hallam: What does it make sense to realize such a CO2-intensive project, which will probably not be ready until 2030, if you do not want to emit carbon dioxide all over the UK in 2050? It's like telling an alcoholic to dry himself - and then serve him a box of beer. That's stupid.
