Frustrated by US Climate Inaction, These GenZ Activists Have Taken Matters Into Their Own Hands

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“Like a public shaming”—a night with the Tyre Extinguishers.

This story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

On a searingly hot night in New York City, a group of mask-wearing activists grasping bags of lentils set out to stage the biggest blitzkrieg yet upon a new target for climate campaigners in the US—the tires of SUVs.

The group—a mixture of ages and genders—split up as midnight approached, heading down the streets of the Upper East Side, lined by some of the most expensive apartments in the world and a gleaming parade of high-end, parked SUVs. This type of vehicle is the second largest cause of the global rise in carbon dioxide emissions over the past decade.

The Tyre Extinguishers, as they call themselves, furtively hand around bags of lentils ahead of their raid (the legumes are jammed into a tire valve to release its air slowly overnight) and size up their quarry.

A hulking Land Rover, sporting a parking permit for a Hamptons beach, is an obvious initial target, but a loitering doorman from a nearby apartment complex unnerves the group. They scurry down the street, then double back and settle upon an Audi.

One of the group kneels down, unscrews the tire valve cap, stuffs a lentil inside, and puts the cap back on. The tire immediately lets out a startled “pfft” noise, a leaflet is slapped onto the windshield and the group melts back into the night.

The Tyre Extinguishers movement started in the UK, spread to a clutch of other countries, and has now landed in the US. Since June, dozens of SUV and pickup truck owners in New York, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Chicago have discovered their vehicles with flat tires along with a note on the windshield declaring: “Your gas guzzler kills.”

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