To push that their beliefs be taken more seriously, climate change activists have begun turning up the heat on politicians they believe are not taking enough action in the U.S. and across the world.
In recent months, climate activists have taken protests to new levels, including gluing themselves to famous paintings, scaling buildings, blocking rush-hour traffic, and even lighting themselves on fire. And there's more to come, some promise.
Activists like Ashley Thomson, who works as a senior climate campaigner for Greenpeace USA, are taking aim at world governments they say are being weak in their action to curb the warming climate.
"We cannot continue to wait around for a bunch of corporate shills in Congress to do nothing while people are dying," Thomson said last week.
Like Thomson, others are calling for people to wake up and see the "threat" they say could cause the extinction of the human race. For example, climate activist Ken Ward shared with Fox News that no other issue is like the one we are facing.
"Climate change is the only issue where, in the worst case, it really would affect the ability of our civilization to continue. The threat there is just much higher," Ward said to Fox News. "If you do a bad job on clean water, then you've got some polluted water — you can recoup that. With the worst case in climate change, that's not an option."
Varshini Prakash, the executive director of another climate group, the Sunrise Movement, shared a grim message on what could happen if inaction continues.
"If we look at a world that has the number of people that we're going to see dying and the number of people who are going to be, population shifting because parts of the world won't be livable anymore, we're just going to see a lot more wars and fighting and murder," Prakash said. "Because that will be what people think is an appropriate response to the collapse of the conditions that make their nation possible."
Ward shared with Fox News a similar sentiment, saying that we could soon see mass numbers of people flee the southern part of the country due to extreme temperatures.
"If you're on track to have the southern part of our nation unlivable and also dehydrated in 20 years or less, what do you do about that?" Ward said. "If there was agreement that was a serious threat, then we would drop other things that we are doing and pay attention to that."
In a statement to the New York Times, Prakash discussed the inaction being taken by lawmakers and the Biden administration, calling for more work to be done.
"All we've seen are a handful of executive actions and the slow death of climate legislation in Congress," Prakash said in a statement. "Young people are tired of receiving scraps from our government."
Now, and in past years, even more activists are doing more than just using their words to push their message. Ward, for example, was charged with trespassing after turning the valve on a crude oil pipeline in 2016.
A group called the Tyre Extinguishers shared with Fox News that they have actions set up in New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco and plan to "expand massively" in the coming months.
Across the pond, a group called Just Stop Oil made headlines when they glued themselves to famous paintings in London. The U.K. group has also said they plan further actions.
All over the nation, activists have taken to highways blocking traffic as they again ask politicians to take climate change seriously.
While it's not known what the next protest will be, one thing is for sure; activists are calling out political inaction no matter their political party, with Prakash saying Biden could forever be known as "the president who condemned my generation to an unlivable world."
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