No shame: Radical climate activists disrupt Virginia governor’s speech on Americans killed on 9/11

A radical climate activist group called "Climate Defiance," funded in part by wealthy Hollywood power players disrupted a speech Wednesday by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The crowd didn’t take kindly to the interruption, as the governor was speaking about the lives lost during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  

Youngkin was the keynote speaker at the Federal Society’s 2024 Education Law and Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. Youngkin was recalling his visit to the Arlington Cemetery’s 9/11 Memorial earlier in the day, Fox News reports.

"Today is a day of solemn remembrance. I just came from Arlington National Cemetery. I just came from the honor and privilege of laying a wreath at both the Pentagon Group Memorial Burial marker, and at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier," Youngkin said, according to Fox.

Jeremy Poff, a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner, posted a video on X showing how several protesters from Climate Defiance held a banner and stood in front of the stage, interrupting Youngkin’s speech.

They chanted “No more oil, keep the carbon in the soil.” Youngkin told the protesters that they were being “disrespectful,” and then continued his speech about the 3,000 men and women who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks, as the protesters were led from the ballroom.

Climate Defiance boasts of its aggressive tactics to stop consumers from using fossil fuels. “We do not do fucking bus stop ads. We CHASE fossil fuel CEOS and the politicians who do their bidding. And we do not apologize,” the group declared in one post on X last year.

The group backs Vice President Kamala Harris in her bid for the presidency. According to E&E News, Michael Greenberg, Climate Defiance founder, met with Harris’s senior adviser Ike Irby earlier this month, to discuss Harris giving climate change a central role in the race for the White House.

According to Influence Watch, the bulk of the group’s funding comes from the Climate Emergency Fund, which funnels funding into a few hostile climate activist groups, including the Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and the Sunrise Movement. In 2021, the fund brought in over $6 million, its tax filings show.

Roger Hallam, who co-founded both the Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, was sentenced in July by a United Kingdom court for his part in a protest that interrupted traffic on a major traffic artery surrounding London. The protest did more than create an inconvenience, as cancer patients missed doctors appointments and a police officer was injured when he was knocked off his motorcycle. Hallam and his four accomplices have appealed the sentence.

In 2022, liberal Hollywood film director Adam McKay pledged $4 million to the Climate Emergency Fund, and he became a member of its board. Abigail Disney, heiress to the Disney fortune, donated $200,000 to the fund. Disney — a long-time Democratic party donor — demanded that Biden drop out of the presidential race, threatening to withhold campaign contributions unless Biden withdrew, according to CNBC.

Left-wing icon Jane Fonda also lent her support to the group, speaking at the group's rally before a fundraiser for President Biden last year. "Now is the time for civil disobedience, right?" Fonda reportedly asked the crowd.

“Past generations have failed us, and now it’s up to us to take swift action to avert climate disaster,” Disney told the Hollywood Reporter.

As much as these activists claim that climate is causing a disaster, the number of deaths from climate-related natural disasters have plummeted 99% since 1920, meaning the average person alive today is about 1/50th less likely to be killed by a climate event.

Likewise, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations consortium of the world’s leading climate researchers, has five emissions scenarios — with and without policies to mitigate them — called Shared Socio‐Economic Pathways (SSPs). Under every scenario, the human race is, to one degree or another, better off economically in 100 years than it is today, and there is no valid scientific model projecting the end of the human race as a result of greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate Emergency Fund’s co-founder, Rory Kennedy, told the Hollywood Reporter that they founded the fund “because activism works.” The loud booing from the audience directed at the disruptive protesters during Youngkin’s speech suggests that no one at the conference was persuaded to see the group’s point of view.