Yesterday morning, five French citizens from the Les Insurgés and Dernier Rénovation collectives sprayed yellow paint on a portion of Place Charles-de-Gaulle, in Paris, disrupting traffic in the roundabout for several minutes. In the face of total annihilation, there have been many acts of resistance to the fossil-fueled regimes around the world.

   Earlier this last week, the world reached 2 degrees Celsius temperature rise since pre-industrial times, for the first time in recorded history. It will return to a baseline below 1.5C, but as Prof. Eliot Jacobson put it on X (formerly Twitter): “Not for long.” Briefly, the world touched the fire of the furnaces into which hundreds of millions and potentially billions of us will be shoved: the world of 2 degrees C and beyond. We may be driven from our homes and forced to live a more impoverished life, facing extreme heat and starvation, while the elites and the super-wealthy are able to shield themselves from the worst effects for at least a little while longer. 

   In a devastating new climate report published last month, The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory by Ripple et al, the authors say this:

“The effects of global warming are progressively more severe, and possibilities such as a worldwide societal breakdown are feasible and dangerously underexplored. By the end of this century, an estimated 3 to 6 billion individuals—approximately one-third to one-half of the global population—might find themselves confined beyond the livable region.”

   In Last Renovation’s press release, the group says that, “this action commemorates 5 years of the historic yellow vest movement and its aspirations for a more socially equitable and climate-friendly society.”

   In their press release, they detail the extreme conditions the people of France are facing already. “Food consumption is in free fall due to inflation which has taken hold over the long term, with one in three French people going without one meal a day. One in seven French people are below the poverty line , a figure that is increasing. 12 million citizens are still living in thermal sieves as winter approaches, unable to heat themselves properly because of killer energy bills.”

   “The yellow vest movement was the greatest popular upsurge in recent decades. Unfortunately its members were silenced by a terrible and bloody repression. However, the anger remains intact, even much greater than it was 5 years ago. The fridges are always empty, the accounts are overdrawn from the 15th of the month, parliament is gagged with 49.3, the demonstrations repressed with LBD.40 and the ecological disaster is becoming more evident every day. This is why our ecological, social and democratic struggles must continue to converge until vital victory ,” said Ritchy Thibault, spokesperson for the Insurgents and Peuple Révolté, two collectives from the yellow vest movement.

   “One of the hopes created by the yellow vests was the establishment of the Citizens' Climate Convention, with the aim of putting citizens back at the center of political decision-making processes. But as is often the case with this government, the promise was not kept. Without social justice, there will be no ecological transition. By having no other goal than to maintain its privileges, our government stands in the way of the world we must build. We are going to overcome this obstacle,” declared a spokesperson for Dernier Rénovation(Last Renovation).

   Last Renovation is part of the A22 Network of civil resistance. As the psychopathic elites continue to throw more fuel on the flames, actions such as these will keep happening around the world. People are fed up with the inaction of their governments, with the extreme inequality and the future prospects of a climate apocalypse.