Hundreds of thousands of people are joining worldwide demonstrations this week ahead of a UN climate summit in New York, as unions and businesses come out in support of faster action to fight climate change.
CLAIM
An image showing a garbage heap in a park is now viral on social media with the claim that the photo is from a gathering in Hyde Park on Saturday, 21 September. While some social media users claimed that the image is from Hyde Park in Chicago, others shared the image claiming that it is from Sydney’s Hyde Park.
The image was shared by American Humorist Chad Prather with the claim: “The aftermath of today’s climate change gathering in Hyde Park” that garnered over 12,000 retweets at the time of publishing this article.
Several social media users shared the image on Twitter and Facebook with a similar claim.
WHAT’S THE TRUTH?
We conducted a Google reverse image search, which led us to a tweet with the same image that was uploaded on 23 April. The official Twitter handle of Royal Parks, a charity that manages London’s eight Royal Parks, had tweeted the image claiming that the photo is from an unofficial event that took place in London’s Hyde Park.
Fact-checking website Snopes had earlier debunked the hoax and mentioned that the image is actually from a marijuana-based festival called 420 that was held in London in April.
The Snopes article further stated that the image had earlier gone viral owing to confusion that was created because of a Facebook post shared by ‘The Hemp Trading Company’ in April.
The post read, “This is #HydePark after #420. Ashamed is not the word. With #extinctionrebellion not yards away, so many of you couldn’t be bothered to clean up after yourselves. Ironic for a movement that holds a plant in such high regard. #cannabiscommunity you can do better - you need to do better.”
It was later edited to say:
“IMPORTANT EDIT: a lot of people are misreading this post. This was the aftermath of Hyde Park 420 - and was *cleaned up* by Extinction Rebellion crew. THTC is nothing but supportive of XR. Please read *all* the post copy before flying off the handle, people.”
As many as 3,00,000 people held demonstrations in Australia on Friday, 20 September, to gather support for faster action to fight climate change. The cities of Sydney and Melbourne came to a halt as several thousand people gathered in Sydney’s Domain, The Guardian reported.
CLIMATE STRIKE IN DELHI
Students in New Delhi participating on Friday, 20 September, in the largest global climate protests in history, calling for immediate action by adults to fight the climate crisis.
From Sydney to Seoul, Manila to Mumbai, children heeded the rallying cry of fellow teen activist Greta Thunberg who started the climate strike movement with her lone protest in front of the Swedish Parliament in 2018.
The students in Delhi, turned up in large numbers, and protested outside the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Housing, calling for “azaadi” from climate crisis.
The Delhi strike saw varied slogans at the protest – from making an appeal to the politicians that climate crisis is bigger than a nuclear war to conversation about climate emergency is the need of the hour.
(With inputs from Snopes)
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