German climate activists glue themselves to dinosaur exhibit

Oct. 31 (UPI) -- The Natural History Museum in Berlin said criminal charges have been filed against two climate activists who glued themselves to a dinosaur display over the weekend.

The two activists on Sunday had glued themselves to metal bars holding up the skeleton of a dinosaur, in latest climate-related protest at a public museum.

The activists have been identified as Caris Connell, 34, and Solvig Schinkothe, 42, members of the Last Generation, which has been staging dramatic demonstrations to compel Germany to do more to curb the effects of climate change.

The organization said in a statement that the mothers had stuck themselves to the display because "the federal government's climate course threatens the lives of all people."

"Like the dinosaurs back then, we are threatened with climate changes that we cannot withstand," it said. "If we do not want to be threatened with extinction, we must act now."

The museum said in a statement that the demonstration was ended by police less than an hour after it began. The display incurred damage, it said without elaborating.

The group has taken issue with the German government's perceived lack of action to meet its goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as set in the 2015 United Nations' Climate Agreement.

In early fall, it had offered Berlin an ultimatum -- either introduce a 100 km/h speed limit on all German highways and introduce affordable public transport by Oct. 7 or "we will again provide maximum public disturbance."

Since then, members of the Last Generation have literally taken to the streets to create traffic blockades and on Oct. 23 two activists defaced the Claude Monet painting "Grainstacks" with mashed potatoes at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam before gluing themselves to the wall.

The organization said the protest was to force society to ask: "What is worth more, art of life?"

The demonstrations by the Last Generation come as other activists and similar groups hold near identical protests in Europe.

On Thursday, a member of the Just Stop Oil group attempted to glue his head to Johannes Vermeer's iconic "Girl with a Pearl Earring" painting at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague after dousing it with a liquid.

On Oct. 14, two Just Stop Oil activists splashed cans of tomato soup of Van Gogh's 1888 "Sunflowers" painting at London's National Gallery.