Climate activists caused a stir in the covered Hamptons last weekend when they gathered outside the Parrish Art Museum to expose the alleged financiers of our environmental downfall. With support from the Shinnecock Nation, organizers Planet Over Profit (POP) and New York Communities for Change (NYCC) joined forces on Saturday, July 15 to demonstration during the visit to the museum annual midsummer benefit, sponsored in part by Bank of America this year. With calls to ‘tax the rich’ and warnings of murderous inequality, the group of around 16 organizers called on the ultra-rich and investment banks to ‘green’ their images by attaching their names to community work on the museum grounds.
In a statement, POP said the action was part of a weekend-long campaign to “prey on the wealthy in their summer haven, disrupting their daily lives and drawing attention to the damage that they have caused and continue to cause to our climate and the environment.” The group pointed to the work of the affluent class in industries that “fuel the climate crisis” as well as their contributions to emissions via luxury perks such as private jets.
POP also highlighted the Banking on climate chaos reportWritten by several anti-oil environmental organizations including Rainforest Action Network, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International and Sierra Club, indicating that Bank of America provided nearly $280 billion in funding for fossil fuel projects from 2016 to 2022 alone.
Bank of America declined to comment.
The protest began around 7 p.m. that evening as demonstrators, dressed in red t-shirts and carrying signs and banners, marched across the field adjacent to the museum’s south facade towards the outer benefit with chants such as “Tax the rich, tax the fucking rich”, “Billionaires walk away, put people before profit” and “Hey, Hey, B of A [Bank of America], how many people have you killed today? as the security of the event closed in on them.
The mid-summer benefit celebrated several honorees, including Fred Seegal, Chairman of the Board of the Parrish Art Museum and Vice President of TD Cowen, a division of the investment banking business of TD Securities of the big TD Bank. Chad Leat, retired vice president of Citigroup, was also honored. The Banking on Climate Chaos report claims that Citi was the second-largest fossil fuel bank financier with $333 billion in investments in fossil fuel projects between 2016 and 2022, and TD was in tenth place with $173 billion. dollars. Neither Seegal nor Leat immediately responded to Hyperallergicrequest for comment.
Video footage captured by one of the organizers appears to show two security guards pulling and holding the arms and torso of a drumming protester, trying to snatch his drumsticks away. The video also appears to show the guards grabbing and shoving another protester recording with their phones. The protest lasted about 30 minutes in total with no arrests, and protesters were escorted off museum property.
The Parrish Art Museum declined to comment.
POP member Ella Mead-VanCort said Hyperallergic that no organization has a problem with the Parrish Art Museum or its staff. “All of these museums are doing great work, but these billionaires and banks are laundering their images by capitalizing on the work of these institutions through financial contributions that they can deduct from taxes,” she explained. “The Hamptons are a playground for the rich, and Parrish is just a tool to make them look more palatable despite their crimes against our people.”
“We had no intention of being seen as a physical threat,” Mead-VanCort continued. “We just wanted to say that they shouldn’t know peace until we know peace – until our planet is safe,” she added, referring to the wealthy attendees who paid thousands of dollars to get tickets for the benefit.
This demonstration was not the only one to target the one percenter over the weekend, as more than a dozen protesters, including 63-year-old Disney fortune heiress Abigail Disney, were arrested for blocking East Hamptons Private Airport to protest the use of private jets and those who profit from the fossil fuel industry in light of the record temperature increases and climate disasters that have characterized 2023. For POP and NYCC, the message is clear: ‘You don’t ‘Don’t go exploiting our world and poisoning our resources and get away with it.
