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CLIMATE CRISIS

Activists glue hands to Goya frames at Spain’s Prado museum

The two environmental activists stuck themselves to the frames of Goya's famous 'Las Majas' paintings in Madrid's El Prado and scrawled graffiti referencing the "+ 1.5C" global temperature target on the wall.

Activists glue hands to Goya frames at Spain's Prado museum
The two environmental activists stuck themselves to the frames of Goya's famous 'Las Majas' paintings and scrawled graffiti referencing the "+ 1.5C" global temperature target on the wall. Photo: Pixabay.

Two climate activists from a group known as ‘Futuro Vegetal’ on Saturday each glued a hand to the frames of two paintings by Spanish master Francisco Goya at the Prado museum in Madrid, police said.

Though the protest did not damage either painting, the protesters scrawled “+1.5C” on the wall between the two artworks in reference to the Paris Agreement target of capping warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Both activists were detained, police said.

The incident comes amid a wave of art gallery focused protests across Europe in recent weeks, including two protesters who threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s iconic Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London in October, and Italian activists glueing themselves to artworks.

READ ALSO: Why are protesters glueing themselves to Italian artworks?

Climate activist group Extinction Rebellion posted a video online showing the two activists each with a hand fixed on a painting before the museum’s security officials move in.

The group said the two artworks in question were “The Naked Maja” and “The Clothed Maja.” The action was a protest in the face of rising world temperatures which will “provoke an unstable climate with serious consequences for all the planet”, the group said in a statement in Spanish.

It is the latest in a number of similar protests by climate activists targeting famous artworks in European cities. On Friday, a group splashed pea soup onto a Vincent van Gogh masterpiece in Rome. “The Sower”, an 1888 painting by the Dutch artist depicting a farmer sowing his land under a dominating sun, was exhibited behind glass and undamaged. Four activists were arrested, according to news reports.

The climate activists from Last Generation called their protest “a desperate and scientifically grounded cry that cannot be understood as mere vandalism.” They warned the protest would continue until more attention was paid to climate change.

Other actions have seen cake or mashed potatoes used in recent weeks.They have targeted masterpieces such as the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo da Vinci in the Louvre in Paris or “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer at The Hague’s Mauritshuis museum.

All of those paintings were covered by glass and were undamaged.

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WEATHER

Will this summer in Spain be as hot as the previous two?

2023 was the world’s hottest summer on record, with many countries including Spain experiencing scorching temperatures. What are meteorologists forecasting for summer 2024?

Will this summer in Spain be as hot as the previous two?

2023 was in fact the second-hottest summer Spain had ever experienced – the hottest being just one year earlier in 2022.

During that year, 11,300 people died in Spain alone due to the abnormally high temperatures, marine life perished in the warming seas and even train tracks warped and became deformed.

All eyes are looking toward this summer to see what will happen and if it will be as roasting as the previous two. 

READ ALSO:

According to the climate service Copernicus-EU, above-normal temperatures are predicted across southern Europe this summer.

And in Spain, there is a 50-70 percent chance that this summer will be one of the hottest 20 percent on record, and it will properly begin in June.

According to Spain’s State Meteorological Agency AEMET, we have already seen an abnormal rise this May.

Its quarterly prediction, which will take us up to the end of July (typically the hottest part of the summer here in Spain), states that it will almost certainly be warmer than usual on the Mediterranean side of the country, as well as the Balearic and Canary Islands.

Copernicus agrees with these predictions and has indicated that it’s very likely to be hotter than normal in certain areas of the country. It particularly singled out the Valencia region, Murcia (except the south), northern Almería and Granada, Ibiza and Formentera and the western Canary Islands.

It’s getting more and more difficult to know exactly what ‘above normal’ temperatures are, considering what Spain has experienced the last few years, but the reference period that many experts are basing their predictions on is from 1991-2020.

When it comes to rainfall, Copernicus has forecast that the “most likely scenario is a summer with less rain” than usual.

AEMET agreed with the prediction, stating on its X account that “most likely rainfall will be less throughout the country than what is already normally scarce in the summer season”.

This is bad news for many parts of Spain, such as Catalonia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, which have already been experiencing an ongoing drought over the past two years.

Luckily, spring rains have managed to fill reservoirs just enough to see us through the summer at this point, but more rain will definitely be needed come autumn.

READ ALSO: Will drought restrictions affect summer holidays in Spain?

While scientists agree the sizzling temperatures experienced over the past few summers are down to climate change, last year in 2023, the cyclical phenomenon known as El Niño also had a part to play in global weather patterns.

When the seas become cooler on average and it has a cooling effect on the planet, this is partly down to the effect of La Niña.

This year is supposed to be dominated by La Niña and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US, La Niña has a 49 percent chance of developing between June and August and a 69 percent chance between July and September.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean that this summer will be cooler than last year.

As of May 16th 2024, we’re undergoing a neutral period known as El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Despite the global cooling effect of La Niña in 2022, it was still the planet’s sixth hottest year and the hottest in Spain ever recorded.

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