I’m not sure what tennis has to do with climate change, but anyone who tries to establish the connection is probably insane.
But don’t tell them that otherwise they’ll be offended.
According to the New York Post, Shayok Mukhopadhyay was one of three protestors from the militant environmentalist group Extinction Rebellion who disrupted a US Open tennis play Thursday night.
During the semifinal women’s singles match between American Coco Gauff and Czech Karolina Muchova at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, Mukhopadhyay glued his feet to the court, halting play for about 50 minutes while protesters chanted boilerplate slogans such as “End fossil fuels” and “No tennis on a dead planet.”
“The climate change movement has tried everything from writing and lobbying for legislation to demonstrating and blockading banks, but none of that has been as effective as communicating directly to the public by going to public institutions like museums and sporting arenas,” Mukhopadhyay told the Post.
Coco Gauff’s US Open semi-final against Karolina Muchova halted by climate change protestors in the stands. #usopen pic.twitter.com/qded3qEYBN
— Matt Majendie (@mattmajendie) September 8, 2023
According to the New York Daily News, he is now irritated that the New York Police Department had the audacity to send him to the psychiatric unit at East Elmhurst Hospital after his detention.
Instead, the outlet’s Molly Crane-Newman wrote, the activist said the NYPD “tried to humiliate and discredit his environmental message” with the temporary trip to the hospital.
“I’ve been arrested before, but I’ve never had this experience,” Mukhopadhyay said.
“They were asking obvious leading questions like, ‘Do you think the world is going to end?’ This typical stereotype of the crazy, apocalyptic cult kind of thing,” he said.
According to the Daily News, this included claims that “medics asked him about the group and how members communicate with each other.”
“This was completely a mechanism to intimidate and humiliate and to paint a distorted picture of me,” Mukhopadhyay said.
“Who’s the crazy person here? It’s [President Joe] Biden who’s the crazy person here, who, in 2023, is approving new oil and gas projects when international energy agencies founded by Henry Kissinger – no tree hugger – have said there should be no new fossil fuel infrastructure,” he said.
He also tied his activism to his sympathies for his native India.
“India is something I constantly think about because I grew up there, and I’m keenly aware of how low the level of resource consumption and energy consumption is there,” Mukhopadhyay said.
“The Gangetic Delta, the mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, where the Ganges River empties into the Bay of Bengal, these are extremely vulnerable areas to climate change … They’re going to pay the price for this huge amount of resource and energy consumption in the global north,” he said. “That injustice really, really horrifies me.”
But, of course, being tested psychologically in a psychiatric facility isn’t going to dissuade him — even if it isn’t actually a deterrent, but whatever.
“We need more media attention on the climate crisis. It doesn’t get nearly the attention it deserves relative to the scale of the crisis that it is,” Mukhopadhyay told the Daily News.
“The only way we will have societal mobilization is if the public is mobilized, so we need to keep the issue constantly in front of the public and make it clear to them that our current way of life, what we are accustomed to, is not going to exist if this climate crisis goes unabated,” he said.
And, once again, this is how Mukhopadhyay and his fellow Extinction Rebellion members intend to ensure that it does not continue unabated:
Final protestor has been escorted out of the stadium. Players likely to return to court shortly. It’s been a 35-minute delay. pic.twitter.com/1HMU2CyjG8
— Matt Majendie (@mattmajendie) September 8, 2023
But don’t even think about suggesting he’s a few organic, free-range eggs shy of a basket, because this guy is entirely on board.
Mukhopadhyay, by the way, got the criminal charges he presumably wanted in the first place, with NBC News saying he was charged with criminal trespass and disorderly behavior. The NYPD made no mention of the psych facility visit in a press release.
“One individual had apparently glued his feet to the floor,” a department representative said in a statement. “Personnel from the Emergency Service Unit responded and were able to safely free the male and take him into custody.”
The excursion to East Elmhurst, on the other hand, was not a horrible idea. After all, anyone who believes that gluing oneself to something will stop anything other than his being viewed as sane has merely deceived himself and others with similar tendencies.
More Extinction Rebellion participants, come to think of it, should definitely be treated similarly. Perhaps it will assist them in gaining control of the situation.
Of course, without the glue.
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