Students Stage FiDi Climate Die-In to Protest 'Biggest Evil Doer' Banks

A 6-minute die-in by protesters near "Charging Bull" is the latest demonstration by Fridays for Future New York City, part of an international organization focused on raising awareness about the climate crisis. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

The long line of tourists waiting to take their photo with “Charging Bull” got a surprise attraction on Friday when more than two dozen demonstrators, mostly high school students, laid down “dead” on the Bowling Green plaza.

The 6-minute die-in on June 10 was the latest action by Fridays for Future New York City, the local chapter of the international youth-run organization, begun by Greta Thunberg, that helps raise awareness of the climate crisis. This demonstration near Wall Street, their first die-in, was meant to call out six major banks, “the biggest evil doers” as one protester put it, for their investments in fossil fuel projects.

“Banks all over New York City are funding the climate crisis and they need to stop because it’s not fair to us,” said Emma Buretta, a 10th grader at St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn. “We’re angry that banks are fueling the crisis that’s destroying our future.”

A few police officers stood by, but Marilyn Vasta, an adult advisor to the group from People’s Climate Movement New York, was there as a liaison with the NYPD. There would be no trouble, she said. “I talk to the police. I tell them what [the demonstrators] are doing. It’s already clear what’s going to happen,” she said.

Protest leaders first amplified their message by megaphone, denouncing the banks for their “direct or indirect ties to industries that lobby against climate change justice.” Then the demonstrators sprawled out on the plaza paving stones for six minutes, holding cardboard tombstones with messages such as “Wall Street Is Killing Us,” “Here Lies Biodiversity,” and “No Economy On a Dead Plant.” 

Why six minutes? “It represents the six years we have left to take action,” Stuyvesant High School junior Anna Kathawala said.