FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FEB 16, 2023
MEDIA CONTACT: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
Josh “War with China Hawk” Hawley Disrupted at Heritage Foundation Talk
“China is not our enemy! The climate crisis is!” shouted a CODEPINK protester as Sen. Hawley made his “nationalist” case for a war with China
WASHINGTON–CODEPINK organizer Olivia DiNucci disrupted an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation featuring Senator Josh Hawley entitled “China and Ukraine: A Time for Truth.” Senator Hawley made his case for why we need to stop funding the proxy war in Ukraine, so we wage a full war with China. DiNucci hopped on stage with a sign that read “PEOPLE AND PLANET NOT WAR AND AGGRESSION.” DiNucci talked about Missouri’s poverty, and explained to Hawley that our real enemy is the climate crisis.
The audience laughed as they pulled her offstage. However, what is not funny is the impact of the climate crisis on Missouri. The deadliest severe weather hazard in Missouri is floods. In 2015 alone, flooding killed 27 people in the state, with 11 people dying during torrential rain and flash flooding on one night alone. Climate disasters disproportionately affect poor and low wealth people, which makes flooding a larger climate crisis catastrophe in a state like Missouri where over 2 million residents live in poverty.
It is immoral for Senator Hawley to advocate for war with China instead of working in cooperation with China to combat the planet’s current climate crisis or address the real, urgent needs of his constituents. Of course, addressing the urgent needs of his constituents might be hard when he likely receives his orders from the NRA. Being one of their biggest recipients, Hawley knows a thing or two about making a killing off of killing.
“We need diplomacy and peace in Ukraine AND in China too! We need cooperation and to work with China to address our common enemy, the climate crisis. No more escalation,” said Olivia DiNucci after being removed from the event.
“There is no excuse for congressmen like Hawley, who urge cutting social services while almost half of Missouri is suffering from poverty and systemic racism. Despite knowing that, Hawley continues to feed the war machine. Senator Hawley should prioritize money to those in need, not for war. We need reparations for countries we’ve helped devastate. We need diplomacy and peace now!”
The U.S. military is the world’s largest institutional oil consumer and causes more greenhouse gas emissions than 140 nations combined. In the meantime, China pledges to be carbon neutral by 2060 and invests in clean energy. Endless war is an existential threat to human life and one of the leading causes of the climate crisis.
Together, we can demand an end to militarism and limit the harm it causes our planet by diverting funds from the Pentagon towards much-needed social services. By cutting the Pentagon, we can also up-scale our renewable, clean energy infrastructure.
As we see in Ukraine, once a war starts, it is extremely hard to end. The U.S. cannot provoke another costly and deadly war. We must speak up for the billions of people in the Asia Pacific and protect their pristine ecosystems. The people of the world want cooperation, not more wars!
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