Climate activists vandalize Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie’s yacht

News

By Isabel Keane

Climate activists blasted red spray paint all over a $300 million superyacht owned by billionaire Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie early Friday — the second time it’s been vandalized in the past two months.

Two activists from Scientist Rebellion and Extinction Rebellion Spain sprayed the yacht moored in Barcelona to “denounce billionaires’ enormous impact on the #climatecrisis,” the organizations said online.

Video shows the activists unleashing a stream of bright red paint at the massive luxury ship before unraveling a banner saying, “Billionaires should not exist.”

The eco-warriors made a point of noting that the paint was biodegradable.

“At the end of another exceptional summer in terms of record temperatures and extreme weather events, the richest 1% of people on the planet continue to pollute more than the poorest 50%,” a spokesperson for the groups told CNN.

“Mega-yachts are one of the most obvious examples of a lifestyle that is unsustainable for the planet.”

The activists entered Marina Port Vell, a dock for superyachts, at about 7 a.m. Friday, the group said.

The activists were detained by police at the marina for three hours before being released.

A spokesperson for Marina Port Vell said the boat was not damaged and was quickly cleaned off following the incident.

The same ship was targeted earlier this summer by activists with Futuro Vegetal, who used fire extinguishers to paint the ship with red and black spray paint while it was docked in Ibiza.

After vandalizing the ship, the activists held up a banner that said, “You Consume — Others Suffer.”

“The only reason we continue to maintain an economic system that leads us to eco-social collapse is to sustain the privileges of this small privileged class,” the group said at the time in justifying the vandalism.

“The mega-rich live off the suffering of others,” the eco-warriors said.

The Futuro Vegetal group said it specifically targeted Laurie’s yacht as she is one of the wealthiest women in the world, with Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index pegging her net worth at $7.77 billion.