Portuguese drivers take matters into their own hands with climate activists: Show ‘how it’s done’

Portuguese drivers lost patience with climate activists blocking a busy highway during rush hour traffic Tuesday morning and took the situation into their own hands. 

According to the Portugal Resident, activists from a group called Climáximo, sat on Lisbon’s Segunda Circular highway to protest the nearby energy company Galp. Two protesters also hung from cables on a pedestrian bridge overlooking the highway.

However, the protest reportedly ended after just a few minutes when frustrated drivers decided to move the activists themselves.

A viral video shows cars blared their horns at the activists before about a dozen drivers exited their vehicles and swiftly dragged the small group out of the street.

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The video was shared by "End Wokeness" on X, who remarked, "Climate activists tried to block a highway in Portugal. Drivers quickly ended it. This is how it’s done."

The video drew strong reaction and over 6 million views as of Wednesday morning. Climáximo also shared a fuller video of the protest on X.

The climate activist group describes itself as an "anticapitalist" climate justice collective based in Lisbon. It accuses companies like Galp of "genocide."

The Portugal Resident reported that nine activists were arrested. However, a Portuguese news outlet reported that the group held a new protest Wednesday morning. 

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One Climaximo activist told SIC Notícias that they did not feel their demonstrations were causing public disorder.

"Public disorder is established when there are no services to serve people in Portugal, when there is no housing, when there is no insulation of houses," he told the news outlet. 

The group believes governments and companies around the world have "declared war on people and the planet" in a "premeditated and coordinated act of violence."

"They are right now killing thousands of people, dumping tens of millions, burning them alive, drowning them. They are right now condemning millions of people to gas chambers, only this time, the gases are greenhouse gases and the chamber is the entire planet. This is called climate breakdown and it is a premeditated and coordinated act of violence," the activists claim on their website.

The group's disruptive tactics are similar to those used by UK-based climate activists, Extinction Rebellion. 

Thousands of radical climate activists from Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, and other groups, blocked a Dutch highway last month to protest billions of Euros in government subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. 

Climáximo told Fox News Digital in a statement: "As capitalism requires a violent and alienated society, and it has a whole media apparatus set up expecting it, we fully understand that blocking roads for some minutes can be a nuisance and it might trigger some disproportionate responses. Blocking roads is, however, a non-violent action and in no way comparable to the extreme violence of the climate crisis." 

The group added, "We are living in a war that governments and powerful companies knowingly declared on the people, decades ago, with growing numbers of millions of victims. We cannot consent to being mere bystanders, we cannot be complacent with this war. We refuse to let them kill us and everything we love."

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Fox News' Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.