A climate change demonstrator is explaining his actions at the Travelers Championship golf tournament in Cromwell, Connecticut, where he and five other protesters interrupted the tournament at the 18th hole with smoke bombs.
The demonstrators are scheduled for their first court appearance on Tuesday, July 2, after they were tackled on the green and arrested by Cromwell Police. They face charges of criminal mischief, trespassing and breach of peace.
Shayok Mukhopadhyay, an artist, was one of several protesters wearing T-shirts reading “No golf on a dead planet.”
The resident of White Plains, New York, said that was a message for tournament spectators.
“Nothing that we take for granted today will remain, in this climate catastrophe that is surrounding us as we speak,” Mukhopadhyay said. “Golf is one of those things. There will be no golf on a dead planet. It will not exist.”
Most of the demonstrators are from the group Extinction Rebellion. Mukhopadhyay said they traveled from New York to the tournament in Connecticut because it was close to them, had a lot of high-profile golfers and was going to get a lot of attention.
“We were there to give people this message that this lovely day you are having with your friends and family at this tournament, you will not have that anymore,” Mukhopadhyay said. “It's dead serious. We mean it quite literally, that everything you take for granted in your daily life will cease to exist.”
Some golf fans booed as the demonstrators delayed the tournament, which took place during a days-long heat wave.
A climate protest with global implications
This is not the first time Mukhopadhyay has been arrested for disrupting a sports event to draw attention to climate change. Last year, he was charged after standing up at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships in Queens, New York, and yelling against climate change — delaying a match by almost an hour.
“I don't want all of this huge amount of suffering to go on. So that's why the climate crisis is so important, and I'm willing to risk my physical well-being and my freedom to talk about it,” he said.
Mukhopadhyay grew up in India and his parents still live there. The climate demonstrator said when he was living in India, he consumed much less than the average person living in the western world.
“My parents still consume much less than the average person in the western industrialized world,” Mukhopadhyay said. “Yet, the people back there are paying such a high price for the climate crisis.”
Heat waves in India are more frequent than when he was growing up, Mukhopadhyay said, and are hotter—sometimes above 115 degrees.
“Now you have policemen coming home from their day's work, lying down and never getting up in India. I really think about that.”
Mukhopadhyay said he is also concerned about harm caused by climate change in his adopted country of the United States.
Fear on the green
One of the golfers on the green told reporters he was frightened when the demonstrators burst out of the crowd throwing chalk powder and lighting fountain-style fireworks.
“I was scared for my life,” said Akshay Bhatia, who the PGA Tour ranked 25th in the world. “I didn’t even really know what was happening ... But thankfully the cops were there and kept us safe, because that’s, you know, that’s just weird stuff.”
Mukhopadhyay said he was also frightened before he rushed onto the green.
“I was really scared because there were so many policemen,” Mukhopadhyay said. “They are heavily armed. I mean they have things that can kill. This is not easy to do. We are just regular people. You don’t practice for this. There is no practice. You just have to do it in the moment.”
Mukhopadhyay said he does not owe the golfer, Bhatia, an apology.
“A fire alarm is frightening too, right? A fire alarm is annoying too. But a fire alarm is necessary for safety,” Mukhopadhyay said. “We are the fire alarm of the climate crisis. Yes, a fire alarm is like ear-piercing and nauseating and frightening. But you need a fire alarm.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
