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23rd Sep 2021

Naked climate protester praised for This Morning interview but social media completely missed the point

Danny Jones

The activist was praised for her appearance on This Morning, but many on social media were completely focused on one irrelevant question

An Extinction Rebellion protestor made quite the statement by appearing on TV’s This Morning earlier today (Thursday).

Laura Amherst, 31, is an avid climate activist from Brighton and in an attempt to try and draw more people’s attention to the urgently pressing issue of climate change, she decided to do her interview in the nude – covered by her important placards, of course.

While she made many worthwhile comments about being a mother and “worrying about the future that our children are going to have,” not to mention rightly emphasising that “It’s about education and it’s about awareness”, many people at watching home couldn’t help but focus on the wrong thing.

Amherst predictably got a lot of both love and hate online, with some saying she spoke “so well, so calmly and simply”, adding that her using actions to “draw attention and disrupt are necessary”, while others suggested she was doing “more harm than good”. However, it was a particular section of social media that didn’t even engage on that level of discussion.

Whilst many might claim it’s a completely reasonable concern, especially in a post-Covid climate, it was clear that some people just couldn’t get past the gimmick for what it was and the purpose it was meant to serve. One person posted: “Is she fully naked I hope they dettol the sofa afterwards”.

Regardless, Amherst – who raised thousands through donations on OnlyFans for XR’s ‘Impossible Rebellion’ campaign, clearly got people talking as intended. However, as she went on to say, “it’s about getting the right people’s attention […] we need the governments to step up and do what they need to do here.

The naked climate protestor, who is also currently studying for a politics degree, says that she also intends to donate 75% of her earnings from the topless content to XR, Greenpeace and animal rescue charities.

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