Climate activists smear themselves with mud to evoke flooding in Italy

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} A pair of bare-chested protesters smeared themselves with mud outside the Senate building in Rome on Tuesday to protest fossil fuel use and remind people of the dangers of flooding linked to climate change. Since last year, an activist group called Last Generation has staged numerous attention-grabbing events in Italy, including pouring black liquid in the Trevi Fountain in Rome and gluing themselves to the glass protecting the Botticelli masterpiece "Spring” in the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, to highlight the harm that fossil fuels cause to the environment and its role in global warming. The activists used mud to remind people of last week’s severe flooding in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, where 21 rivers overran their banks and hundreds of mudslides were triggered by a heavy concentration of downpours on rain-parched land.