In Lancashire, England, today, Dame Vivienne Westwood channeled her inner Dancing Queen to protest the fracking practices of UK energy giant Cuadrilla Resources.
For those who’ve kept up with British – and Abba! – news lately, it was a couple of weeks ago that British prime minister Theresa May awkwardly shimmied to “Dancing Queen” at the nation’s Conservative Party conference. Westwood showed May a thing or two during the rally as she danced, wearing a cape of stitched-together scarves.
Designer Vivienne Westwood joined an anti-fracking protest in Lancashire today after drilling was approved at the site last week pic.twitter.com/DHCwmunCcQ
— Press Association (@PA) October 16, 2018
“I’m going to save the world from climate change,” she told her fellow protestors. “Because I’ve got a plan and I’m the only person who’s got a real strategy of something easy to do…I designed a set of playing cards because I’m an activist. I’ve got so many graphics I thought I would put them all on a set of playing cards. But they’re not just a set of playing cards…they’re a whole strategy to save the world.”
Vivienne Westwood’s protest comes on the heels of alarming news from a U.N. climate reportsaying a global crisis could happen as soon as 2040. Fracking just restarted in the UK for the first time since 2011, with Cuadrilla starting a three-month exploration process. The country’s Department of Energy and Climate Change at the time had suspended fracking after fears that the process led to earth tremors.
This is far from the first time the environmentally conscious designer has protested fracking. In 2015, she drove a tank to former prime minister David Cameron’s home.
“Cameron accuses foreign leaders such as President Gaddafi and President Assad of supposedly using chemicals on their own people as a justification for regime change,” she said at the time. “But he is doing precisely that here in Britain by forcing toxic, life-threatening fracking chemicals on his own people against the advice of his own chief scientist. It’s time for regime change in Britain. Cameron plans to force householders to surrender their land and endure fracking underneath their homes. Britons no longer have any choice but to fight back.”
It looks like the fight continues, but at least we have Abba.