Dozens of Extinction Rebellion protesters were arrested after supergluing themselves to a bright green boat they towed into a busy Times Square intersection in New York City, blocking traffic.

Some 62 protesters were taken into custody after parking a lime green sailboat in the middle of Times Square, one of the city’s busiest intersections, snarling up traffic for two hours on Thursday morning.

The stunt, engineered by the controversial environmental activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR), was designed to force action on climate change – the boat, and many of the protesters’ signs, demanded the government “ACT NOW.”

Demonstrators, many wearing life jackets or carrying cardboard “life preservers” printed with slogans, converged on the busy landmark around 10am, forcing the closure of several intersections and three entire blocks.

Many superglued their hands to the boat, preventing easy removal, and even the unattached refused to move when asked by police, repeatedly intoning “This is a climate emergency” instead. By noon, police were able to tow the vessel away, having used a chemical to unglue the protesters.

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The protest was the second major XR demonstration in New York this week, part of what the group has described as a two-week global “civil disobedience campaign” that saw hundreds of activists descend on the city’s financial district on Monday, covering themselves in fake blood and staging a “die-in” around the iconic Wall Street bull statue.

The group, which claims to have chapters in 56 countries, plans to target “institutions whose decisions greatly impact the climate crisis.”

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