The polar bear of Wall Street,

, is 51-year-old Peter Galvin, a founder of the

in Tucson, Ariz., one of the more strident environmental groups in the country. He became a brief social-media sensation on Monday, at the more confrontational of the two climate change protests that filled the streets of New York in the days before international leaders met to pledge action to curb global warming.

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His costume and his tactics were a throwback to years of demonstrations that, for activists, have yielded disappointingly few results. Gavin was far from the first man to protest global warming in polar bear garb. Another was arrested five years ago in Copenhagen during a similar march, which coincided with a round of United Nations climate talks.

A longtime activist, Galvin embodies this spirit of seasoned protester, a die-hard environmentalist who feels at home bashing capitalism mere yards from its symbolic home, the New York Stock Exchange. He’s not like the newbies, the thousands of first-time protesters who rolled legal-incident-free through Manhattan on Sunday in what was called the largest climate march in history. Galvin knows what he’s doing, the risks of defying law enforcement. And he knows you’ll likely tweet about it.

He was a popular protester at Flood Wall Street, which aimed to interrupt and shame businesses that organizers say drive climate change. Protesters, who blocked traffic near the stock exchange from sunrise to sundown, wanted to raise awareness about the link between carbon emissions, global warming and the big banks they say fund global destruction. Call it an environmental update to Occupy Wall Street, which started three years ago at a Manhattan park to denounce big banking practices. Flood Wall Street followed Sunday’s People’s Climate March, which drew more than 300,000 protesters to Central Park.