Nancy Pelosi's Climate Climate Hypocrisy Called Out at Goldman Environmental Prize Ceremony

CODEPINK members were in attendance at the Kennedy Center Wednesday night to watch cofounder Diane Wilson receive a Goldman Environmental Prize for her work and activism to save the gulf waters in Texas.

But when former Speaker of the House and California representative Nancy Pelosi took the stage to address the crowd, CODEPINK members felt compelled to speak out.

Olivia DiNucci calmly walked onto the stage with a “War is Not Green” sign and activists in the audience began shouting out “Stop the war in Ukraine. We need peace talks. War is not green.” DiNucci talked about the obscene size of the Pentagon budget that is taking away the money we need to address the climate.

“It’s a huge hypocrisy to have Nancy Pelosi speak at an environmental ceremony,” said DiNucci. “Pelosi voted for almost a trillion dollar Pentagon budget. That money should go for climate justice. The people awarded today represent communities that have been devastated by our war machine.”

It is also ironic that the CODEPINK protesters were detained and investigated by the police, and may be permanently barred from the Kennedy Center, while environmentalists involved in direct action, such as Diane Wilson, were being awarded.

Before the ceremony began, CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin talked to Rep. Pelois, telling her we need peace talks in Ukraine to stop the bloodshed and prevent the environmental catastrophe of nuclear war, and reminded Pelosi that the Pentagon leaks revealed that the war is a stalemate. “We don’t need peace talks,” Pelosi answered. “We need victory.”

CODEPINK will continue to pressure members of Congress and the White House to cut the Pentagon budget and to promote peace talks in Ukraine instead of fueling an unwinnable war that can only be settled at the negotiating table.

The video of the encounter and the aftermath can be viewed here.