BERLIN – The radical climate activists tried hunger strikes. They glued themselves to famous paintings. They tried to disrupt a classical concert. They confronted lawmakers trying to enter parliament. They even desecrated an official Christmas tree of the city of Berlin.

It took them donning neon vests, walking into traffic at rush hour and gluing themselves to the streets in Berlin and Munich, causing kilometres-long backups and bringing drivers to murderous rage, to make their protest impossible to ignore.

With their actions, carried out with increasing frequency as 2022 drew to a close, they have attracted enormous attention in a country where cars reign supreme, home to BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen and the autobahn.

But they have also united almost everyone in politics in Berlin, and much of the public, against them.

They have become a target for conservatives and embarrassment for the governing Green Party, which has long been working within the political system toward the same goals.

And their tactics have stirred debate even within the broader environmentalist movement over how much is too much in pursuit of climate goals.

The answer from the protesters, who are the German chapter of an environmental group called Last Generation, is that the climate crisis warrants drastic action.

The group was founded in 2021 when a small number of activists went on a weeks-long hunger strike in front of the parliament building in Berlin.

It is now well-funded and has since grown to include a few hundred active members.

Their actions have earned, among other things, a reference in the president’s Christmas speech last week – a sign that their protests have struck a nerve.

Their immediate demands – things such as ending food waste, enforcing strict speed limits to reduce emissions and subsidising rail travel – may seem tame, but their ultimate message is urgent: The world is in a climate emergency and business as usual is not an option.

“They mix claims really easy to implement, majority-winning policy claims – things that are quite accessible for a majority of the population – with a system criticism,” said Daniel Saldivia Gonzatti, who studies protests at WZB Berlin Social Science Center. “It’s effective.”

And enraging. Friedrich Merz, head of the conservative opposition, called Last Generation a criminal organisation and wants authorities to test whether it could be declared illegal.

Another politician, Alexander Dobrindt, parliamentary leader of the Bavarian conservative party, compared the group to the Red Army Faction, a notorious band of left-wing terrorists who robbed, murdered and kidnapped in the 1970s.

But to Last Generation’s members, extreme action is the answer to government inaction.

“The government has ignored over 1 million people on the streets in Germany alone and the government is ignoring scientists,” said Carla Rochel, a 20-year-old student who was one of the early members of Last Generation, referring to Fridays for Future, a series of peaceful protests that peaked before the pandemic. “That’s why we decided to take to the streets and simply not go away anymore.”

On a recent and exceedingly chilly and damp weekday morning, six protesters from Last Generation walked into a traffic junction on a busy road leading to the storied Potsdamer Platz, one of downtown Berlin’s most traffic-jam-prone spots, and unfurled banners and then little rubber-seating mats.

After a second’s pause, they sat down in unison and with seemingly choreographed motion each began gluing one of their hands to the wet pavement.

Within seconds, drivers starting honking and trying to go around the protesters onto the median. Within minutes, police arrived and tried to pull away the protesters.

Because the pavement was wet, officers managed to pull four of the activists onto the pavement – two more could not be budged and a special unit had to be dispatched to dissolve the glue using oil and solvents.

“One of the scariest moments is when the cars start rolling towards you, pushing themselves through people as though they don’t intend to stop,” said Irma Trommer, 26, who has taken part in similar human roadblocks dozens of times.

Not everyone thinks their form of activism is productive.

“It annoys me, maybe that’s embarrassing,” said Renate Künast, a Green Party stalwart and former federal minister, who has spent nearly two decades in federal politics. Democracy is a process, she said, and even in her position, she can’t make climate dominate the conversation in parliament.

The activists gained a new level of infamy in November when a cyclist in Berlin died after being pinned by a cement mixer during one of the group’s traffic jams.

Polls taken just after the accident found that 80 per cent of Germans were critical of the group’s action and 86 per cent thought the actions ended up hurting the cause of fighting climate change.

The notoriety has only galvanised the group, whose numbers have grown from just a couple of dozen in the summer to hundreds of activists and supporters.

In December, the group was blocking traffic in Berlin on three to four mornings a week, sometimes at multiple locations.

“The future I personally am heading for – if climate policy does not change – is so much more uncertain than anything I am taking on here,” said Trommer, referring to not just the very real possibly of violence she faces from frustrated drivers, but a permanent criminal record she could walk away with.

“My hope is that by showing that I’m willing to risk myself doing these actions, how crazy threatening global situation is for people of my age,” she said, rubbing her hand, which was torn off the pavement by a police officer before the glue had set. NYTIMES