Two climate protestors from the campaign group Just Stop Oil have graffitied the slogan “1.5 Is Dead” in orange on Charles Darwin’s grave at Westminster Abbey in London this morning. Darwin was a highly influential naturalist who is best known for his theory of evolution, which he outlined in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.

The protest action, which took place at around 9:30 a.m. local time, comes just days after it was widely reported that we have already surpassed the 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming that had been declared “safe” by world leaders who signed the Paris Agreement in 2015. According to the BBC, European Copernicus climate service said that 2024 had been the first calendar year to pass this threshold, and the hottest year on record.

The two Just Stop Oil activists—retirees Alyson Lee, aged 66, and Di Bligh, aged 77—sprayed the grave with chalk. “Millions are being displaced, California is on fire and we have lost three quarters of all wildlife since the 1970’s,” they proclaimed shortly after the action. “Darwin would be turning in his grave to know we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction.”

“Darwin once said, ‘It is not the strongest of the species, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works cooperatively against common threats,” Bligh said in a press statement, explaining the significance of targeting the scientist’s grave.

Last year was the hottest since modern humans evolved,” she added. “If we do not work together to reign in the corporations and billionaires driving us beyond our means, humanity will not be able to adapt to what is coming.”

Westminster Abbey confirmed that orange chalk was sprayed by the climate activists on Darwin’s gravestone. “The Abbey’s conservators are taking immediate action to clean the memorial and do not anticipate that there will be any permanent damage,” a spokesperson said via email. Metropolitan police were called to the scene and dealt with the incident, the added. The Abbey remains open for visiting and worshipping.

Just Stop Oil has a history of demonstrating at cultural sites and museums, leading to a consortium of U.K. museum directors to issue an open letter last year, imploring the activist group to stop attacking their art and objects. In September, two activists threw soup over two Vincent van Gogh Sunflowers paintings on display at the National Gallery in London, an act that echoed a similar protest two years earlier. The perpetrators of the 2022 action, Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, had been handed hefty prison sentences by Southwark Crown Court earlier that same day.

This is a developing story and will be updated.