Just Stop Oil activists from Norwich have said that they will not be cowed by the government's moves to crack down on "unacceptable protests".
The group of 17 was arrested after blocking three London roads and refusing to move as part of Just Stop Oil's campaign to stop the government issuing new fossil fuel licenses.
The campaign began in April of this year, with activists blocking oil terminals and roads as large as the M25 as well as throwing soup on a Van Gogh painting and paint on government buildings.
One of those arrested, 19-year-old cafe assistant Frances Davies, said: "By 2050 there could be 1.2 billion climate refugees, an incomprehensibly massive humanitarian crisis, food shortages, droughts, freak storms and heatwaves.
"I want to be able to go outside in the summer, I want to have a life, I want to have a career and a family, I want to grow old.
"There is nothing that the police, or the courts, or the government can do to scare me that is scarier than what we will face if I don’t take action."
Prime minister Rishi Sunak pledged on Thursday that police will have whatever powers required to crack down on disruptive protests.
He called it “completely unacceptable” that ordinary people were having their lives disrupted by environmental protests.
Another protestor, 63-year-old Quaker and retired nurse Lesley Grahame, who is also a Green city councillor for the Thorpe Hamlet area of Norwich, added: “The climate nightmares of my 20s have become the headlines of my 60s.
"We need to change direction, stop new fossil fuels and invest in energy efficiency and genuinely clean renewables.
"Any disruption caused by raising the alarm is nothing compared to the accelerating chaos if we fail.”
The group is not worried about gaining public favour with spokesperson Gabby Ditton saying: "The protests are very disruptive but unless we cause disruption we get ignored.
"We are not here to win a popularity contest, we are here to force social change to save the lives of those we love.
"Martin Luther King Jr was the most hated man in America and now there is a national holiday named after him."
Just Stop Oil is holding a talk about civil disobedience at the Sir Garnet pub in Norwich on Tuesday, December 13 at 7pm for those who want to learn more.
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