For World Environment Day on Thursday, a French climber scaled the New York Times building in Manhattan to protest climate change. Wearing a T-shirt bearing the words “The Solution Is Simple.Org” — the web address of a one-page site calling for meaningful climate action — Alain Robert climbed to the top of the 52-story building unroped and without a parachute. Once at the top, he unfurled a banner reading, “Global warming kills more people than a 9/11 every week,” and was promptly arrested. Robert is an experienced climber who has scaled some 83 tall buildings all over the world. However, another man who scaled the Times building just hours after Robert is not well known. Renaldo Clarke of Brooklyn appeared much less prepared for the feat, according to bystanders, and has been called a copycat by authorities. After Clarke also reached the top of the building — a climb he said was a stunt to raise awareness of malaria — he was arrested and taken to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation; he was soon discharged and taken to jail instead.
