How 'climate lockdowns' became the new battleground for conspiracy-driven protest movement

LONDON — According to committed conspiracy theorist and climate change skeptic Linda Skinner, the Covid-19 pandemic was just the start of the global elite’s effort to oppress the world.

What’s the shadowy cabal’s next goal? Take away your car, the Londoner said.  

While there is no evidence such a plan exists, Skinner is part of a growing group that evolved out of anti-vaccine protests and has energized a campaign against environmental measures across Britain and elsewhere. Many of these fears are generalized into opposition to “15-minute cities,” an urban planning idea designed to reduce traffic and increase walking and cycling that has become an obsession of the post-pandemic protest movement.

“This is only the beginning,” said Skinner, 64, who works at a jewelers and believes Covid was developed and released by a shadowy and powerful group “as a trial to see how compliant people would be.”