You’ve let the planet down, so we’re letting your tyres down – thetimes.co.uk

Nicholas Hellen, Transport Editor Saturday June 04 2022 Sunday Times
A young man in a mask crouches down by the back wheel of a Mercedes G-class, fiddles with the valve, inserts a single dried bean into the cap and pushes down. A few seconds later, as the air hisses out, he is walking nonchalantly away from the scene.
He is one of a new breed of activists, calling themselves the Tyre Extinguishers, who are taking on climate change one mung bean at a time.
The G-class, or G-Wagon, which is 6ft 5in high, weighs 2½ tons and does only 26 miles to the gallon of diesel, is the brashest of SUVs. Even here, at midnight in Hampstead, where the streets are thick with Range Rovers, Land Rover Discoverys, Audi Q8s and BMW X5s, it is a trophy for those bent on making it socially unacceptable to own these vehicles in urban areas.
The campaigners say SUVs are a “disaster” for our climate and the second-largest cause of the global rise in carbon dioxide emissions in the past decade. This broad category accounts for more than 40 per cent of Britain’s car sales, even though very few of the people who drive them do so off road.