Dire distress flag signal — will environmental publicity stunt be heeded?

Green defunding and environmental damage isn't limited to the US, we need to be alert to the dangers here too warns ecologist Pádraic Fogarty

A US flag is hung upside down below the Upper Yosemite Falls during a protest against federal employee layoffs at Yosemite National Park, California. Picture: Laure Andrillon / AFP

An upside-down 'stars and stripes' was unfurled from the summit of El Capitan, the most famous peak of California’s Yosemite National Park recently.

Flying the flag upside down is, according to the US flag code “a signal of dire distress in instance of extreme danger to life or property”.