While I have been an organizer and an activist for years now, my love of water came first. From my earliest days spending time on inland lakes in Wisconsin holding onto the back of my mom’s windsurfer as we sped across the water to when I was strong enough to windsurf on my own, to kayaking and canoeing to jumping into water on hot summers days and now sailing, I am drawn to water. As such, the opportunity to work on a Greenpeace ship has long been a dream of mine, seeming like the perfect marriage of my loves. Continue reading →
It’s official. On Friday, Shell got a step closer to drilling for oil in our planet’s last wild ocean – the Arctic.
The company’s oil spill response plan for the Chukchi Sea off Alaska was given the all clear by US authorities, even though it’s a work of almost complete fantasy.
While Shell prepares to start trashing this stunning wilderness, putting it at risk of catastrophic oil spills and more melting as a result of more climate change, its PR people are getting busy. This evening, they’ve invited influential guests to an event at the National Gallery in London, in the hope that those guests will lend the Shell brand a veneer of respectability.
We’ve decided to tell their guests the truth: this year Shell is planning to drill for oil in the pristine waters of the Arctic, and its plans will change this fragile wilderness forever.
So our climbers have made sure that guests at the National Gallery are met with an unexpected picture when they arrive; a short while ago, they evaded security and are preparing to unfurl a huge banner with the words “It’s no oil painting”. Our climber Hannah is tweeting from the rooftop using the hashtag #SaveTheArctic.
Meanwhile, Paula Bear has emerged from her wintry den to mingle with the crowds in Trafalgar Square, where dozens of Greenpeace volunteers are talking to curious passers-by.
Shell sees the Arctic as a resource to be exploited for profit. We think it should be protected. What do you think? Join the discussion on our blog and on Twitter:#SaveTheArctic.
Polar bears – like other Arctic species including beluga whales, narwhals and walruses – are already under severe pressure in the Arctic from climate change. In just 30 years, the Arctic has lost 75% of its sea ice, and temperatures in the Arctic are rising faster than anywhere else on Earth.
While more and more people recognise the changing face of the Arctic as a stark warning about climate change (earlier today, several scientists gave evidence to this effect to the parliamentary inquiry, Protecting the Arctic), Shell sees the melting ice as a business opportunity – a chance to drill in newly accessible areas to find more of the oil that caused the melt in the first place.
And Shell’s plans pose a new threat to the Arctic’s stunning – and ecologically fragile – coastlines and oceans: the threat of a catastrophic oil spill, which would be impossible to clean up.
Shell is just first of the so-called ‘supermajors’ – the big oil companies – to make exploitation of the Arctic a key part of their strategy. But if it strikes oil this summer, other global oil giants may follow.
Shell sees the Arctic as a resource to be exploited for profit. We think it should be protected. What do you think? Join the discussion on our blog and on Twitter:#SaveTheArctic.
Cross-posted by Laura Kenyon, Greenpeace International
Nearly a year after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, it’s time to take a look at its legacy and take an opportunity to stand in solidarity with the people who continue to suffer the impacts. We’re calling for a nuclear free, renewable future and asking you to join us in sending messages of support and hope to Japan.
The silence and contamination left behind by the Fukushima disaster have been captured in the online photographic exhibit Shadowlands by photographer Robert Knoth. Robert’s haunting photographs of empty villages, deserted schoolyards, and abandoned farmlands not only act as a chilling reminder to us of the costs of nuclear energy, but an impetus to continue demanding a future free from nuclear risk. Continue reading →
It has become tiresome to rip on President Obama for failing America and the world on climate. We could not help but get excited in November 2008 when we realized Bush II and his oil lackeys were out of office in two months. But one could argue that President Obama led us on by saying things like “Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all.” And, regarding White House leadership, “That will change when I take office.”
The bar for Obama administration action on climate has become so low that it doesn’t take much to get people excited. For example, the President used the words “climate change” during his recent state of the union address, having failed to mention this existential dilemma last year. Some people read a lot into that. Continue reading →
Deforestation in Sumatra, Indonesia by Sinar Mas supplier PT Arara Abadi
Another blow has been delivered to the credibility of Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), thanks to some excellent work by WWF. In a survey of the certification bodies that APP regularly references to prop up its flimsy claims of sustainability, none of them would support APP’s assertions about its environmental performance. Continue reading →
Blogpost by Lagi Toribau, Greenpeace Australia Pacific
Late last year, while I was onboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, we discovered a Taiwanese ship, the Sheng Chi Hui Number 7, catching and finning sharks in Palauan waters. This is a sad, destructive and unfortunately widespread practice in the Pacific Ocean: sharks are caught, their fins cut off and the bodies thrown back into the ocean, left to die. Millions of sharks are caught for their fins every year in this way for making shark fin soup, an expensive delicacy served mostly in Asian nations. Continue reading →
Last week alarmed consumers from across the country began commenting on Chicken of the Sea’s Facebook page. Last week in Orange County, a small group of those consumers met over vegan pizzas to pester and persuade the tuna giant to switch to sustainable fishing methods. Several of us that had posted the night before had already been blocked from the Chicken of the Sea page and our comments had been deleted. Obviously, the mermaid has something to hide. But not to worry! We documented the whole process with screen shots of our messages, so Chicken of the Sea can’t escape so easily.
With the parent company Thai Union’s United Kingdom tuna brand John West already committed to protecting our oceans with FAD-free purse seine nets and pole and line methods of fishing, Chicken of the Sea really has no more excuses. If they could stand behind the way they treat the source of their profits, they wouldn’t have to hide their consumers’ demands.
Leaked documents from inside one of America’s most powerful thinktanks have revealed a multi-million dollar systematic disinformation campaign to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Continue reading →
Dan giving a tour on the bow of the Rainbow Warrior.
It’s not everyday the Rainbow Warrior, a 190 foot sailboat, shows up in the small quiet town of Southport, NC, but this last weekend that’s exactly what happened. The boat was so large, instead of docking, Captain Willcox had to anchor the ship in the middle of the Cape Fear River. Hundreds of North Carolinians lined up to be chartered over to the ship and given a tour. While others stopped traffic on coastal roads so they could get out and take a full frame picture of the ship. Continue reading →
Greenpeace’s campaign to make Duke Energy into a true clean energy champion has started with a bang, and the reactions from both Duke Energy and Progress Energy (which are attempting to merge into the country’s largest utility) have been sadly predictable.
With the economy struggling to create new jobs, the climate inching closer to the tipping point, and coal communities fighting for their lives, talking points won’t be enough this time. We need leadership from Duke. Continue reading →
