Free Greenpeace T-shirt for the first one to name all the celebrities in this music video produced by the Tck Tck Tck campaign.

Have you called for a cool Copenhagen climate treaty yet?

I arrived in Svea, Svalbard this morning. It's absolutely beautiful here. My camera has been working overtime, and I have way too many pictures of fjords and snowy mountains already.

Going over Svalbard by plane was surprising. I expected it to be white all over, but it's mainly brown - at least in the southern part. I could see beaches and lagoon-like colors around them. If it wasn't for the fact that the temperatures are below freezing, I would have been tempted to go for a swim.

There's much less snow than I expected so far.

It was strange yesterday evening to be in Longyearbyen, and see what was happening half a world away, in Canada. Activists stopped the tar sands yet again. When you know the effect that industrial projects like these have on the climate, and on the Arctic region where I am right now, it is good to know that people are stepping up and taking action.

From the top of the world - activists have just spent more than 30 hours calling for a global energy revolution by blocking a coal shipment in the Arctic (But we do wish it was actually Obama, Merkel, and friends demanding the world quit coal!)

Update 10AM CET Saturday October 3:

Update 8AM CET Saturday October 3:

Our crew did not accept police requests to move, and remained on site blocking the operation over night, in minus 15 degrees.

Read the full world leaders story here

From Juliette on board the Arctic Sunrise 3rd October, 9:25am CET

I went on shore late last night, to keep the climbers company for a while. It can get boring, hanging from a crane for eight hours. They were swinging a bit to keep warm - if you stay still too long at minus 15 degrees, no matter how good your suit is, it gets a bit chilly...

Their resolve never went down though. I'm always impressed by activists who seem to be able to hang in there, as long as it's needed, because it's simply the right thing to do. While I was simply taking mental notes of things to write here, they were preparing to spend the night - THERE!

The electrical room was occupied during the day in order to cut the power if anyone tried to start the conveyor belt. It hosted what I heard described as the "universal big red button saying 'STOP'". The workers promised that no harm would come to our activists and that the belt wouldn't start again while they were there - so nobody had to stay in that room overnight.

This morning, I woke up to find a new ship just outside of my porthole and later discovered it was the coastguard. What this means for the activists, I'm not sure yet.

Earlier, from Juliette

The sun is setting already behind the mountains on the fjord. We have been blocking the conveyer belt for over eight hours already, and we're planning on staying here for the night, and much longer if needed. From the deck of the Arctic Sunrise I can see the coal ship and the crane that the activists are occupying. Behind them are breath-takingly beautiful white mountains. Seals are all around us playing in the water.

Everything seems timeless, and it's hard to believe that this could be destroyed by misguided energy choices - but it will. As the climate warms, the likeliness of seeing polar bears here is getting less and less. Svalbard is polar bear territory, but where will they go when if it warms too much?

The Arctic region, where Svalbard lays, is at the frontline of climate change.

From Juliette in Svalbard:

This afternoon, a small group of us went out with an inflatable to the end of the glacier. I found out how deceiving the clean air was. We can see the end so well from here and I thought it'd be a matter of five or ten minutes to get there. In reality, it took us about an hour. By then, our ship, the Arctic sunrise, was a dot on the horizon. As we got closer to the front of the glacier, I found out just how huge it was. It's one of those things that make you understand just how small you are next to the size of this planet. The crew around me, who have seen glaciers for the past three months, looked unimpressed though - compared to what they've seen since the beginning of the Arctic Meltdown Expedition, this was a small and cute one.

The colors are also incredible. From dirt black to electric blue to pure white - a glacier is anything but uniform.

We couldn't approach it completely - in case it calved and a wave made our inflatable topple over.

The air is as cold as I have ever felt. I had three layers of thermal clothes and two pairs of socks and gloves - but by the end of the first hour I was shivering and probably turning blue. The others around me (except Dima from Russia and Rosa from Finland) didn't look too good either. The water was starting to freeze.

Updates from action at tar sands upgrader expansion site:

5:00am local time - Sunday Oct 4

After occupying the expansion site of a Shell tar sands upgrader for 24 hours all Greenpeace activists have now been removed from the site by police. The final 9 were taken in the early hours of the morning - in total 16 activists from Canada, Brazil, France, Australia and Sweden took part in the occupation.

The different nationalities of the activists who participated reflects the fact that tar sands development - and the consequences for environment and climate - are a global problem, not just a Canadian one. A lot of criticisms have focused on the fact that 'foreigners' or 'outsiders' should keep out of Canadian business and not try to tell Canada how to manage its resources. But the fact is that the tar sands are the largest capital investment project on the planet - and are being fueled by companies, governments and investors all around the world. This makes tar sands development - and the consquences - everyone's concern.

The tar sands are projected to reach emissions of 140 million tonnes a year - more than the current level of Belgium. This is why 16 of our activists occupied the Shell upgrader expansion site for 24 hours - through cold and rain - to send the message that the tar sands must be stopped.

12pm local time

9:30pm local time

Shell security gather below activists as they ready themselves to stay overnight.

7pm local time

It's raining up here and it's cold, but we're all excited to hear that we blocked work on the site! We heard that they had meant to run a test that takes weeks to plan and we shut it down!

6:30 local time

Activists have been occupying the construction site of a Shell tar sands upgrader facility for 12 hours. Shell has made comments to the media that it would like to arrange a meeting with Greenpeace in order to resolve the situation - and there have been some critics accusing Greenpeace of not being willing to meet with Shell. Greenpeace is willing to meet with Shell representatives. In fact, Greenpeace and Shell have been meeting on and off for 15 years - but the climate doesn't have another 15 years to wait for companies like Shell to abandon deadly projects like tar sands development.

6:00pm local time

Up on the smokestack we are settling in to our tent - our friends on the other crane and stack aren't as lucky, but we are trying to keep each other going. Many workers have been really kind to us. One of us had his bag taken on the way in, but people returned his juice and jacket to him.

1:30pm local time

Activists make their own 'Stop the Tar Sands' banners inside the action.

12pm local time

Activists in good spirits now that operations have been halted at construction site for over four hours.

8am local time

Activists have successfully brought operations on the construction site to a halt.

4am local time

Greenpeace activists entered a construction site where a tar sands upgrader is being expanded. 13 activists are successfully blocking three smokestacks inside the expansion site and one of the construction cranes and settling in for long haul despite temperatures hovering around freezing point in early hours.

It's a busy time for #climateaction- at least, on the part of activists. On the part of policy-makers action on climate change is at a deadlock, as demonstrated at the Bangkok UN climate talks. At a time when decision-makers aren't making anything happen - activists are:

Yesterday a coal shipment was blocked in Svalbard in sub zero temperatures by Greenpeace activists. (70,000 tonnes of coal - to be exact.)

Greenpeace ship the Arctic Sunrise joined the activists in Svalbard after completing a three month tour of the Arctic, researching the impacts of climate change in that region. The results of that trip show - more than ever - that we need those willing to take real action to step up and lead on climate change.

Today activists are once again bringing attention to global climate crime - and taking climate action in the tar sands. The tar sands are the largest energy project on the planet, and the largest capital investment project on the planet - meaning that investors and companies from all over the world are involved in fueling this high-energy, emission-heavy source of unconventional oil. Its total emissions will soon surpass those of entire countries - meaning their continued development threatens the effectiveness of the global climate action we need to happen this year at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen. That's why we need to Stop the Tar Sands. [Get more facts on the tar sands by reading Greenpeace Canada's latest report: 'Dirty Oil: How the tar sands are fueling the global climate crisis']

Previous Greenpeace actions in the tar sands have stopped open pit mining operations at Shell's Albian mine, shut down a conveyor belt at a Suncor facility, and now we are occupying the third stage in tar sands extraction and processing - an upgrader facility. (Upgraders are one step in the energy intensive process that takes the tar-like bitumen and turns it into dirty oil.)

See latest above, more updates as they come in

Learn more, watch the action unfold live and support our campaign to Stop the Tar Sands. Spread the word - tweet your support, or share our updates on Facebook.

From Juliette, on board the Arctic Sunrise

Early this morning, three inflatables were lowered from the deck of the Arctic Sunrise and joined the bow of the Pascha - a ship transporting 70,000 tons of coal to Portugal from Svalbard.

In the past few days, the same activists blocked the loading of the Pascha for over 27 hours, even staying out during the night in minus 15 degrees. But today the activists were not alone - they were joined by two polar bears!

Polar bears are severely at risk by the continuing use of coal - the main source of human produced greenhouse gases. And as if that's not bad enough - coal is also being mined right in their backyard.

If we do not rein in our carbon emissions, soon the glacier that I saw, including one outside my window right now, will melt away. We have been documenting the effects of climate change on these glaciers as well as hosting top scientists on the Arctic Sunrise for the past three months. There is still much left undiscovered, and precaution demands that we reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases now.

Yesterday our activists in Sweden sent an urgent message to President Lula of Brazil. During a one day EU-Brazil Summit, Lula met with Prime Minister Reinfeldt of Sweden - who is the current President of the European Council - and President Barroso of the European Commission (all photographed above - with activists in the background holding up banners and a giant ticket to Copenhagen!).

Along with other world leaders like Merkel, Obama, Sarkozy and Jintao - we're calling on Lula to attend The UN climate meeting in Copenhagen this December. The presence of the Heads of States of the most influential countries are needed in order to secure a fair, ambitious and legally binding climate treaty.

Add your voice to the global call for world leader to go to Copenhagen

Images ©Greenpeace/Johanna Hanno

Some of you will remember the story of William Kamkwamba, the boy who at 14 built a 12-watt windmill from improvised materials for his famine-stricken home in Africa.

He built the thing from plans he found in a library book while he was out of school because his family couldn't afford the 50 Euro annual fee. Malawi was in the midst of drought and famine, and he thought a windmill to pump water and generate electricity could help his family survive starvation.

Built of Gum-tree sticks, it included bits from an old bicycle, discarded pipes, a ball point pen spring, and a circuit breaker fashioned from the magnet from an old speaker.

He told his story on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show the other night:

Alex, our Energy [R]evolution specialist, reports on the action happening now in Finland:

The crisp and cold early mornings have begun; for those of us in the Northern hemisphere this signals two inevitable events: shorter days and the annual onslaught of Christmas Kitsch. However I am not ashamed to admit that this year not only would I like there to be a Santa but also for Christmas to come early.

I was not the only one up braving the cold today – my colleagues in Finland were also up braving the dawn cold to send a message to not only their government, but hopefully to many more around the world that power stations fueled by nuclear and coal not only fail to provide energy security but are also killing the planet.

I can only hope that Santa and his little helpers up in the North of the country take time to log on to their toxic free smart phones and check twitter during a hot choc break today to check out what is happening at the Meri Pori power station.

>>Check out images on the Greenpeace Finland Flickr site
>>Follow the action on Twitter

So what’s the story? Greenpeace is taking action today to expose the climate bluff of the nuclear industry presenting itself as part of the solution to global warming. The Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant in Finland, approved in 2003, was supposed to help close down dirty coal and peat fired power plants, helping the country meet its Kyoto emissions targets. But the power companies behind this plan, far from cutting down on the use of dirty fuels, are building new polluting power stations.

Two largest nuclear companies in Finland, PVO and Fortum, plan to build a total of eight predominantly fossil-fuel fired power plants that would spew out a total of four million tons of carbon dioxide yearly, equivalent to each car owner in Finland driving 25 km more each day. Despite enormous remaining potential for renewable energy, only a fourth of investments in new generating capacity go into renewables, far less
than the EU average.

To rub extra salt into the wound – the initial estimation for building the new reactor was 2.5 billion Euros – has now more than doubled to 5.5 billion Euros, is three years behing schedule and over two thousand technical problem were identified by country’s inspectors ; money that should have been spent on renewable energy.

So maybe Santa could do us and the Finnish nation a favour and hop on his carbon neutral slay – get down to Meri Pori – sprinkle some magic dust and convert this CO_2 spewing monster into a wind farm. In fact if he was feeling extra generous he may want to bring Christmas early and get down to Copenhagen at the beginning of December and deliver us a FAB (fair, ambitious and binding) deal during the Climate Summit.

© Greenpeace / Lenka Borakova

When Obama flies to Norway to pick up the Nobel Peace Prize, he should go straight from Oslo to Copenhagen, and attend the Climate Summit, happening at the same time as the award ceremony on December 10th. He can even take a train.

To truly deliver a prize-winning presidential performance, he really needs to stop the greatest threat to peace in the world today, and that's the threat of runaway climate change. If allowed to go unchecked, climate change will wreck havoc on our societies, spurring mass migration, mass starvation and mass extinction. It will spark conflicts world wide.

Pick up the phone. Give the Whitehouse a call: (+1) 202-456-1111 Tell Obama congratulations, but challenge him to go to Copenhagen.

From Greenpeace UK...

Fifty-five Greenpeace volunteers have scaled the walls of the Houses of Parliament and are now occupying the roof to call for for a new style of politics in Britain, one capable of rising to meet the challenge of climate change.

Bold action! Now if only we had politicians with your guts.

Read more on the Greenpeace UK site, read exactly what the activists are asking for and follow live updates via @greenpeaceuk.

What kind of person climbs the roof of the UK parliament building to demand politicians take action against climate change?

Well, these kinds of people:

People like you.

You don't need to scale a building to make your own statement. On Saturday, October 24th, 350.org and all of us who are supporting the tck tck tck campaign are calling for a Global Day of Action. You can join an existing event, or create your own event. You can be as brave and audacious as you like.

You'll also find ideas and lots of action resources here. Ladders, however, are not included.

Trafigura: Why did Greenpeace have to stop their poisoned ship? Why did Twitter have to stop their censorship? Because Governments failed to do their job.

Why are we, with less than 53 days to go to the Copenhagen Climate summit fearing we will have to ratchet down our already battered expectations? Because governments are failing to do their job.

What do we need to do to change this situation? We need to do our job. And our job, every one of us, is to raise the mightiest voice this world has ever raised to tell governments to do THEIR job.

We ask Greenpeace supporters to do a lot of speaking up -- to world leaders about signing a fair, ambitious, binding deal to do something about climate change, to oil companies about the mess they're making in the Tar Sands of Alberta, and to companies whose purchasing policies on leather and beef are contributing to the cause of one fifth of our world's carbon burden: deforestation.

Do they listen? Consider this statement from Jeff Swartz, CEO of Timberland, recently targeted for buying leather from companies that were illegally clearing rainforests in the Amazon.

And you know what? Jeff isn't the only one who has listened...

"Each SurvivaBall contains all the tools you need to enjoy a safe and happy stay on our changing planet" ... and makes you look like a cross between a blowfish and a cow's udder.

The Yes Men strike again. After fooling Reuters, The New York Times and CNBC with their fake US Chambers of Congress press conference earlier this week that announced the Chambers support of climate legislation, (Not true - according to Eric Wohlschlegel, the Chamber’s real press person who walked in on the "fraudulent press conference" and when his impersonator claimed to be representing the Chamber declared "Well I work there, and you do not look familiar to me!") the Yes Men have now taken to chasing US politicians around in their SurvivaBall outfits.

Maybe 'chasing politicians around' is the wrong way to describe it, when it was a little more like: "waddled after Democratic Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, demanding that he support the climate bill or provide the ridiculous outfits to his constituents."

Click here to watch a few people in SurvivaBalls huff and puff after Specter yelling 'Senator! Senator!'

Yesterday was the climate change global day of action. People all over the world had been preparing and recruiting for the occasion for weeks.

According to the grassroots climate campaign website 350.org, there were over 5,200 events all told, in 181 countries. That makes it easily the most widespread environmental action day to date. The 350.org website contains a slideshow of some of the more photographable activities from around the world.

The whole bit about "three hundred and fifty parts per million" (350ppm) may have confused onlookers a bit, but these sort of events are about galvanising the movement itself more than recruiting many more people to it. We have a hard struggle ahead of us between now and Copenhagen, so the timing (if not the messaging) is spot-on.

(Photo from: Bill McKibben on 350.org)

Our team in Indonesia has set up a camp in the heart of the rainforest where activists will remain for several weeks in order to bring urgent attention to the role that deforestation plays in driving dangerous climate change.

Our Climate Defenders Camp is on the threatened Kampar Peninsula, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Here, the forest peat soils are particularly deep - storing some 2 billion tones of carbon and forming one of the largest natural carbon stores on the planet. This ecosystem is a vital global defense against climate change.

Much of the forest that once surrounded the Kampar Peninsula has been destroyed to make way for plantations, largely for products like paper and palm oil, which are transported worldwide and used to make chocolate, toothpaste and so-called ‘climate-friendly’ biofuels.

There's lots happening at our Climate Defenders Camp now - on the ground in the Indonesian rainforest.

Activists from the camp are blocking the drainage of peat canals in the region - in order to protect the rainforest and peatlands. Paper and palm oil industries drain the carbon rich peat by creating these canals. The peat has to be drier so that oil palm and acacia can grow. Sometimes they burn the peat and remaining forest or simply knock it over with excavators. This destructive practice not only damages the local ecosystem - it adds a massive amount of climate changing carbon emissions to the Earth's atmosphere.

Here's some updates I have received today from the team in Indonesia:

First - from Bustar, one of our forest campaigners (who also wrote earlier here):

A few days ago we officially opened the Climate Defenders Camp in the midst of Kampar Peninsula forest. With the Kampar river in front of us and Kampar Peninsula peat lands behind, this camp is a part of our international campaign to make sure that world leaders – including Indonesia – listen to the urgent need to protect the world’s forests and to stabilize the current climate crisis.

Deforestation contributes around one fifth of global greenhouse gasses. Indonesia’s contributions are mainly caused by forest destruction with the clearance of peatlands as one of the worst offenders.

Our Climate Defenders Camp was constructed in less than 20 days - and contains facilities to support all Greenpeace activities. To sustain our energy needs - we're using solar powered electricity. Two communications and electricity experts, Tom and Geof worked hard together to ensure these vital resources were available for our activities here - and to make sure we can send our message out to the world leaders and societies with regards to our livelihood on this planet.

Friday October 30th
With our ship the Rainbow Warrior, Spanish activists boarded a coal ship on its way to the coal fired power plant in Alcudia (Mallorca) and demanded their President Zapatero show climate leadership at the EU Summit still ongoing in Brussels.

And an update from activists involved in ongoing coal blockade in Poland:

Journalists with us at the blockade are focusing now on the EU Summit in Brussels and the fact that Poland is threatening the agreement with its potential veto against financial decisions - most importantly the financing for poorer nations to adapt to climate change. We expect a very cold night but activists are OK and ready to spend second night at the blockade.

And it seems the Wall Street Journal is also covering the Unofficial International Week of Quit Coal, already! with a post called 'Clean Coal: The Future's Not So Bright'

"Some of the countries with the highest hopes for carbon capture and clean coal are starting to freak out at the yawning gap between what’s needed to make it happen and what’s actually being done."

'Freak out' - then wake up and follow the advice of the activists still blocking coal shipments in Poland: Coal is the past. Climate solidarity is the future.

Thursday October 29th - Start of entry

Okay - there is no such thing as the International Week of 'Quit Coal, already!'. But, if it did exist it would have been this week - with the actions in Spain, Poland and Sweden all demanding an end to coal in the interests of the climate I think we could at least christen the week of October 26 - November 1 2009 the Unofficial International Week of Quit Coal, Already! (Or: UIWQCA - catchy, I know.)

The EU Summit, on the other hand, does exist and is happening this week, where one of the most prominent issues on the agenda will be an agreement on how much money the EU will give to developing nations to help them mitigate and adapt to climate change. Perhaps expectations for this EU Summit can best be summed up by this headline: 'EU limps towards difficult summit'.

In contrast, our activists are making their expectations clear:

In Sweden 30 activists and 18 tonnes of coal spent Wednesday at the Swedish Prime Minister's office - telling him that he cannot be a climate leader while he allows Sweden's state-owned energy company to invest in coal power.

In eastern Poland 7 activists are still blocking a coal terminal - therefore stopping all coal (mostly from Russia) shipments from being offloaded. They plan to block these shipments of dirty coal until the end of the EU Summit in order to tell their PM Donald Tusk and all EU leaders meeting this week at the Summit that 'coal is the past, it is time for climate solidarity'.

This morning Greenpeace activists in two inflatable boats intercepted a ship in France, the Izmir Castle, carrying 15 000 tonnes of palm kernel in Montoir-de-Bretagne port. They painted "Climate Crime" on the hull of the cargo ship. 11 other activists climbed on the top of three cranes unloading the content of the ship. They also unfurled banners reading "Funding for forest protection, not their destruction".

Rainforest is being destroyed by the palm oil industry in Indonesia -- which is contributing to climate change.

With the EU meetings today and tomorrow (as our lovely Laura has already mentioned here) -- we're sending clear messages to these Heads of State about the need for funds for an energy revolution and an end to deforestation in order to save the climate.

In addition to targeting a ship importing Indonesian palm kernel into France - our team at the Climate Defenders Camp has also been calling on Sarkozy to put money on the table to halt forest destruction.

Activists walked for hours across the muddy peatlands and into an area of rainforest destruction in order to unfurl giant banners - calling on the French PM and also Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany - to agree on funding for forest protection.

From the rainforests of Indonesia to the loading docks of France - Greenpeace is in action to stop forest destruction - and defend the climate.

Now for a wonderfully descriptive account from our Climate Defenders Camp leader - Rob, in Indonesia

Earlier this week - myself and four other guys set out from the Climate Defenders Camp to join a team already in the field preparing for a couple of giant banners to be displayed in the peat swamps of Riau, urging both Sarkozy and Merkel to do their bit to make history in Copenhagen.

We were leaving at 0430 of course nobody was up, everyone was knackered from the last couple of days intense activity to finish the camp and be ready for the opening yesterday…which we were. I wasn’t going to miss this though and I had to wake all the boys up to at least try to come somewhere close to the departure time. Bleary eyed, no coffee and we were off to the pick up point in Teluk Binjai. Dark and foggy the boat team did well to keep us from hitting any stray logs or other obstacles in the river and we were climbing up the bank ready to wake Doni up, our driver. By 0530 we were on the road, well it’s not really a road, gravel and dirt, we were running a bit late so Doni was stretching things a bit in places. We got to the site of the place we now call stupid stupid, so called by our Indonesian colleagues after the work we did a month ago for the global premier of the Age of Stupid and a live cross to 500 cinemas across North America. I like the name Stupid Stupid, it is absolute trashed peatland, burnt only a few months ago for Acacia plantation conversion, and it’s just plain stupid.

And into the trashed peatland we went. This place is worse than Mordor, burnt stumps, fallen trees, nothing standing and a big canal to drain it all so that the acacia can grow. You have to try and step on burnt logs and branches because if you don’t you sink knee deep into the boggy swamp.