This week saw some news that under normal circumstances would be greeted with celebration and be seen as a showcase for the possibilities of conservation efforts. In the US, the wolf has been removed from the endangered species list in three states with another three states likely to follow. After three decades, conservation efforts have brought the iconic species back from the edge of extinction after being taken to the brink by hunting.

But in the same breath in which the news of the wolf's return was announced, it was also announced that the removal of the endangered species tag from the wolf's name means that they can now be legally hunted again. The very thing that placed the species on the endangered species list in the first place was to be allowed once more.

Whether the spokesperson for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who announced the good news for hunters, understood the irony wasn't recorded. The imminent resumption of wolf hunting raises the question of whether conservation efforts around the world are there for the sake of the species and the ecosystems in which they live or simply for the sake of future exploitation.

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Posted by Richard at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I love this image, which graces Greenpeace Greece's new global warming website.True fans of grill technique will recognise this to be the result of a Texan bar-b-cue.

Posted by brianfit at 12:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Greenpeace UK oceans campaigner Willie Mackenzie responding to reports that the UK government is recruiting pro-conservation governments to the International Whaling Commission:

Last year UK NGO's asked Blair to write personally to key countries explaining that a resumption of commercial whaling was a very real threat. So far he has refused to do this, but today has announced that he will write the foreword for a brochure. While Greenpeace welcomes a brochure against whaling it is hardly a move which will have the same impact as a personalised letter or a direct meeting.

The Japanese Government has been building a voting majority at the IWC for the last 10 years, with Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers actively lobbying for a resumption of commercial whaling.

If the UK Government want to claim they are fighting a resumption of commercial whaling then they must urgently up their game, and Tony Blair must raise this issue within Cabinet and directly with other Heads of State.

Willie sounds fairly unimpressed. With the Japanese government running a very aggressive pro-whaling recruitment drive (often backed by development aid), the UK government will need to try a bit harder.

But why wait for our governments? Start your own campaign, or connect with others, at whales.greenpeace.org.

Posted by Andrew at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It took 44 activists, 100 metres of rope, and 500 square metres of fabric:

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Posted by brianfit at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Savaglio/TBWA, an ad agency in Argentina, recently tendered for some work with us. Tucked onto a CD chuck full of good ideas ranging from an entire TV series concept to new T-shirt designs, they included this minty-cool piece of digital candy as a present. Given George's lackluster performance and unambitious State of the Union address the other night, it seems the right time to share it. Click on the image.

Posted by brianfit at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(With thanks to our shark-loving IT guru Mats for bringing this to my attention).

The ancient shark © Awashima Marine Park

You can check out the video of the shark here at Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet's site - look for an article called "Förhistorisk haj hittad i Japan" (Prehistoric shark found in Japan).

Posted by Adele at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Check out this amazing animation. A Chinese rap video about e-waste. One of the best things I've seen in ages, and a nice message from the folks at the receiving end of our throw-away gadget stream. Amazingly, no understanding of Chinese required, other than the "Play" button is in the lower left.

Posted by brianfit at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In yesterday's Guardian there's was an interesting column by George Monbiot on the recent green announcements from leading supermarkets. Personally I'm often in two mind when reading Monbiot's columns. He often makes some really good points but also some very sweeping statements that make me feel quite demoralised or he implies that nothing will ever be good enough.

I've been following the seeming conversion of retailers like Walmart, Marks and Spencer and now (seemingly not wanting to miss the green band wagon) Tesco. Walmart buying renewable energy, M&S carbon neutral proposal etc are all good, bold steps even if they should have been taken already.

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Posted by tomD at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By Iwona, in Iceland

"We are back in business with about 100 tons of excellent eco-friendly whale meat and blubber ready for the market.", said Kristjan Loftsson to the Telegraph, after concluding his first commercial whale hunt in Iceland in late October, 2006.

The Icelandic one-man-show is back again. Kristjan Loftsson and his rotting whale business (Hvalur hf) has made waves, this time in the Icelandic newspapers. As I sip on my hot tea, I skim through Skessuhorn, a local paper in Borgarnes, a small town about 80 km west from Reykjavik. Inside, on page 4, I see a picture of a cluster of men in orange around a dead and gutted fin whalein a rusty whaling station, an archive photo of the Loftsson hunt in late October, 2006. With the help of my Icelandic friends, I read the headline: "One-third to one-half of the whale catch is buried".

This very headline initiated a spiral of events last week, which eventually led me here, all the way to Iceland. We (Frode, Martin, Ulvar and Iwona) are in Reykjavik to investigate the sensless, inefficient, and highly unsustainable practice of whaling.

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Posted by Adele at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

When someone sent me an email titled, "Hillary criticizes whaling", I immediately jumped to the conclusion it was Senator Hillary Clinton. But instead it was the the famed explorer Sir Edmund Hillary who, on what he is calling his final trip to Antarctica, made a point of calling for an end to the Southern Ocean whale hunt:

"I was always prepared to come back one more time," said Hillary, whose comments were reported by New Zealand media traveling with the anniversary delegation. "I don't think it'll ever happen again, but this is a marvelous return."

Hillary criticized Japan for its policies allowing whaling for scientific purposes, and for pushing to revoke the international ban on commercial hunting. The Japanese whale hunting season began recently in waters at the far south of the world.

"They just don't seem to have accepted that these creatures, wonderful creatures that they are, should be carefully protected," Hillary said.

More on his Antarctic visit here.

And you can join the defense of the whales here.

Posted by Andrew at 6:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Defending Our Oceans has garnered Greenpeace a place in the 59 Smartest Orgs online as chosen by GetActive, NetSquared and Squidoo (founded by everyone's favourite marketing guru, Seth Godin). They say:

"These are organizations that give their volunteers and members a voice and get out of the way. They're pros at mobilizing awareness online. They're experimentors. Innovators. On a mission. They're fearless....These aren't just orgs that throw up a video or a forum or a MySpace page and stop."

Check it out and vote us even higher on the list!

And while you're at it, take part in some of that innovation - check out the new, improved IGO tools to create your own whaling campaign, the latest episode of Ocean Defender TV, join in the Galley Gossip in our discussion forum, or say hi to the lovely Dave onboard our ship the Esperanza.

Posted by Adele at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple years back, our intrepid Greenpeace US research team -- through their work on the ExxonSecrets website -- exposed the role that Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) was playing in trying to ensure Global Warming didn't impact US energy policy -- absurdly in one case being asked to play political assassin by folks in the Bush Administration's Council for Environmental Quality who thought the Bush Administration EPA chief wasn't skeptical enough about climate change. (They uncovered a nice little smoking gun memo exposing the collusion.)

So when the news came down that Exxon has finally cut off funding for the ultra-capitalist extremists at CEI and a few other front groups, there were more than a few folks around here glowing with the contentment that victory can bring.

CEI has received more than 2 million USD from Exxon since 1998, and are probably most infamous for the whacky "They call it pollution, we call it life" ad campaign in homage to the wonders of Carbon Dioxide.

But in today's mailbag I find this note from Shawnee Hoover of www.ExxposeExxon.com rightly warning that dropping funding for a handful of the more extreme skeptics doesn't necessarily equal a shift in policy.

Read on:

Dear Brian,

Is ExxonMobil still double-crossing America?

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Posted by brianfit at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

First posted by Tracy, over on the UK blog:

Richard Ian Watson
16 January 1965 - 15 January 2007

Richard, known at "Watty" to his many friends around the world, died Monday after a two year struggle with illness. Richard was dedicated to taking action for a better world and worked with Greenpeace for the past 18 years. He participated in Greenpeace actions all over the world, worked on Greenpeace ships, went to jail and took the stand at trial in defence of his beliefs for a green and peaceful world.

Please share your stories and thoughts here for his partner Rachel, his family and his many friends in memory of our much loved and respected friend and colleague »

Posted by Dave at 11:54 PM | Permalink

In the US this is Martian Luther King day. Aside from George Washington, King is the only American who has their own federal holiday. Though it's one of the less often mentioned ones, my favorite King quote is:

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

In the end of course, the law didn't protect King, but I think he new that and persevered anyway. The Seattle Times also has a good guest column on King's life and work - with more words of wisdom from the man:

It was this co-existence of love and justice that led King to write his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in 1963. To moderate white clergymen who pleaded for patience and a reduction in tension, King wrote: "[N]onviolent direct action seeks to create ... a crisis and foster such tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue."

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Posted by Andrew at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Oh dear. It's being reported in the Icelandic newspaper Frettabladid that 179 tons worth of the 7 endangered fin whales that where caught last fall have been buried in a land fill.

The whaling industry is claiming this is "entrails and bones," but Gisli Vikingsson at the Icelandic Marine Institute notes that the average weight of the fin whales caught was about 50 tons, so that's more than half the entire animal being wasted.

But wait, it gets worse.

When asked about the 100 tons of unsold whale meat that sits in freezers in Iceland unsold, Kristjan Loftsson, manager of whaling firm Hvalur, (who rather refreshingly appears to have skipped the PR spin training that most whaling industry spokespersons get) said "the delay was because firms must first test the meat for dangerous chemicals to see if it meets food industry standards."

Well that's reassuring, isn't it?

Posted by brianfit at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by brianfit at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our toxic campaigner Martin is at Macworld and reports on what Steve didn't say in his keynote address:

It was a long day. Waking up at 6 AM to get to the Moscone center for the Keynote speech of Steve Jobs. But I was still getting more sleep than many other Apple fans.

Coming to the conference centre just before the 7 AM I expected to see the queue but I did not expect not to see the end of if. Some people spent the night out there to get the best places to see the speech. They brought camping gear, doughnuts and all the stuff that geeks need to survive during the night to waiting for HIM to appear (well they left all the waste including the camping gear behind as they rushed in). When the gates opened, the crowd fast moved into the building, so after a while helping the friends outside I moved in - just to end up in another queue. This time inside the giant hall on the ground floor. Only just before 9am when the speech was supposed to start I got with the others into the big hall on the 3rd fall that was to host the show.

When Steve appeared, his ego filled the room, the crowds were cheering and everybody was tense - what he is going to show? Well, I had my own hopes (guess which ones). Steve started in style - virtually "burning" the Zune player from Microsoft. Unfortunately the e-waste burning in China is for real. He also showed the classic "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ad - this time sending the PC for surgery in expectations of the changes it will need for Vista. But as we know - also the Mac needs to change as well- to get rid of the toxics.

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Posted by tomD at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We sliced and diced and re-voiced this version of Steve Job's keynote speech to turn it into the one we're all hoping for. Hope you enjoy.

Of course I don't know what Job's is actually going to say in there. What if he commits to actually greening Apple. How cool would that be?

Like the video? Spread the love!

DIGG it: http://www.digg.com/apple/The_MacWorld_Keynote_we_ve_all_been_waiting_for

HUGG it: http://www.hugg.com/story/11330/

Get Greenpeace updates from the expo.

Posted by Andrew at 6:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Some in the new Democrat run congress in the US want to permanently ban drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge, and designate it a protected wilderness area. From Forbes:

Opponents of oil drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge are going on the offense after playing defense for a quarter of a century. They want the new Democratic Congress to make an oft-challenged drilling ban permanent.

I've read that the US has less than 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. So increased production isn't much of a solution to our reliance on oil. It would take 10 years for the new oil production to really get under way, and even then it wouldn't make a dent in our energy needs.

Bush has pushed aggressively to get the refuge open for drilling, and at one point the Senate even backed drilling. Let's hope this new congress will challenge him on it.

The Sierra Club has more info, a petition you can sign and a Google Earth map.

Posted by Andrew at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is the start of the big MacWorld event in San Francisco, where thousands of Apple devotees gather to hear Steve’s words of wisdom. Those of you who have been paying attention will know Apple fans have been asking Apple to be a green leader.

We wanted to pay for a stand at MacWorld to spread the word for a green apple at the event. Unfortunately Paul Kent from the organisers turned down our application for a stand, only saying that the message for a green apple "didn’t fit" with MacWorld. Although MacWorld’s own brochure says 47 percent of visitors come to "keep up-to-date on industry trends/issues, the issue of e-waste and leading computer manufactures’ environmental policies are obviously not an issue MacWorld thinks its visitors should know about. MacWorld organisers didn’t even have the courtesy (or confidence?) to put their reasons for our refusal in writing.

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Posted by tomD at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

1. Grab a video camera.
2. Do something to inspire your peers to stop global warming
3. Submit video
4. Save the world. And win prizes!

You've got until February to put a 1-2 minute production together.

The "sustainable prizes" include an eco-trip to Alaska, solar bikes and backpacks, and more of the green gear you'd expect from the design-obsessed and hippy-hearted folks at Treehugger.

Winning videos will be broadcast and the Top 10 videos will be packaged on a DVD and distributed by Ironweed Films. More from truths.treehugger.com (Thanks, Jessica!)

Posted by brianfit at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last year, the government here in the Netherlands ran TV adds showing banners that read, "Disasters can’t be planned, preparations can. Think ahead".

But of course some disasters can be prevented by good planning. For example, if the Netherlands chooses clean energy instead of building nuclear power plants - then obviously there can't be any nuclear disasters. So we thought it was ironic that some in the same government also want nuclear power.

And of course, we're kind of big on banners ourselves. So we hung this one on Ministry of the Environment building. Then we got hauled into court.

Jasper (our Senior Legal Council) on the outcome of the case:

The Dutch State filed an injunction against Greenpeace Netherlands and Greenpeace International based on trademark and copyright infringement. We argued that it was a parody (copyright defence) and that the freedom of speech provided a valid reason to use the trademark.

On 22 December the Amsterdam Court fully honoured our defences, denied the injunction and ordered the State to pay Greenpeace EUR 18,000 in costs.

That the action by the State may have been politically motivated was evidenced by the fact that it only acquired the copyright in the logo from the designer after it had summoned Greenpeace to cease the campaign. The intellectual property argument was used in an attempt to stifle an undesirable Greenpeace campaign.

This judgement acknowledges the right to parody logos and use trademarks in our campaigns.

Three cheers for all the lawyers out there defending free speech!

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Posted by Andrew at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Oh, people, look around you.
The signs are everywhere.
--Jackson Browne

It was called the Ayles Ice Shelf until it became an island, breaking off from Canada last summer unobserved. It has been attached to Ellesmere Island for the last 3,000 to 4,500 years, and now is breaking up as it heads into the west, like a ship laden with elves and ringbearers, to mark the end of an era.

According to Canada.com, the ice shelves at the North Pole are 90 per cent smaller than they were when Robert Peary explored the Arctic in 1906. Five other major shelves remain.

All of this is very bad news for the Polar Bear, which relies on sea ice to hunt. The Bush Administration, in what had to be an embarrassment in timing, proposed the polar bear to be listed as a "Threatened" species as the term is describe in the US Endangered Species Act. That means the US will study the problem for another year before deciding whether to list the bear or not. And while the proposal notes that "The administration treats climate change very seriously and recognizes the role of greenhouse gases in climate change," "the proposal to list the species as threatened cites the threat of receding sea ice, it does not include a scientific analysis of the causes of climate change."

This could simply amount to the same old dodge that Bush retreated to when the reality of Climate Change could no longer be denied: OK, Climate Change is real, it's happening, but you can't pin it on humans. The next level of denial is OK, Climate change is real, it's happening, and humans are responsible, but it'll cost more money and disruption to stop it than it will to just deal with the impacts and clean up the mess.

Not good enough.

If we want to save the Polar Bears, it's going to take action at the Global, National, Local, and Personal levels. While the US government slogs along with a hem and a haw, it's up to all of us to do what we can.

Think about dying polar bears when you leave a light burning unnecessarily.
Think about dying polar bears when you leave your stereo on standby.
Think about dying polar bears when you choose your energy supplier.
Think about dying polar bears when you buy your light bulbs.

Posted by brianfit at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)