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February 28, 2007
The good news is that everyone arrested at Faslane last Friday has been released from jail. More than 20 activists spent 3 days locked up having broken bylaws while blocking the UK's nuclear submarine base for an entire day. The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise is still being held by the Ministry of Defence in the UK.
Check out Rebeccas's blog here, which covers the whole ordeal and find out how to play pea basketball in prison!
Yesterday we launched the New Zealand version of the Energy [r]evolution report and man it's sobering reading. The standout quote is perhaps this one:
It has been said that the entire history of the environmental movement has been a dress rehearsal for the fight against climate change, and it’s a fight that we must win, because our own civilisation is at stake.
The report was launched with a direct action at Huntly coal fired power station (yes even down here in "clean green New Zealand" we're burning that dirty old coal).
And with a touch of irony one of the banner hanging attempts was thwarted by wind power - According to news reports the activists on the smoke stack 150 meters up were tossed around like "tumble weed on bungees" and like "corks on an akubra" - but they still managed to hammer the message home with another monster banner and by returning coal from the power station to the mine from whence it came with a little digger and some trucks.
Mike, our resident antinuclear Scotsman spotted an interesting bit of news today. Mike is a part of the Rainbow Warrior's Middle East Peace tour:
"In the gulf we have the discretion to build what we want" so says Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, head of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. Lady Judge believes the absence of pesky environmentalists, a lack of political opposition and lots of money makes the Gulf the perfect place for nuclear power."The genie is out of the bottle, if they want to build it, this would be the place,' opined Lady Judge. Now I thought the genie lived in a lamp, oh well.
So lets just take a look at her Ladyship and the company she heads, and then ask if its really a good idea to let her come and play in the Middle East? Is it really a good idea to let the nuclear industry do whatever it wants, away from the spotlight of public oversight or political plurality?
The UK Atomic Energy Authority runs the notorious Dounreay nuclear complex in the far north of my homeland, Scotland. Build in the 1950s, before public concern and environmental awareness caught own to the boys own nuclear dream that was to become an environmental and economic nightmare. It was the shiny technological cathedral of the new nuclear Barons, spurned on by vision of Atoms for Peace, and ever since pieces of atoms have been washing up on local beaches. The have been dumped almost at random around the site. They have been blown tens of meters into the sky and locked inside the carcass of an aging fast reactor which no one really knows how to take apart, or decommission as they call it in the industry. With the nuclear industry it is not simply a question of the last one to leave turn out the lights, the light of radioactive contamination burns for thousands of years.
Author Iain (M) Banks has given up his car collection, and cut back to a single hybrid vehicle. He gives a brief explanation here. Reading this made me take a moment to reflect on my own experiences with ditching the car.
About a year ago my wife changed jobs, which meant that the company car, a top of the line Ford Focus with all the added extras was going to have to go. We thought long and hard about what to do - should we buy a car? New or second hand? What would the insurance cost, what should we budget for maintenance etc. With both of us working as project managers the point at which we drew up a spreadsheet to calculate total cost of ownership was drawing closer.
After about a week of thinking about this we thought the unthinkable. Maybe we didn't need a car at all.
With the Nisshin Maru seemingly en route back to Japan whaling will probably be dropping out of the headlines in the next few weeks. Meanwhile though the campaign goes on, and as you can see here there's always a lot of interest in the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission and campaigning is a 24/7/365 business.
For the ICR it's going to be a busy year. They've got a ship to repair and refit (although we'd rather they recycled it), nations to 'aid', a court case to fight and a pile of frozen whale meat to get rid of.
If I was them I'd be wondering if it was worth the effort...
By Rebecca on the Trident: We don't buy it tour
I’m sitting on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise. We have a flotilla of smaller Greenpeace inflatable boats at our bow – six inflatables and some canoes - and are steaming towards Faslane nuclear weapons base in Scotland to blockade it.
Right now, we’re trying to manoeuvre ourselves into position, diving between military police boats and inflatables. We want to blockade Faslane until tomorrow, when Labour MPs are coming up here for a jolly on one of the submarines.
The MPs will be voting on whether to replace Trident in March, and we’re here to tell them that Trident is illegal, immoral and unwanted - £76 billion worth of posturing by a government that wants to flaunt its muscle on the international stage. The move to replace the UK’s nuclear arsenal would be a dangerous departure from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a provocation that may kick-start a new global arms race, and a monstrous distraction from the real threat to the UK and every other place on earth: climate change.
I’ll keep posting updates on this blog as I get the chance, and if you're in the UK please don’t forget to take action.
So today is the 20th anniversary of the death of pop culture artist Andy Warhol. The celebrated artist died unexpectedly on this day in 1987 after undergoing a gall bladder operation. As a tribute to the artist and in keeping with our campaign in the Southern Ocean to end whaling for good, i present you with, '100 cans of whale'.
A shameless plug now for a friend of mine who braved London's Milennium Bridge wrapped in cling film to promote his new campaign against global warming. Earth Fire Ice co-founders Sean Cornwell and Ed Stumpf have set off to compete in temperatures ranging from +40C down to -30C in the world’s hottest and coldest marathons – in the Sahara and at the North Pole (and before you ask, their flights are being offset by PureTrust, the carbon offsetting charity).
If you're not athletic, they've got us geeks covered too. This is the world’s first online campaign to drive awareness and action from individuals against global warming using pledges displayed on a specially designed Google Maps integration. AND they will even be blogging and uploading content to the EarthFireIce website from both marathons, and undertaking media interviews live by satellite telephone.
Sign up at their website, make a pledge, and read Sean's frank blog to find out how difficult it is to launch a campaign and train for two marathons in 7 weeks - and I thought that Defending Our Oceans was a challenge, thank God they didn't make me swim the English channel or something in the process!
PICTURE FROM THE SUN NEWSPAPER, UK.
For the third time, European Environment Ministers have blocked a European Commission (EC) proposal to force member countries to accept the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) crops on their soil. This time it was Hungary who was in the firing line of the EC and its love affair with GE crops.
The EU Environment Ministers today voted to extent the EC loosing streak on this issue to three straight when they supported Hungary´s right to protect its nature and population from GE crops, in this case a Monsanto maize known as MON810, engineered to contain a toxin and kill pests.
The big question is why after going into the latest round 2-0 down, the EC didn't decide to change their game? If they actually listened to the citzens of Europe, they might have changed their strategy to one of protecting the EU and its member states from GE and actually be on the winning side for a change.
European conventional and organic farmers are already increasingly exposed to contamination by genetically engineered crops, revealed a report published yesterday by Greenpeace and GeneWatch UK, which catalogues a list of contamination incidences around the world.
Lets just hope that after loosing for the third time that they don't embarass themselves by trying to a fourth straight loss.
At last something nice to say about Australia and climate (and I'm not talking about the sunny summer that has seen my dad's garden go brown because of water restrictions). Australia has banned incandescent light bulbs as of 2010, and rumours are that hot water and home insulation may be the next to go green, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Provided that the mercury content of the new compact fluorescents are taken into account, I think it's a pretty good move. Ok, Kyoto it ain't, but it's a start for a government that up until now has been more short-sighted than Mr Magoo (who, come to think of it, bears a suspicious resemblance to our Prime Minister).
Check out more over at Treehugger.com.
For our Green my Apple campaign I've been watching the online buzz on blogs about the campaign closely. An influential blog on Apple is Infinite Loop.
Back at the start of January, Infinite Loop ran an article claiming that "EPA information should make GreenPeace red-faced" about our information on Apple. Being an Apple blog it was pretty one sided and of course it was lapped up online by some Mac fans eager to prove Apple is completely green after all. Even though the EPEAT ranking had been around since July 2006, the story spawned many more blogs some with even more over blown headlines like "EPA proves Greenpeace wrong" just right before the opening of Macworld. What followed was an interesting peek in to the world of Apple blogs.
Mike Townsley is aboard the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, which was just refused permission to enter Iran as part of our Middle East Peace Tour. --b
'Yes, yes, everything is ready, we are just waiting on one more piece of paper,' our ships agent, Sam, told us last Wednesday. This was on the day before Iran's weekend, which falls on a Thursday and Friday.
Excellent! Armed with -- if that's not too militaristic a term for a peace ship -- a couple of briefings and a dream of a green and peaceful future, we were really looking forward to meeting the people of Bushehr. We were really looking forward to talking to the people and authorities about the massive opportunity for renewable energy in their country. Looking forward to sharing with them a new Greenpeace report showing how Iran could meet its energy needs, save some money, reduce its environmental impact and completely forget about using nuclear power.
But, it wasn't to be! The final piece of paper never came, the final signature was not penned.
According to AAP and various other news sources, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark called on Japanese whalers to deal with their damaged vessel in Antarctic waters or face international outrage if it caused an environmental disaster (especially considering we are right there with an appropriate vessel to help!)
Clark says she is not prepared to offer the ship port facilities in New Zealand, saying no request has been made for the ship to stop here, and that she expects the ship to be towed all the way back to Japan. However maritime law expert Duncan Currie also told New Zealand press that international conventions meant it should be towed as soon as possible to the nearest port (which would be in New Zealand) to mitigate the pollution risk.
In general the media seems pretty supportive of our position, however, according to some sources, the Esperanza is in fact called the Ezmerelda, and is captained by one Karli Thomas, who last time I checked was none other than our expedition leader. I wonder what Captain Frank is doing these days... considering starting a Southern Ocean towing business perhaps?
Great activism story from the Washington Post:
"Wiping away ancient forests," warned a note found inside a box bought recently at a drug store in New York by a stuffy-nosed reporter. "Here's a little secret that Kimberly-Clark, the largest tissue maker in the world and parent company of Kleenex, does not want you to know."
Which prompted a typical response from Kleenex:
"We take any and all comments about any foreign materials in products extremely seriously," said David Dickson, a spokesman for Kimberly-Clark. He then called corporate security.
Never mind those ancient forests, someone's tampering with our tissues!!!!
The activists obviously have a sense of humour, unlike Mr Dickson:
Dickson said the company has received a handful of calls about the leaflets. None of the leaflet incidents could be confirmed, he said. In one case, a caller complained about the leaflets but left a telephone number that led to a Greenpeace office.
Of course we'd never ever dream of sanctioning such subversive activities but the article does say how it can be done:
A reporter was able to slide a folded piece of paper underneath the perforated cardboard of an unopened box of Kleenex. With a little manipulating, it may be possible to insert the paper so that it lies on top of the tissues.
More on Kimberly Clark destroying ancient forests to make tissues at Kleercut.net
It's been a good day here in the UK. Several months ago, we launched a legal case against the government's flawed energy review which backed a new generation of nuclear power stations. The case we brought to challenge that decision was upheld by Mr Justice Sullivan in the High Court who stated that "something has gone clearly and radically wrong" with the process. As a result, the government's decision has been ruled unlawful and they have to go back to the drawing board.
It's a massive blow to the government's plans and, as a result, a new and fuller review will have to be conducted if they want to justify their continued support of nuclear power. Hurrah. Read the full story while we nip off to the pub for a drink.
Some members of the Amsterdam whales cyber team and some staff hit the streets today - passing out roses and Valentines Day cards to Japanese tourists. Each card had a whale friendly Valentines Day poem written by Greenpeace supporters here in the Netherlands (but in English) and a link to the Whale Love Wagon site. Thanks to Naomi, Genevieve, Eoin, Giona, Marcio, Page and Aida for turning out.
It rained the whole time, so tourists in general were pretty scarce. At first, the going was pretty tough. The tourists probably thought we were selling the flowers (you get a lot of that here).
But after we put on Greenpeace jackets things got easier. Once they realized what we were doing most were curious and friendly. These two told me they had eaten whale when they were very young, but not any more. It's just not popular.
They also told me flowers are not popular gifts on February 14th in Japan. Chocolate is best.
There were Whale Love activities in 28 countries today.
Read more. See the photos. A few more from from Amsterdam...
 Genevieve |  "Peace" |  Page |
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Well you never know who you'll bump into when you pop out in Washington DC, particularly when dressed as a giant red heart. This just in from our round-the-world Valentine-o-rama for the whales -- Karen reports that the giant love hearts walking (or dare I say, waddling) around Washington got a little message from none other than Richard "Billionaire with heart" Branson himself (more than we can say for George Monbiot ... then again, I assume Monbiot wasn't cruising around in a limo.) Karen says:
"With Washington almost closed down following what is called a 'major' snow storm in this part of the world, a number of huge red hearts went to visit the Japanese Embassy this morning. The security guards at the embassy were not very happy to see us, but they did finally send someone down to accept our Valentines Day card for the Ambassador -- wouldn't take the chocolates though. The hearts then walked down the huge avenue that the Embassy is on (one of the biggest in Washington), giving out flowers, boarding passes and the Japanese Whale cards (in english). Along the route, a limo pulled over and Richard Branson popped his head out saying, "good on you, keep up the good work".
While all the whale love is in full swing around the world, here in the UK there's a marine project of a slightly different nature under way, although in this case our focus is on submarines. Nothing cute about them, particularly the variety that carry nuclear weapons around the world.
In a few weeks, the UK government will be voting on whether to replace the current Trident missile system when it reaches the end of its working life, and it's no secret where Tony Blair's sympathies lie. Should it go ahead, the project will cost billions of pounds, money that could be better spent on tackling - oh, I don't know - climate change. Then there's the outrageous hypocrisy in replacing our own nuclear arsenal while rattling sabres at any other states foolish enough to seek entry into the nuclear club.
Today marks the 25 years in Greenpeace of the person currently at the helm of the Greenpeace.org mothership – our Chief webby and self-confessed eco-geek, Brian Fitzgerald. Long before anyone had even thought about a having a website and when I was err, young, Brian walked into the canvas office of Greenpeace in Boston in the US.
Here follows a photographic record of some of his finest and most, how should I put it…. memorable moments, captured on film, for better or worse…..
Congratulations Brian!
Here's the thing about toxic chemicals. You dump them, and for a while you don't hear anything about it. Then 30 years later someone has to pay 100 million pounds to clean up your mess.
As Joel Bakan points out in his excellent book 'The Corporation' a number of companies are repeat offenders when it comes to environmental laws. The reason? The punishments aren't strong enough, if a company decides the fine for breaking the law is low enough they'll break the law and pay the fine.
My own, badly thought through solution would be to issue fines in the form of equity. So an offence like this might result in Monsanto forfeiting 1% of their stock to the UK government, to be given up proportionally by existing stakeholders. (So if I own half of Monsanto I give half of one percent to the UK government). The government would have an obligation to hold the stock in public trust for x number of years before being able to sell it again. Regular corporate offenders would risk nationalisation, and stockholders might finally start to exercise their duty to regulate the moral behaviour of a firm rather than wittering that all management has to do to be sure they are doing the right thing is maximise value.
There was an incident a few hours ago where the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships clashed with one of the ships in the whaling fleet.
You can read everything we know about it in Dave's weblog from on board the Esperanza. Since we weren't there, he only has the conflicting accounts from both sides to go on.
In what is becoming a tradition, a photo taken by Daniel Beltra for Greenpeace has won a prize in the World Press Photo competition. The photo below won 2nd prize in the 'Contemporary Issues' section of the world's permier photo competition. The photo shows an area of the Amazon that has been cleared to make way for Soya plantations. The lone tree in the photo is a Brazil Nut tree, protected under Brazilian law.
This year, the World Press Photo competition saw 4,460 professional photographers from 124 countries enter 78,083 images. 58 photographers from 23 nationalities won prizes in 10 themed categories. Congratulation to Daniel and all the other winners.
As this beautiful city turned into a white winter wonderland this afternoon, the Arctic Sunrise departed for the UK. She's been here in the Netherlands since before Christmas. First of all she had some maintenance and painting done and she's looking really good now. Then she was used for a tour of the Netherlands for the Dutch climate campaign that included a very exciting action in Amsterdam.
I had the pleasure of volunteering on board for several days during this tour when the ship was in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. The ship went to several towns/ cities on the coast to raise awareness about climate change and hold showings of Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth. I assisted with setting things up for the movie, giving ship tours to the public and advertising our events in Rotterdam. It was great to get out of the office and out of Amsterdam for a few days, be around fresh faces and do something different. I had a blast and took lots of pictures that you can see here.
Our French office put this together for their climate-change site: its-not-too-late.com
Look out, you rock and rollers.
I'm a longtime fan of brainstorming techniques and methods for making the most out of meetings and that kind of stuff. Last week I was reading this post at the excellent Creating Passionate Users blog, and was reminded of IDEOs wonderful brainstorming cards.
This (and the links to their forerunners, Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies cards) made me wonder if something similar could be done for Greenpeace campaigns. A few hours of looking at Greenpeace campaigns and scribbling on bits of cardboard later and I have a prototype...
Good news reached the web team here in Amsterdam on Friday - our Green my Apple website has been nominated for a SXSW web award. South by Southwest is a very cool interactive, film and music festival that takes place every year in Austin, Texas. They are pretty prestigious awards for the best websites of 2006.
Even better many of the SXSW festival attendees are Mac users. The news gave us a welcome excuse for a Friday afternoon toast in the office. You can help by voting for us in the people's choice awards.
He's not a pacifist, he's ready to serve, he doesn't even blame the Army for going after him, but as a matter of conscience he would rather do the four years in jail than go to Iraq.
Every news story you read about Watada will have the charge that he is "emboldening the enemy". Maybe, but I doubt it. The enemy seems pretty "emboldened" already. What I do know for sure is that he's inspiring people who still believe in our country. His actions support the idea that people in the US can ultimately be counted on to do what's right rather than what's easy.
Before you judge him one way or another, I strongly suggest reading today's LA Times article, particularly the second part, to learn about how and why he made his decision:
Thanks for catching that story Martin. In other (not unrelated news), Exxon/Esso has posted record profits, again. The New York Daily News has my favorite sum up:
Black gold helped Exxon Mobil make a record-setting profit of $39.5 billion last year, but the gaudy number brought heat from lawmakers in Washington who want to end tax breaks for the highly lucrative biz.The bonanza works out to more than $108 million per day, 24/7/ 365, and equals the gross domestic product of countries like Ecuador and Croatia.
Yes. I think ending tax breaks would be a good start. Oh, and if the headlines about Exxon's absurdly large profits look oddly familiar, it's because you've seen them before. (Yet, the US Congress is only now getting around to seriously talking about ending Exxon's tax breaks. Hmm, wonder why...)
In fairness, other oil companies, like Shell and Chevron, are also doing very well for themselves.
And what are they doing with these record profits? Not investing in alternatives to oil, according to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights:
Exxon, for instance, spent about $10 million on alternative energy last year, less than three-hundredths of one percent of its profit.
For some time now those who have most to lose from a sensible global response to climate change have sought to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) about the situation. now, via the Guardian we learn that even though Exxon Mobil claim to have faced up to the reality of climate change - itself a big leap - they're actually still bribing scientists to lie about the truth via an organisation called the American Enterprise Institute.
And I've not met Ben from the UK office, but he seems to be on the money when he says
"The AEI is more than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."
At 7:55 last night I was telling my eight-year-old son a bedtime story about climate change as I paused to go switch off the circuit-breaker. Candy Planet was under water, and Tigger was looking for a boat. We had our wind-up flashlight ready. It was fun, a little adventure, and we looked out the window to see if any of our neighbors had turned their lights off too.
But even if it was fun, we were taking part in a serious action: giving the planet a five minute break from our energy demand. In Rome the Colosseum and the Capitol were dark. In Spain the Puerta de Alcala arch, in Athens, the parliament, and in Paris, the Eiffel tower.
Critics of this effort had warned that power surges after the lights went back on might lead to brown-outs and black outs. Didn't happen. Some wondered if the action didn't send the wrong signal, as the solution to climate change doesn't actually require us to freeze in the dark as many skeptics would have us believe. Greenpeace's own energy [r]evolution report demonstrates how a combination of investment in sustainable energy, radical efficiency measures, and changes in the way we use energy can mean keeping C02 in check without crippling economic prosperity or growth.
But turning off the lights for five minutes is a nice reminder that all of us have to play our part in the solution to climate change. We do need to stop *wasting* energy.
At my household, that means a 100% conversion to compact flourescents instead of incandescent bulbs (only 4 to go!). It also means not leaving lights and appliances on when they're not needed.
I've got a mini-campaign going in my family. Every time I turn off an unnecessary light, I say "Save the polar bears." I explained to the kids how polar bears are having a hard time, and could someday disappear, because lights left burning are melting their ice. (The science is a bit beyond them yet, so stories have to fill the space).
My two year old no longer says "lights off" when he wants to turn off a switch (and every two year old wants to be the one to turn off the switch.) He just points and says "poluh buhs, poluh buhs!"
So when Tigger set off last night to save the polar bears in his boat, he got asked why HE left lights burning at the superhero house. Because as any wise talking polar bear knows, this is humanity's common fate and humanity's common problem: we all own it. Even Tiggers.
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