Some great news from Okinawa in Japan!

A final ruling has been issued requiring the US Department of Defense to consider impacts of a new airbase on the endangered Okinawa dugong in order to avoid or mitigate any harm.

Local communities and conservationists are concerned that a 1.5-mile-long
runway, proposed to be built over seagrass beds, would destroy the remaining
habitat of the endangered Okinawa dugong, a cultural icon of the Okinawan
people.

The U.S. airbase expansion at Henoko Bay would involve destroying large areas of seagrass -- home and feeding grounds for the 12 remaining dugongs in Japan. Hopefully, the court-ordered review and public airing of the impacts of the project will cause the US and Japanese governments to halt the base expansion plans and avoid driving the Okinawa dugong further toward extinction.

-- Read the decision here.

-- Read the full press release from the Center for Biological Diversity

Posted by Lisa at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This isn't actually all that different to what the real President Bush said yesterday and it's much more fun to watch!

Posted by Lisa at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Personally, I didn't have the stomach to listen Bush's speech last night. Greenpeace USA executive director, John Passacantando did, and he doesn't mince words in his blog about it:

Tonight the President was in classic form, grinning and winking like he had just pulled off a great fraternity stunt at the Delta House… not acting like the first president in US history to start and oversee the loss of TWO wars. A President who fueled a Holy war and put our young people in front of shrapnel with the cavalier attitude of a man who has never done an honest day’s labor.

The Washington Post also fact checked key statements in Bush's speech.

Posted by Andrew at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Matt Prescott's great environmental campaign website - banthebulb.org - reported on Friday that The Sun newspaper (Scotland) distributed four million energy saving lightbulbs in a single day. Yes, that Sun newspaper.

Just one month into the job as News International's new boss James Murdoch, son of youknowwho pledged to make the company carbon neutral.

The Guardian's mediaguardian.co.uk has more on the 4-million-bulbs-in-a-day newspaper distribution success story.

Meanwhile many of the companies behind the energy saving lightbulbs are still making the old wasteful type too. Seen in the context of climate change, and in light of all the green advertising from Philips, Osram and GE in particular -- it just stinks.

Posted by Eoin Dubsky at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Via the excellent climatedenial.org I came across this advert where GE attempts to show how great coal is:

As George rightly points out "This is a hard core denial ad. It’s aim is to undermine environmental concerns. Its core message is: “don’t believe those whingeing (ugly) greenies- coal is great and will never be banned’’.

As a commenter points out even the song used in the ad is actually about how badly coal miners where treated in the past!

Not only is coal now apparently sexy it's also so 'down with the kids', here's a pro coal astroturf group website featuring cool kids educating their peers about how coal is so abundant, safe and secure as if energy and coal is the hot playground topic in the US today. If you can stand the "how great coal is kids" facts delivered in sugar coated soundbites by little PR scripted kiddies there's one waiting for you on every section. All made by the "Americans for Balanced Energy Choices" that surprise, surprise is funded by the US coal industry.

Never mind that coal is the worst possible fuel for the climate, those added extras - mercury, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides, forget about mountain top removal, open cast mining and mine deaths. No, just apply millions of dollars of PR spit and polish and king coal will surely return!

Posted by tomD at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

In less than 24 hours, since we launched the "Canon Can Save Whales" Appeal, over 15,000 people have sent letters to the CEO of Canon Japan asking him to speak out against whaling. While the sheer number of letters is encouraging, what's even better is the time that some folks are taking to write personally to Canon.

Here's a tiny sample:

"My family and I love canon cameras- they are all we've ever owned, and we will love them even more if you prove to the world that Canon is committed to building a better world for future generations, and does not support the hunting of endangered or threatened species with anything other than a camera.

The earth would be incredibly less beautiful without whales."

--

"I recently purchased a new Canon Rebel XTi DSLR camera and will return it since I have learned of your unwillingness to denounce the irresponsible killing of whales with harpoons. I may not be able to control your obvious immoral stance on this subject, but I can control what products my friends and I purchase and from whom. I am very disappointed with Canon!"

"As a happy and dedicated owner of two Canon cameras I was disappointed to see the less than stellar position you have taken with regards to the whale hunt. While I agree, in general, that there are many positions to take on a subject, in the current case it is obvious to all but the most willfully blind that the whale hunt is an economic and political concession to a small and out of touch minority from an era best left to the history books. I would have hoped that as a respected member of the business community you would have been happy to state as much.

Over the last number of years I have encouraged many friends and members of my firm to purchase Canon cameras; however, given your recent position I certainly will not be buying anymore of your products and most definitely will not be recommending them either."

Read more »

Posted by Lisa at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (19)

A Special Report has appeared in the Japanese buisiness magazine Shukan Toyo Keizai and we thought we'd share some of the translated version here. The folks at Greenpeace Japan have been very pleased that there is a discussion going on in the Japanese media lately since it's been such a long time coming.

"In the past few years, Japan has rapidly expanded its research whaling and has been trying to win support with numbers at international meetings. (...) Tensions in the Antarctic Ocean over Japan’s research whaling have reached an unprecedented high."

The article boldly sates:

"For companies, whale-related businesses are an “operational risk”. "(...)

and goes on to conclude:

"Being one of the few issues on which Japan has made a stand against the United States and European countries, the stance of whaling hardliners could also be a vent for narrow-minded nationalism. In the end, that could easily be detrimental to national interests. Perhaps the Japanese people need to take this opportunity to re-examine the whaling issue for themselves."

Read more »

Posted by Lisa at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today is known as "Blue Monday" in the UK because it is apparently the most depressing day of the year. It's likely to be raining (and as I look at the window of the Greenpeace International office in Amsterdam - it is!) and more people commit suicide today in the UK than any other day of the year! Yesterday there were calls for the day to be banned as it only encourages depressing thoughts but I have an idea! Why don't we take this opportunity to give Blue Monday a new meaning altogether? What else does the colour blue make you think of without feeling sad? What could we use "Blue Monday" to celebrate? My suggestion would be to make today about celebrating whales and the oceans that they live in. I've been meaning to post this amazing footage of humpback whales on here for sometime now and what better day is there to seize for this? After watching this video there is absolutely no way you could still be feeling depressed!

It's made by Andrew Stevenson who is a friend of mine in Bermuda. He has spent hundreds of hours in the water with these majestic creatures and is now passionate about raising awareness about the plight of all whales, especially the ones being killed in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

Thankfully, at least humpback whales are safe from Japanese harpoons for now...

Read more »

Posted by Lisa at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Two bits of good news this week, unless you happen to be a polluting company.

First our Swiss office has won a long running campaign to force several major chemical to clean up a major dump site in Switzerland. Novartis, Roche, Ciba, Syngenta and others have been ordered to pay E250 million to clean up one of the largest dump sites in the world to very high standards.

Then a French court ruled that the oil company Total must pay environmental damages for the Erika oil spill in 1999. More from our French office.

Both rulings uphold the polluter pays principle. Of course the polluters will probably appeal, hopefully the well paid lawyers get company off principle won't apply!

Posted by tomD at 3:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In my inbox from a campaigner in Spain

"Yesterday wind power broke all previous records in Spain. Because of high wind conditions, we reached 9563 MW of generated power at 15:27 (from a total installed wind capacity of 13908 MW). Wind power met 25% of demand at that hour, well above coal (15%) and nuclear (16%). A new record may be expected today.

You can see the graph in the following press release from the grid operator REE: http://www.ree.es/sala_prensa/web/notas_detalle.aspx?id_nota=53

And real-time wind generation from the same source:
http://www.ree.es/sistema_electrico/detalle_curva_eolica.asp?grafico=&hoy=1

Now some sceptics will say that you can't rely on a power source that only works when the wind is blowing, and they'd be right. That's why a piece of research by German researchers is so important. They've shown how a portfolio of different renewable technologies can be combined to reliably meet Germany's entire energy demand. Read about it - and watch the YouTube explanation here"

Posted by Martin Lloyd at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Meanwhile, the Irish Government confirmed last week that they stand by their decision to outlaw inefficient lightbulbs by 2009. Italy began legislating to ban the bulb in December, and the European Commission are speeding up their energy efficiency standards-making process too.

Some lightbulb companies are still dragging their heels, but they haven't a leg to stand on. Legislators, activists and the general public heard their plea to "make the switch", and answered resoundingly: "Sure, we'll do that. But you have to stop making power crazy bulbs."

(Photo from Wikipedia Commons)

Posted by Eoin Dubsky at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Late last night, the word went out that we had found the fleet. On board the Espy, the Bridge bristled with binoculars as the crew sought to catch a glimpse through the fog and snow. And judging from the webstats, an awful lot of us Virtual Crewmembers and Cyber Salty Dogs went barrelling toward our own version of the bridge -- the live Esperanza Webcam, where a tiny smudge on the horizon said that once again, against all odds, we had found the Japanese whaling fleet in the vast expanse of the Southern Ocean.

For me, sitting warm and dry in my home in Amsterdam, I was able to experience some of the vicarious excitement of the hunt. I loaded up the webcam page. There. Up on the horizon off the starboard bow. There was our quarry, the Nisshin Maru.

Konichiwa, boys.

Read more »

Posted by brianfit at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Here's 3 articles I thought were worth sharing from my morning reading - after yesterday's entirely predictable and depressing announcement that the UK Government is going to spend more billions on failed nuclear power, Polly Toynbee has a good analysis on how it happened in the Guardian:

The danger is that politicians have decided they have taken the "hard decision" and nuclear is "the answer". If a "mix" is needed, the nuclear concrete mixers may grind up the wind, solar, wave and tidal generators that will be needed before the first lightbulb is lit by a new reactor. Meanwhile, the "nuclear answer" deceives the public and delays yet further the necessary great national energy-efficiency drive that politicians continue to avoid.

On another big environmental story - the Tata cheap car for India, Desicritics has an entertaining article, 'The Tata Nano: The Second Coming or Satan's Car?' It covers the debate around the launch of the car and its implications and includes a few barbed comments about our own slogans!

PRO - It's a marvel of engineering! The world will never be the same again! Tata rocks! The car has been reinvented again! And also, Jesus, Vishnu, Moses, Mohammad and the Buddha called and said this was the best they could have hoped for humanity. Amen.

CON - It's a disaster of unimaginable levels! Civilization as we know it has come to an end! Tomorrow we shall wake up and find ourselves choking to death! Polar bears will drown, whales will be eaten and tigers will end up as Viagra. I hope you're all happy, doing Satan's work!

Less entertaining but also informative about Green IT trends - 'More Steps Toward Eco-Friendliness: Lead-Free, Halogen-Free and Energy Efficiency' from GreenComputing.com. Green was definitely the PR buzzword at the annual gadget fest of the Consumer Electronics Show this year.

Posted by tomD at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here at Greenpeace we like to think we know a good story when we see it, but hard numbers count more than hunches - here's the top ten of what you, our audience liked reading on our website, viewing on our YouTube channel or in our newsletter in 2007:

1: Mister Splashy Pants

Back in Sept we asked you to suggest names for humpback whales tagged as part of our Great Whale Trail site. Lots of interesting, moving, earnest and exotic names were on the short list but Richard had a hunch that including one slightly silly one on the short list just might be a good idea (personally I was rooting for 'James Bond: Licensed to Krill') and so Mister Splashy Pants made the short list. The story was BoingBoing-ed and Reddit-ed and the meme did what memes do. Over 150,000 votes later there's now a humpback whale called Mr Splashy Pants swimming around the Southern Ocean.

2: Baring all to highlight climate threat

We all know sex sells, so when our Swiss office revealed plans for famous artist Spencer Tunick to photograph six hundred people shedding their clothes on a glacier in the Swiss Alps we knew it would as some would say - 'have legs'. One of our team even took part - the rest of us just put up the photos. Unsurprisingly some 849,000 of you found the YouTube video more interesting that the written story!

3: I want Greener Electronics

First launched in August 06 our quarterly Guide to Greener Electronics has been attracting a lot of you gadget lovers to see which companies are doing most for the environment. The addition of games console makers in November drove a new peak in links from many gadget/technology blogs. With an average of more than 10,000 visitors every month it's also not gone unnoticed by most of the major companies.

Read more »

Posted by tomD at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's an exerpt from a 1958 film introducing the dangers of global warming. Directed by none other than Frank Capra, with cartoons by Mel Blanc.

Posted by Martin Lloyd at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night at 1 o'clock in the morning I was just about to go to sleep in Amsterdam when Karli, the expedition leader on the Esperanza, messaged me saying "check out the web cam now, we have 30 or more humpbacks all around us eating their breakfast". Sure enough, after a few minutes of waiting patiently gazing at my laptop I saw a humpback surface in front of the ship with a spout! Like many whale watchers, I've been lucky enough to see humpbacks up close but how many people can say they have watched them in the Southern Ocean, in real time, from their bed in a completely different hemisphere?

You can view live web cam images here and check out some of the images captured from last night here. Irene, the lovely web editor on board the Esperanza has also written about "sailing through whale breakfast" on the blog and she is setting up more web cams around the ship now so us land lubbers should have an even better virtual whale watching experience soon!

Posted by Lisa at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Image © Lisa Vickers

A Vision and a Challenge

2007 was not a great year for our oceans. Overfishing, marine pollution and climate change now jostle with one another in the struggle to see which can do more harm to marine life more quickly. Combine the three, add in a healthy dose of self-interest inspired by short-term profits and supported by major fishing nations, and things do not look good for the myriad of life that inhabits our oceans in 2008.

At Greenpeace, we have a different vision for our oceans: a vision of clean and healthy oceans abundant with life. Some people call us radical. Since our oceans cover three-quarters of our planet and play host to some 80% of all life on earth, we don't think there is a choice about what has to be done to defend our oceans, and we are prepared to do it. What if 2008 were different?

How about this vision for change in 2008:

Read more »

Posted by brianfit at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Remember back in 2004 when this oil prices soared past first $40 and then $50 and people said 'don't worry, to be as bad as the previous oil shocks it would have to reach $100', well yesterday it did. Normally when prices go up demand goes down, but the world economy seems to be finding it hard to adjust. Here's a three step programme to help it kick the oil habit.

1. Adopt fuel efficiency standards
The 130g of CO2 / km standard proposed by the EU may not go far enough but higher fuel standards means lower fuel consumption.

2. Switch out of Oil and Diesel Generation
In 2003 Oil and Diesel accounted for 494 GW of power generation around the world. A bit more than half the amount produced by Gas and a bit less than half the amount produced by coal. The Energy Revolution Scenario describes how investments in wind power, small scale hydro power and increased use of combined heat and power plants could help cut that down to almost nothing by 2050.

3. Improve household efficiency
With all that oil going into power generation it's easy to see that using less power in the home will cut demand for oil. The world can make a good start by phasing out incandescent lightbulbs in favour of more efficient types.

Posted by Martin Lloyd at 8:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

New comes today of the passing of A.E. Griffith Bates, Jr. You won't recognise the name. You won't have seen pictures of him chained to anything. He's probably never appeared in any of the many books about Greenpeace. But he was an extraordinary example of the many ordinary people around the world who make Greenpeace work.

Mr. Bates was a volunteer.

Read more »

Posted by brianfit at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

One by one the nations around the world are stepping up to the plate and banning incandescent lightbulbs. On December 10 Italy took the plunge after the budget committee voted in favour of a proposal from Green MP Angello Bonelli.

That adds to an Australian ban and the Irish ban, with plenty of other nations lining up similar moves all due to come in before 2011. Which makes the European Lamp Companies Federations plan for a phase out by 2019 look a little, well, dim.

Posted by Martin Lloyd at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's the message from the Archbishop of Canterbury for the new year. You can see his New Years address in full at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6qGu4vQJFA

Posted by Martin Lloyd at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)