With a scheme like Forests For Climate, intact forests would become more valuable than cash crops like palm oil © Beltra/Greenpeace

Change is in the air. We've picking up several new crew members in Jakarta who are joining the Esperanza for the journey to Sumatra and the peatlands of Riau province. As I've been escorting one or two of them around the Esperanza, I can't help thinking back to when I first came on board barely more than three weeks ago. It's odd to think that this ship which is now so familiar was once just as new to me as well.

You'll get to meet some of them over the next couple of weeks but the big event today was perhaps the lynchpin of the entire expedition. In the VIP room of the bustling passenger terminal at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta, we presented our Forests For Climate plan to get money flowing from developed countries to fund forest protection in Indonesia, Brazil and elsewhere, with the eventual aim of zero deforestation across the globe. I covered the nuts and bolts of it a couple of weeks ago, but it's a complex piece of work so it's worth going over some of the details again.

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Posted by Jamie at 3:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Our colleagues in the UK have sent this great animation for their coal campaign. I'll let you watch first:

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Posted by Juliette at 11:54 AM | Permalink

Here is a summary of what we’ve done in October 2008 around the world:

Climate: We’re asking EU leaders, and in particular Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy to stop yielding to the car lobby and make strong emissions standards for cars in the EU.
The Rainbow Warrior and the Arctic Sunrise have been around Europe for a quit coal tour.
We are calling on EU leaders to take the lead in Climate protection.
We have launched the Energy [R]evolution, a report outlining the solution to stop our dependence on fossil fuels. It was followed by a video montage of John Kennedy calling for an energy revolution.

Forests: The Esperanza is currently in Indonesia as part of the Forests for Climate tour. We have been calling for an end to logging there as well as in Papua New Guinea to preserve the planet’s lungs.
Our ForestLove campaign has ended after over 500,000 watched our video and 100,000 people called for action. The EU has fallen short of the standards necessary to stop illegal logging.

Oceans: the Japanese whaling industry has been put in the spotlight after one of its ships was deflagged. The Panama authorities found that it was in violation of several national and international regulations.
Activists have blocked four vessels with a history of pirate fishing in Portugal. We have also released a list of notorious pirate fishing vessels.

Toxics: We are calling on Philips to take back and recycle its products. Philips has been in the red in our guide for greener electronics for a very long time.

Other news: Greenpeace and other NGOs are calling governments not to forget poor countries in the many financial bail-outs going on around the world.

The Rainbow Warrior and the Arctic Sunrise have been touring Europe for the Quit Coal tour. The Esperanza is in South East Asia calling for forest protection.

Posted by Juliette at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Earlier today, activists in Germany "road up" on Berlin's Brandenburg Gate to protest Angela Merkel's climate policy on cars. Thirty activists on toy cars cruised over to the Chancellory and let Merkel know that building fuel efficient cars is child's play and that the government should not give taxpayers' money to climate killers.

Get in the race to and tell Angela Merkel that it is not okay to go against her own stated position and give into the whims of the car industry at the expense of the taxpayer and the climate.
Sign the petition.
Read more about how Greenpeace is taking on the car industry.

Posted by Jess at 3:31 PM | Permalink

It’s slightly weird being docked after ten days at sea. I woke this morning to find Jakarta hovering on the horizon with container ships lining the route into Tanjung Priok port, and sadly the glistening blue seas and dense white clouds have been replaced by grimy harbour water and a blanket of brown smog. But the energy of the place is infectious and I’m itching to get some shore leave and explore.

Before we launch into the next phase of our tour and really get to see the damage that palm oil is doing to Indonesia’s environment, there’s one last interview to present. Madeleine is the ship’s captain and, although this is her first time as captain of a Greenpeace ship, she has a long involvement with both this organisation and others involved in environmental and social campaign work.

With yesterday's Rainbow Warrior activity in the UK, it's particularly interesting to hear Madeleine describe her first experiences with the ship in the Pacific and explain why she loves direct action. There’s a transcript below.

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Posted by Jamie at 11:37 PM | Permalink

The latest from Mike, our captain on the Rainbow Warrior

“Rainbow Warrior you are entering the Medway compulsory pilotage area without a pilot. You must stop your vessel and leave the area. You are breaking maritime law.” That’s what the Medway Vessel Traffic Service told me this morning. But, I kept the throttle down and Rainbow Warrior (flanked by eight zodiacs) pointing at an antiquated technology that is consuming the planet. I did inform the VTS when we passed Grain Edge navigation buoy, that we’d entered the Medway channel. I chose not to take a pilot this morning for fear of implicating my fellow mariners in a civilly disobedient activity. In the past week I have done two trips down the Medway, past Kingsnorth, to Chatham Ness - both trips under pilotage with me paying utmost attention to the local navigation.

“Medway VTS, Rainbow Warrior bound for Kingsnorth Power Station.” I reported at all the calling points and I slowed as we passed the heavy lift crane working at the LNG terminal. A police RHIB rushed passed (the men in black), they looked jolly professional. Then, with less than a mile to Kingsnorth Jetty, I brought the engines to a stop and let the tide take us the rest of the way in. There were two large police boats in the water, blue lights flashing - in addition to the men in black - and the quay was lined with security wearing reflective orange working jackets and hard hats. I put Chris on the helm, gave him a course to steer.

With engines going astern we reached the tip of the jetty and launched the canoes from the pilot door. Then with a few ahead/astern movements I had Rainbow Warrior turned around, stemming the tide and whilst the zodiacs and canoes entertained the police, I brought the old girl to rest upon Kingsnorth Jetty fenders. Ropes ran out with the zodiacs and were tied to the pilings beneath the jetty. The police rushed in, they cut the ropes with their knives. More ropes were run out - beneath the jetty by the canoes - which the police could not reach. We hauled them tight and brought Rainbow Warrior alongside. In position and finished with engines at Kingsnorth Power Station.

Posted by Lisa at 10:33 PM | Permalink

Live webcam images

Up to the moment blogging from Bex

Twitter Updates

Posted by Lisa at 2:53 PM | Permalink

As Lisa mentioned, the Rainbow Warriors in the UK, continuing on its mission to free the world from the threat of coal.

Right now, I’m sitting on the Warrior as she steams towards Kingsnorth power station – potentially the site of the first new coal fired power plant to be built in the UK in over thirty years.

It’s a crucial time for coal in the UK. Just one year ago, hardly anyone had heard of Kingsnorth. Over the past few months though, Climate Camp booted the issue up the media agenda; a not guilty verdict for Greenpeace volunteers at the Kingsnorth trial sent shockwaves through the government; and Gordon Brown’s new appointments to his government mean that the hope for stopping coal and kick starting renewable energy is no longer just a distant dream. There’s everything to play for.

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Posted by bex at 12:09 PM | Permalink

Peace Boat is an international peace group which charters huge passenger ships to carry it's message of peace from shore to shore.

The Japan-based NGO sent an appeal for help to other campaign groups today -- to help get their ship back on the move.

You can read their appeal for solidarity on our forum, or visit their website to learn more about their work, and this historic international voyage with Hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors).

Posted by Eoin at 4:30 PM | Permalink

A Greenpeace inflatable boat tries to prevent Japanese whaling fleet's factory ship Nisshin Maru from refueling from the supply vessel Oriental Bluebird in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. © Greenpeace/Rezac

Some great news for the whales - and it was worth waiting for - the Oriental Bluebird - the Japanese-owned cargo and refuelling for the whaling fleet, has lost its Panamanian flag! You may recall that back on January 22nd, activists from the Esperanza blocked the whaling vessels Nisshin Maru and Oriental Bluebird from coming alongside in Southern Ocean waters. The ships planned to exchange fuel and whale meat - but activists Jetske and Heath put their tiny inflatable in between, to the frustration of the whalers.

It seems a long time ago since watched this from the bridge of the Esperanza, but now their blockade has come to fruition; following pressure from Greenpeace, and Panamanian organisations ASVEPA (Panama Green Association) and FSOCIAM (Environmental and Civil Society Forum, NGOs Coalition), the Oriental Bluebird de-flagged and fined, thanks to a legal ruling by Panamanian authorities.

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Posted by Dave at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Someone who has taken part in all the research flights our helicopter Tweety has carried out during the Esperanza's current tour is, of course, the pilot. Shaun (or Dingo as he's known about the ship) has flown every mission in both Indonesia and during the previous leg in Papua New Guinea.

As a result, he's seen a considerable amount of New Guinea and is able to draw comparisons between the two sides of the border.

Listen to the interview below to hear about Shaun's experiences flying over New Guinea.

Posted by Jamie at 5:16 AM | Permalink

Here's two beautifully treated photographs of the Rainbow Warrior at the dock in Southend, London over the weekend. I found them on ~Big Garlic Bullet~'s photostream on Flickr. The ship is now heading off to Chatham and Kingsnorth in the UK to give coal the boot.

Posted by Lisa at 2:36 PM | Permalink

The world needs an Energy Revolution. We know it, but our leaders seem to go weak at the knees when it comes to facing up to the challenge. So here's a video showing what real leadership might look like.

Today we launch our new Energy Revolution report. Two years after the original report was released the report has been updated with the latest economic, technical and population data. It spells out in detail just what the world needs to do to avoid catastrophic climate change and move into a sustainable, clean future.

Learn more at http://www.greenpeace.org/energyrevolution , and if you know anyone engaged in energy policy or the power generation video, send them this link.

Posted by Martin at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

To show off the most interesting footage from the helicopter trips over Papua during the Esperanza's current tour of Indonesia, we’ve compiled the video below. It’s narrated by Bustar, who went on many of the flights, and he explains why protecting the forests of New Guinea is so important. Enjoy.

Posted by Jamie at 1:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[Photo by Mattheo Nobili.]

Agnes has been on board the Arctic Sunrise for the Italy leg of the "Quit Coal" tour. That's Agnes standing up. Here's her report from the front lines of the energy revolution - where she explains what they've been getting up to, why and talks about her first ship painting protest.

NO CARBONE (no coal). That was the Italian message I had to remember today, as we were taking action against the coal plant owned by Enel in Genoa. While others of the team were entering the coal plant and branding Enel a climate killer, I joined our boat team from the Arctic Sunrise and painted the words "No Carbone" on a huge Ukrainian cargo ship Aristea, as it was offloaded coal at the port to go to the power plant.

Another team was hanging a banner from the giant Lanterna lighthouse.

It was a very busy morning, as we also had an open boat, to tell the Italian public about our campaign to Quit Coal.

Although I have been working for Greenpeace as a climate campaigner for a while now, I never painted a ship before, so I was quite excited this morning. Luckily, my fellow mate Papaul has a lot more experience in painting than me, so he taught me the handy tricks (like how to paint difficult letters like the 0). Luckily I did not make any spelling mistakes.

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Posted by Andrew at 5:15 PM | Permalink

On the Esperanza, we've been sailing past and through some of the most wonderfully named parts of the world - Flores, Butu, Ceram, Halmahera and their associated seas - which for me conjure up images of trading ships at full sail, laden down with cargoes of nutmeg, pepper and cloves.

It's a very Eurocentric view, of course, and the spice trade was often at the expense of the local population, but I can't help finding the associations with exploration and uncharted waters bewitching. (And for a very readable account of that period in history, you could do worse than track down a copy of Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton.)

But while these exotic locations drift by, we're preparing for our arrival in Jakarta next week, and the long journey is also giving me a chance to catch up on some of the interviews I conducted between Jayapura and Mankwari.

One of the more interesting and colourful people I've had the pleasure of working with on this expedition is Dorothy. She's a Greenpeace forest campaigner from Papua New Guinea and joined the Esperanza in Port Moresby in August. Dorothy left the ship last weekend in Manokwari but before she disembarked, I wanted to find out why it was important that she stay on the ship over the border into the Indonesian half of New Guinea.

Listen to the audio clip below and hear about Dorothy's links to both Papua and Papua New Guinea.

Posted by Jamie at 6:07 AM | Permalink

Valeriy treats an infected leg in the Esperanza's sick bay © Greenpeace/Rante

Even though we're in Indonesia to tackle big, global issues of deforestation and climate change, there's still time to help out with smaller problems as well. The Esperanza has a sick bay and a qualified medic on board, and in a country like Indonesia there are plenty of opportunities to dish out a little TLC.

Valeriy, our Ukranian doctor, has been keen to help some of the people we've met with diagnosis and, where possible, treatment of various ailments. He held an impromptu first aid clinic for one village in Papua New Guinea a few weeks ago and wanted to do something similar on this side of the border.

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Posted by Jamie at 10:15 AM | Permalink

Another coal video - this time a HILARIOUS one by our Australia-Pacific office. As an ex-child therapist I can fully appreciate the Wiggles parody! :-)

Posted by Lisa at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Love this clever ad done by the Sierra Club - a parody on the pro-coal ad being used during the election coverage lately in the U.S

Posted by Lisa at 5:22 PM | Permalink

If you're still trying to picture the destinations we've been to so far and the route we're taking through Indonesia as part of the Forests For Climate tour, you can now follow the Esperanza in Google Earth. Just download this Googe Earth layer and you can see when and where the highlights on the tour have occurred. (You'll need to have Googe Earth installed as well, of course.)

New placemarks will appear automatically as we update the journey, so check back often to see what we've been up to and how the campaign is progressing. If you don't want to install Google Earth, you can also see where we are in your web browser.

Meanwhile, we left Manokwari on Monday and are sailing west towards Jakarta where we'll arrive in the middle of next week. We've passed through a narrow passage called Selat Sagewin, less than 2 miles between the forested slopes of two islands, and we're now cruising through the Ceram Sea.

The crew have been taking advantage of the journey to Jakarta and the paint pots have come out to give some parts of the ship a touch-up. I also been taking a break from my web duties to help out and yesterday a gang of us were giving the forward bulkhead of the boat deck a new coat of paint.

While we were working, Locky the bosun and Silas spotted a commotion in the water a couple of hundred metres away. Areas of the sea were foaming, and every so often a plume of water would shoot skywards which could only mean one thing - whales. Several of them appeared to be herding schools of fish into bait balls and occasionally a set of massive jaws breached the water as a whale scooped up it's prey.

Dimitri, our second mate, took a few photos and although we were some distance away, you can clearly see a whale gorging itself. It's seven years since he's seen a whale at sea - a lucky day, indeed.

Posted by Jamie at 3:18 AM | Permalink

© Greenpeace/Masaya Noda

Who would have thought that prominent conservationists and leading members of Japan's fishing industry could come together under the banner "Marine Reserves for Sustainable Sushi? Or that one of the speakers used to represent Japan on whaling issues? Or that Greenpeace Japan would be behind the whole event? It's a strange world we live in.

All this happened just a few days ago - on Friday 17th October, at the International Marine Environment Symposium, held at the United Nations University in Tokyo. Speakers included biologist Daniel Pauly who talked about the "transformation of seascapes by fisheries and the need for marine protected areas"; former Japanese Fisheries Agency officer and whaling commissioner Masayuki Komatsu, who spoke about the future of Japan's fisheries; and Japanese Tuna fisherman, Atsushi Sasaki. Mr Komatsu discussed the ongoing decline of Japanese marine industries, and the reluctance of Japanese fisheries to keep pace with changes
occurring in marine biodiversity. He emphasised that a fundamental reform of Japan's fishing industry is need, if Japan wants to sustain its fisheries.

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Posted by Dave at 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Yesterday, I promised you an update on the action going down as part of the Quit Coal tour in Italy. Turns out the action ended with some pretty good news. Activists stuck it out for 14 hours as they called attention to the plans that E.ON and the Sardinian authorities had to expand coal capacity in the region. The action got the attention of the regional environmental minister and while the activist stood their ground we met to discuss the region's energy plans. At the end of the meeting, he promised the regional government would revise its energy plans to meet EU climate protection targets.
Read more.

Posted by Jess at 4:30 PM | Permalink

An update from Quit Coal tour in Italy

Very early this morning, several teams of activists from the Artic Sunrise took action at the E.ON coal power plant in Sardinia. The activists stopped two conveyor belts carrying coal into the furnace of the plant while 13 climbers positioned themselves on the actual conveyor belt and the net directly below.

E.ON has plans to convert two older groups of the plant from oil to coal, to join the other two groups of the plant already using coal. They are also planning a €50 billion investment programme for 2008-2010 to expand its generation capacity in Europe, building at least 8 new coal plants.

We’ll keep you updated as our activists take action against E.ON and its dirty plans. Check out activists from the Quit Coal tour in action just a few days ago.

Posted by Jess at 12:40 PM | Permalink

Inês - a volunteer from Portugal (above left - standing by for action with fellow crew members on the Arctic Sunrise) - writes about her recent experience .

From day one, life aboard the Arctic Sunrise has been a roller coaster filled with constant thrills. The ship is a whole new world, where there seems to be an infinite wealth of things to learn. Naturally, this is taken to new heights during actions, which constitute the peaks of intensity of the campaign at hand. All my life I had heard and seen pictures of Greenpeace activists riding the waves to peacefully oppose crimes against the environment.

To know that I was going to be one of the crew on the inflatable during the recent action - made the adrenaline begin running through me well before we started. In fact, though the finished product consists of stunning images, part of the beauty of the action resides in the careful planning beforehand.

The day started early with briefings and then we got ready to take action. As told to me by Po Paul, “Here, we hurry hurry to stand by.” And may the importance of standing by not be in any way undermined. The minutes and the hours preceding actions are precious. It is during this time that we dress and properly gear up. The adrenaline and energy really began to build inside me, but simultaneously, I was able to manage that energy and mold it into something purposeful. Calm and cool-blood are indispensable to carrying out an action successfully. So we took some silly pictures!

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Posted by Lisa at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Oscar Soria was in Luxembourg to witness the launch of "Tanjona Tany", as Greenpeace and musicians come together to highlight the challenges we are facing with clean water.

Voices, instruments and musical styles from different parts of the world made last Friday night a very special moment for ethnic musicians and Greenpeace: “Tanjona Tany” (Malagasy for Objective: Earth!), a collaborative music effort by Yemenite, Madagascar, and Israeli musicians were officially launched to sound the alarm about a disappearing resource that is sorely lacking in their home countries; clean water.

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Posted by Jess at 11:28 AM | Permalink

Here's a great slideshow of the action in Italy yesterday against coal

Read about the action.

Posted by Lisa at 10:34 PM | Permalink

A dance troupe from Manokwari take a tour of the Esperanza's bridge © Greenpeace/Rante

After nine days at sea, the Esperanza pulled into Manokwari harbour this morning - that's Manokwari in the Indonesian province of West Papua, not any other Manokwari you might be thinking of. Crowds of people were already on the dock and despite the overcast skies, we received one of the colourful and exotic welcomes I'm becoming accustomed to on this trip, with traditional dancing and singing to greet us when we disembarked.

Manokwari isn't what I expected. The image I had in my head was a quite an industrial place with lots of concrete, but although I haven't left the port yet it looks very pleasant. It's a small place, strung out along a bay and from the ship, most of the town is concealed by palms and trees. And just behind the town lies the forest, the tall tropical trees towering over the nearby buildings.

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Posted by Jamie at 11:55 AM | Permalink

See that yellow and black blob? That's Switzerland, about the same size as the area waiting to be converted into palm oil plantations

As we saw from the helicopter flights yesterday (part of the Esperanza's Forests For Climate tour around Indonesia), palm oil is beginning to make its presence felt in Papua and West Papua. So far, we've surveyed plantations in two areas - Lereh near Jayapura last week and of course the one near Teluk Bituni from yesterday - and compared to the vast monocultures in Sumatra and Kalimantan, these are pretty small affairs. But their presence here is a reminder that huge areas of forest have already been carved up on paper between the Indonesian government and palm oil companies, and will be carved up for real if we don’t take action.

While only 60,000 hectares of palm oil have been planted in this region, the government has handed out permits covering four million hectares (that's just a bit smaller than Switzerland), and at the moment much of this is densely forested. Palm oil producers like Sinar Mas, Medco, Korendo and Asian Agri have been given the rights to move in and expand their huge agribusiness operations but they're not moving in en masse, at least not yet.

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Posted by Jamie at 8:27 AM | Permalink

Today's Blog Action Day and the theme this year is poverty - so I thought I'd take the opportunity to bring up the concept of environmental justice. First a definition of environmental justice:

Environmental justice (EJ) is the confluence of social and environmental movements, which deals with the inequitable environmental burden born by groups such as racial minorities, women, or residents of developing nations...the movement seeks to redress inequitable distributions of environmental burdens (pollution, industrial facilities, crime, etc.) and access to environmental goods (nutritious food, clean air & water, parks, recreation, health care, education, transportation, safe jobs, etc.) in a variety of situations.

What's that mean in practice? Here are some examples:

It means polluting factories are often forced on people in poor areas.

It means toxic garbage (like e-waste) still gets shipped to developing countries under the guise of recycling.

It means poor countries being robbed of their fish and their forests, while locals get a pittance at best.

What can you do about it? Encourage good environmental and labor practices - in your government and the companies you buy from. I mean, you are registered to vote right? Right? Take a look at which candidate is better on environmental issues. Which is better on human rights? Which is better on labor laws? Buy organic. Buy fair trade. Ask questions about where products come from, and if the company has a take back scheme.

Posted by Andrew at 10:53 PM | Permalink

Yesterday we were listening closely to Apple's announcement of their new MacBook line up - Steve definitely put a lot of emphasis on the green elements of the new MacBooks - reduced toxics, more energy efficient, less packaging. All good news, but in our campaign for greener electronics we were looking for the new MacBooks to be the first computers completely free of toxic PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

A check of the full specs revealed the MacBook Pro, MacBook and MacBook Air - as well as the LED Cinema Display will now have internal cables free of PVC and will have internal components containing no BFRs. Not quite the breakthrough we were hoping for. These new MacBooks are currently on a similar level of toxics reduction to the Sony Viao laptop series on PVC, and the Lenovo Think Vision in monitors. The BFR free internal components represent an improvement from the bar set by the Vaio line.

However while most including us were examining the specs of the new MacBooks, Steve released a long awaited (but much less hyped) update to his May 07 Greener Apple statement made in response to our successful GreenmyApple campaign. It makes very interesting reading, here are the highlights:

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Posted by Tom at 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (18)

During the past week of the Esperanza's tour of the Indonesian half of New Guinea, we've already seen some incursions into the forests of Papua and West Papua, mainly logging roads and small camps but also deforestation on a much larger scale near Jayapura, at the hands of palm oil producer Sinar Mas. Then, on Monday, our helicopter team discovered an area where illegal logging was taking place.

The team passed over the Kaimana area in West Papua where two logging companies had been operating, but had their permits suspended earlier this year. In July, the Indonesian police arrested senior executives of both companies - PT Centrico and PT Kaltim Hutama - for violating national forestry laws by logging outside the areas set in their permits.

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Posted by Jamie at 2:49 PM | Permalink

Two weeks ago, Congress and President Bush lifted the moratorium on offshore oil drilling. Earlier in the year, President Bush lifted a moratorium on offshore oil and gas leasing. The protection offered to most of the country's coasts for the past thirty years is over. Seems the destruction caused by our addiction to oil will now spread to include the Outer Continental Shelf of the U.S.

Posted by Jess at 12:15 PM | Permalink

Some excellent news from Dimitris, our climate and energy campaigner in Greece.

Last week we had a meeting with the CEO of the company that we targeted during the Greek leg of the Quit Coal tour with the Rainbow Warrior. In the meeting the company was represented by their CEO, ED, their Communications Director and a scientific expert.

During the meeting we were able to present our Energy Revolution vision and also warn him that we will actively oppose his coal plans, should he continue. The CEO agreed that he now thinks it is rather hard to invest in coal, due to economical reasons but also said that he is not willing to confront Greenpeace and other local anti coal movements.

We got in writing that he is not willing to invest in coal and that if ever he changes his mind, he will only do so after getting a consensus from local communities (which we aim to make sure will never happen). We also got in writing that the aluminium factory he owns (sited next to the location of the proposed coal plant and has been dumping toxic waste for more than 40 years) will reduce dumping by 65% by the end of 2008 and phase out dumping by 2011.

One coal plant out of the four proposed is now stopped in Greece largely due to the hard work we (the local communities and Greenpeace) have done here. We will now focus on the other three proposed coal plants, in close cooperation with local anti-coal movements.

I would like to thank the fantastic crew of the Rainbow Warrior, without which we wouldn't have made it happen.

From the Greek team we wish all the best to the rest of the Quit Coal Tour.

D

The Rainbow Warrior is currently on its way to the UK to give coal the boot over there! Stay Tuned.

Image: © Greenpeace/ Pierre Gleizes

Posted by Lisa at 9:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The current captain of the Rainbow Warrior is not only a very skilled sailor but an incredibly talented writer! Here's the latest installment from one of my heroes - Mike Finken

I am back at sea, presently in the Atlantic Ocean heading up the coast of Portugal towards London. They will lift the Tower Bridge to let us through and we will moor opposite the HMS Belfast to talk to the Tories. Then we’ll start taking action. Join me on the most important voyage of my life. I say that because we look to Europe to lead the way and to stop using COAL as a weapon against humanity.

The Rainbow warrior started this year in New Zealand, campaigning for the planet to Quit Coal. She took that single message to Philippines and then on to Thailand, blockading coal-fired power stations, branding the sides of ships carrying coal, rallying people to take the path of warriors against coal. The Esperanza picked up the same call in Australia as did the Arctic Sunrise in Spain and Italy. The history of the environmental activism has been a dress rehearsal for Climate Change. Coal is the greatest threat to the climate and must be stopped.

From South East Asia Rainbow Warrior sailed to the Mediterranean Sea with the same message ‘QUIT COAL’. She protested in Israel, Turkey and Greece. I took her command in Greece, and sailed her out of the Mediterranean in a terrible storm.

Read more »

Posted by Lisa at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm not sure how I managed to persuade my superiors to release me from my normal London-based duties and travel to Indonesia to join the Esperanza for two months, but whatever I did, it worked. I'm here for the second leg of the Forests For Climate extravaganza - the first half covered Papua New Guinea and now the show has moved across the border to the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua.

We're focusing our efforts on the growth of the palm oil industry, which threatens to engulf the region's magnificent forests and we're gradually working our way towards the centres of production. Never far from our minds is the massive impact forests have on the whole climate change thing - good if they’re left as they are, bad if they're put to the chainsaw.

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Posted by Jamie at 3:37 PM | Permalink

What do you call someone who yells that car emissions are putting the climate in danger? A visionary? Environmental activist? Concerned citizen? Captain Obvious? For French President Nicolas Sarkozy, it's none of the above - he likes to call them nutcases.
During Sarkozy's visit to the annual car show in Paris, someone was heard yelling "Climate in danger - Sarkozy accomplice". This refered to Sarkozy and Merkel recently working on killing a climate deal that would force car makers to limit emissions of newly produced cars.

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Posted by Juliette at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Whaling wonks the world over have been chuckling for years at the Institute for Cetacean Research's wacky, wonderful website, where they spin the Japanese Fisheries Agency's latest propoganda in an (I thought) inimitable combination of fractured English and the kind of cutting-edge web design that was waaaaaaaaaaay cool in 1994 among graphically challenged nerds who thought <blink> was the awesomest html tag ever.

Well, somebody had to do it, and I sooooooo wish it had been me: introducing the parody version, "The Institute for Delicious Whale Research."

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Posted by Brian at 1:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Never mind failing banks, apparently the European car industry is also getting in on the act. It wants a mere E40 billion of tax payers money to finally build greener cars now it seams they might finally be forced to lower the amount of CO2.

Having fought tooth and nail against regulation, using no doubt some very expensive lobbying, they now have the cheek to say we all need to pay them to be greener.

I suspect it's just another last-ditch ploy by again exaggerating the costs and then demanding someone else pays. As usual George Monbiot has an alternative suggestion.

Posted by Tom at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There is a new lobby in France. They are protesting against a source of energy that apparently is dangerous, too expensive for taxpayers, with a deceitful official presentation and destroys the quaint rural French landscapes. No, they're not talking about nuclear - they're talking about wind. Political cynicism has just reached an entirely new level.
They're represented by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who was President of France from 1974 to 1981, and who led the first French nuclear "renaissance". Not so surprisingly, there is a host of pro-nuclear personalities following him, not the least being a former President of EDF. I'm not surprised to see them campaigning against wind-energy. It's kind of what you expect from people who have dedicated their lives to misleading the public.

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Posted by Juliette at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The world's deepest living fish has been filmed at 7700 metres below the sea. For those of you who, like me, have a hard time picturing how deep that is, think about how high a commercial airplane flies above the surface, and imagine that height as a depth beneath the waves.

They're called Hadan Snailfish and live in the deep trenches of the Pacific Ocean, where pressures of 8,000 tonnes per square metre are common. That's equivalent to the pressure of 1600 elephants standing on the roof of a Mini car.

These snailfish are apparently highly social. Personally, I don't find that surprising. It's gotta be lonely down there.

Des poissons vivant dans les abysses filmés pour la première fois
LEMONDE.FR | 08.10.08

©

These critters are yet another reason we need to protect our oceans. Sign this petition asking the UN to set aside 40% of our world's oceans as Marine Reserves.

Posted by Brian at 10:28 AM | Permalink

Last night, during the second US presidential debate, Senator McCain announced that nuclear power could solve the problem of global warming, “The best way of fixing it? Nuclear power.”

It doesn’t matter how many times I hear it, I’m still frustrated that we are being told nuclear power can ‘fix” global warming. My guess is that Senator McCain has figured out that in order to sell this dangerous and expensive bogus plan, he has to lie, because nobody would buy the idea of nuclear power otherwise.

Staff at the NY Times examined statements made by the candidates as they made them last night. Here is what they had to say about McCain’s claims that nuclear power would save the day.

Nuclear Power | 10:14 p.m. Senator John McCain said of global warming, “The best way of fixing it? Nuclear power.”

He’s right that, once built, a nuclear power plant emits no carbon dioxide, the main human-generated greenhouse gas linked to recent warming of the global climate.
But many energy experts have run the numbers on just how many nuclear power plants would have to be constructed between now and 2050 just to avert even a tenth or so of the projected increase in emissions of carbon dioxide coming from expanding use of coal in that span.

According to analysis by Professors Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow of Princeton University, the world, in the end, would need to build about 880 nuclear plants – twice the number operating worldwide today – by 2050 just to avoid that small fraction of projected emissions.

So nuclear power, even in a best case, is only likely to be a small fraction of the long-term effort to curb emissions of carbon dioxide.

Posted by Jess at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Posted by Martin at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From the history files, here's an audio account by journalist Chris Pash with ABN Newswire Australia about his book, The Last Whale: the story of how whaling was ended in Australia, and Greenpeace's role in making it happen.

Pash was there in early days of Greenpeace in Australia, which were also the closing years for whaling as Greenpeace took direct, non-violent action to protect the sperm whales that were being hunted near Albany, the last whaling station in the English speaking world.

Australia stopped whaling in 1978.

I was particularly struck by the passage below, which makes me think of so many people I've met, sailed with, and had the privilege to work with in Greenpeace -- some of them within earshot of my desk here in the Amsterdam secret mountain headquarters, so I'm whispering -- this sort of stuff just goes straight to their heads.

Chris Pash: The action was actually quite spectacular. In my view, the activists were completely crazy... but magical if you like. They took these open boats, Zodiacs, inflatable rubber boats that the whalers liked to call "Rubber Duckies" -- a nice little put-down -- and they attached outboard engines to them and they didn't have a mother ship or anything, they followed the chasers, the three last whaling ships, out to the continental shelf, about thirty nautical miles. That's over the horizon, so you can't see land.

And I watched this and couldn't believe it. I mean, I can still give you thirty good reasons in about ten seconds why I shouldn't go into an open boat in the Southern Ocean over the horizon and throw myself in front of an explosive head harpoon.

Interviewer: they weren't literally doing that, were they?

Chris Pash: They WERE doing it!

[...]

I was struck by the absolute pure belief of the activists that what they were doing was right. And they did something dangerous and crazy, but it was magical as well.

I think within us all we want to tilt at windmills. We see something, we know it's wrong, and we know all the risks involved, but we still go ahead and do something about it. And personally, as I say, it makes me look inward and realise there are a lot of reasons I wouldn't do that, but I admired these people who did.

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Posted by Brian at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After heaps of work by several dedicated people we've just launched an online database of fishing vessels involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and the companies that own them.

IUU fishing – often referred to as "pirate fishing" - has become a global scourge. It is a multi-billion dollar business that affects many communities, especially from developing countries such as those in the Pacific that can least afford to be robbed of their livelihoods and sustenance. It leaves the marine environment bruised and battered, undermining food security and attempts at sustainable management.

Our blacklist is the first independent record of fishing vessels, support vessels and companies involved in pirate fishing. It includes independent observations from the legal fishing industry, government authorities, and first-hand evidence from Greenpeace and other NGOs who have recorded the activities of these vessels and companies at sea and in ports around the world.

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Posted by Lisa at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Heard today from a friend of mine named Donna. Looks like she's got a new job saving sharks...

Dear friends

As most of you know I have been working part time with the Shark Alliance for a while now. Dolphins and seal pups may be cuter, but sharks need some loving too!

Sharks have been around for more than 450 million years, but in the last one hundred of those we have managed to make some species extinct and today, one third of European species are threatened with extinction. The loss of more species will inevitably cause yet more harm to the marine ecosystem.

The cause of this recent unnecessary damage is overfishing and finning and Europe is a particularly bad offender here, with some of the weakest finning regulations in the world. After nearly ten years of dithering, the EU will finalise a plan of action to protect sharks at the end of this year. Please sign the petition on the link below to ask fisheries and environment ministers to support the EU plan for stronger protection for sharks. And please forward to your friends and contacts.

http://www.sharkalliance.org/petition08/

Sorry for the round robin and hope you are all healthy, happy and enjoying the Autumn sun

xx
Donna

Get your own fin! Sign the petition.

Posted by Andrew at 11:11 AM | Permalink

Greenpeace activists used 200 floating crosses to symbolise the threat of the a new coal fired power plant to the already endangered Gulf of Korinth. The protest around the Antikyra Bay village is part of the Quit Coal tour.

Learn more about the Quit Coal tour.

Posted by Jess at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last week saw a good announcement, a slippery quote and even a nice Obama quote related to greener electronics.

Sony Ericsson announced a new global recycling scheme for mobile phones and a commitment to make sure every single phone is responsibly recycled. This is a key ask we've been making to all the biggest electronic companies in our Guide to Greener Electronics and will help bring Sony Ericsson's score closer to the current leader, Nokia, in the next edition.

Sony Ericsson also talked up a green concept phone – all sounds nice, just like Nokia's Remade phone, but both remain just concepts right now. With mobile sales continuing to skyrocket there's an urgent need to reduce their environmental impact now.

Meanwhile Dell's head honcho was in London and facing a few questions about how he can claim Dell is well on the way to being greenest technology company on the planet when Dell only gets 4.6 in our Guide? As the FT noticed he just avoided the question, and IT Pro even quotes Michael accusing other brands of greenwash:

“…What a number of firms have done in Japan is they’ve introduced one model that has a very, very green footprint and it might be something that is one per cent of their sales. That’s a nice thing to do as a test but doesn’t really change the equation in terms of the volumes. Greenwashing is what it’s usually called.”

Maybe he's miffed that Dell currently ranks behind competitors like Sony and Fujitsu Siemens in our Guide!

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Posted by Tom at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A few days ago, Somali pirates hijacked a Ukrainian ship off the coast of Kenya. It seemed to be pirate business at usual, until they realized that they were in command of a ship carrying about US $30 million worth of weapons. The cargo ship was headed for Kenya and is carrying everything from rocket launchers to soviet tanks (about 13 of them.) They're still off the coast of Kenya, surrounded by US warships and the Russian navy isn't far behind. I don't know about you but just rereading that sentence scared me enough to give me chills.

A spokesperson for the pirates (yes, they have a spokesperson) claims they had no idea the ship was carrying weapons when they boarded it on the high seas. He's claiming they are misunderstood and that they are in the pirate game "to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters." It turns out piracy became a popular career among Somali fishermen following the collapse of the Somali government in 1991. Somalia's waters were left full of tuna but with no authorities to protect them. International commercial fishing vessels began flooding the waters and the Somali fishermen took to the waters and started demanding payment for the stolen fish.

The pirate industry from Somalia seems to have strayed pretty far away from collecting money for stolen tuna. However, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if these fishermen had never taken to the ocean to protect their tuna stocks in the first place. Would pirates from Somalia, 20 hostages and 30 million dollars worth of weapons still be in a stand off with American warships off the coast of Kenya? Maybe, but I'm still thinking about how this all started with the stolen fish.

Posted by Jess at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)