© Greenpeace/Parsons

Nathalie usually works in our video department at Greenpeace International in Amsterdam, but this week she's been an ocean defender on board the Rainbow Warrior in the Med. Here's the latest from her as the expedition comes to an end

The Sicilian Channel is that part of the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and Tunisia; for me - experiencing my first ever voyage on a ship, it’s just the middle of the sea. In this respect, I feel like a migratory fish - free in the middle of the waters without boundaries.

This area is famous for the richness of its biodiversity and it is important as a breeding ground for the threatened bluefin tuna. This is why we are advocating for its protection as a marine reserve.

At first glance, the beautiful video footage shot by our dive team leads me to believe that the underwater world beneath is healthy. The marine life appears lively and colorful…but scientists have noticed that some fish are dramatically missing.

Fabio, is a marine biologist at CNR (Centro Nazionale di Ricerca) in Italy. When he knew that our ship was coming to patrol this area, he immediately volunteered to join the team and support our campaign with his expertise.

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Posted by Lisa at 11:03 AM | Permalink

© Alain Combemorel/ Greenpeace
Last weekend - Greenpeace found and reported a pirate fishing vessel off the coast of Sicily

Since July 22nd and until the 31st, our team on board the Rainbow Warrior is back in Sicilian waters to raise the alarm over illegal drift netting and to document seamounts in international waters and other areas that could be rich in biodiversity in the Sicilian channel. To do this they are diving and using a deep submersible drop camera. The results will be used to highlight the need for a marine reserve in this area.

This is how the crew of our ship woke up in the morning of the 26th of July and this is how Alain, a member of the on board campaign team explains his day; a day that started slow and easy and suddenly turns out to be exciting day for the campaign...

Yesterday we had a bit of weather; a dive was scheduled for this morning so the decision was made to look for shelter. The Rainbow Warrior was drifting on her engines around Pantelleria Island (South of Sicily) for the whole night.

I was on watch from 4am to 8am, we were sitting close to some amazing cliffs, (well that's what I could see after sunrise) and 2 other boats were sitting close to us, probably for the same reason: sheltering themselves from the bad sea conditions. Around 8 o'clock the diving team was waking up, starting to get ready for their dive, and Alessandro our on board campaigner, came to the bridge to organise the coming activity. Looking around he saw the vessels, and out of curiosity had a look through binoculars to the fishing boat. He noticed that she was carrying what looked like drift-net gears.

We decided to launch one of our inflatable boats to have a closer look and made our way to the fishing boat. While we were approaching them we didn't get any reaction from the crew, they watched us coming and in the meantime our videographer and photographer shot footage of the boat, getting pictures of the illegal drift-net gear and the name of the vessel.

Once they realised who we were, they started their engine, heaved up the anchor and started to run away from us. One of their crew threw a wooden crate at us and gave us some international signs of diplomacy....

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Posted by Lisa at 12:03 PM | Permalink

Today activists in India were arrested while demonstrating outside the Indian Parliament during the passing of the Finance bill in Loksabha. The demonstration was to remind the Finance Minister that proposed fertiliser subsidies will not ward off an imminent food crisis.

The present crisis - characterised by degraded soils, yield stagnation and decline in agricultural productivity - is the result of years of indiscriminate use of chemical fertilisers, facilitated by government subsidies.

The newly proposed subsidy reform will continue to promote the use of chemical fertilisers and will only intensify the problem in India. The degraded soils need to be rejuvenated and the only way to do this is through ecological farming.

The Finance Minister has expressed concern over declining agricultural productivity as a response to increased fertiliser usage and proposed a shift to a nutrient based subsidy regime instead of the current product pricing regime to ensure balanced usage. But studies show that agricultural yield is unsustainable even with recommended doses and balanced applications of chemical fertilisers. Our recent report, 'Subsidising Food Crisis' refers to a 14-year study in Punjab to highlight the fact that rice yields declined even when the recommended rates of nutrients are applied.

While it is important to give income support to farmers, our office in India is demanding that their government provide support for ecological farming in order to ensure food security.

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Posted by Lisa at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Irish activist mailing lists, facebook groups and forums are abuzz with
news of an upcoming camp in Co. Offaly.

If I were in Britain or Ireland now I'd go to the climate camp in Ireland, August 15 to 23rd.

There are so many climate change problems in Ireland that could be tackled by grassroots action--burning turf in power stations, building houses with shoddy insulation, and rising greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

Citizen action works -- just look at the history of Carnsore Point in Ireland, or the Zwentendorf nuclear plant in Austria.

Posted by Eoin at 9:47 AM | Permalink

After our web and press guy, Dave Walsh, on board the Arctic Sunrise noticed a rather amusing typo in a recent draft press release - this is what he sent back to our communications department in Amsterdam for a giggle.

The Petermann Rice Shelf has collapsed, dumping five billion tonnes of glacial rice into the ocean, according to cooks on board the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sushi today.

This follows last week’s revelations of how polar bears are starving due to the rapid decline of Arctic sea rice, following the breakup of the Lincoln Sea Rice Bridge, which flooded the rice fields of the Nares Strait.

“The collapse of Petermann is a perfect example of what’s known as the nori roll effect”, said Jason Box, well known chef from the TV programme Extreme Rice Survey. “When you get rice pushed to the bottom of a fjord like this, it rolls up all the fish and seaweed together, and allows the rice sheet to slip. Climate change is definitely on the
menu here.”

The Arctic has now left Petermann floating rice tongue, having taken swift evasive action earlier this week, to avoid getting trapped between pressure ridges of thick sea rice pudding from the Lincoln Sea.

“The best way to navigate through this multi-year rice is to simply avoid it”, said experienced rice pilot Arne Sorrenson, on board the ricebreaker Arctic Sushi. “It’s one thing to punch your way through a thick layer of Basmati, but getting through a plate of sticky risotto is well nigh impossible”.

“With Greenland’s rice sheet continuing to slip into the ocean, we’re seeing the potential for sea rise around the world, especially in Pacific island nations like Pilau”, said Greenpeace expedition leader Melanie Duchin, over a glass of saki.

The Arctic Sushi is currently anchored in the Kane Rice Bowl, 80 nm south of Petermann. Lunch 12-1, Dinner 6-7, booking essential, phone
Call +551 655 755 455 for reservations.

[Obviously - Our ship is actually investigating the impact of climate change on ICE! You can read all about the more serious side of this expedition over on the Climate Rescue Blog. But if you're interested in RICE - you might want to check out our campaign to save the world's most important food and sign the petition against GM rice! ]

Posted by Lisa at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sent from Nathalie onboard the Rainbow Warrior in the Meditteranean

As we were traveling to the Mediterranean sea yesterday morning, one colleague told me this story as a joke: “Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian and it's all organised by the Swiss”…

We were on our way to join the Rainbow Warrior for the second leg of Defending Our Mediterranean Tour and it was a long day waiting to gather all the new comers: an English cameraman and a photographer, a Turkish deck mate and finally our Italian campaigner and a scientist volunteer diver, all here to document the sea life and damages of this specific area between Sicily and Tunisia called the Sicilian channel.

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Posted by Jess at 2:18 PM | Permalink

A new film is coming out soon called No Impact Man, featuring the well-meaning Colin Beavan attempting to live his life with as little as possible impact on the environment. But, I wonder, what impact is his film going to have?

You can check out the trailer here:

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Posted by Adele at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Posted by Laura - but actually by Tom:


It's been almost two years since Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony were added to the Guide to Greener Electronics, Nintendo has just struggled past the 1/10 mark, Microsoft has a feeble 2.5 and Sony has tumbled down to 4.5. So, what's up? Don't they care about toxic chemicals in consoles - or do they just need a bigger shove in the right direction?

One focus of the Guide is asking companies to drop the use of hazardous substances like brominated flame retardants and PVC plastic. No company is seriously quibbling over the fact that these nasties don't belong in their products. Indeed Apple's almost removed them entirely, Dell and Lenovo are making some products without them (but showing faltering progress), HP is probably making the least progress but is committed to dropping toxics from it's products, eventually....

Sony has dropped these chemicals from products such as the Vaio, so it knows it's better off without these toxic nasties - but has no plans to drop them from the Playstation at all. Do Sony laptop users deserve less chemicals than Playstation gamers?

Nintendo has a vague plan to remove PVC but still no date. Phasing out the BFRs (like Apple) has doesn't even figure in Nintendo's plans.

Microsoft at least has a date to drop PVC and BFRs but not till 2011, and so faces being left behind by Apple - again.

It might be easy to dismiss console makers low scores as not playing ball with Greenpeace, but the reality is that users are getting toxic chemicals as unwanted and unneeded extras in that shiny new console box. It's you who's getting short changed.

Watch the vids just released on gaming site Kotaku.com, take action.

Tom

Posted by Laura at 4:10 PM | Permalink

Today Google's Dan Reicher will be online on the Guardian Website to answer your questions about Google and energy/climate change. Dan is Google's director of climate change and energy and has worked in past US Administrations and on the Obama transition team.

Not often you get the chance to pose a question directly to someone as knowledgeable and well connected as Dan. Here's a few suggestions for substantive questions to pose:

Will Google be setting its self a goal to cut it's own absolute greenhouse gas emissions, like many other tech firms have done already?

Does Google support the 25% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 needed in the US to help ensure a strong climate deal is reached at the vital UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen at the end of this year?

Or you could ask how Dan thinks Google measures up against the climate change policy and practice of other US Tech giants. Check out how we rate IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Dell, HP and Sun on our Cool IT Challenge.

You can add your questions now, Dan is online from 4pm UK time Thursday 16 July.

Posted by Tom at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

A guest blog by Junichi Sato:

While Japan’s Criminal Justice System may look OK from a distance once you get close enough to smell and taste it for yourself, it becomes repulsively clear just how curdled and rotten it is.

Thanks to the way the police and the prosecutors treated us, Toru and I have been forced to smell and taste the foulness of the Japanese Criminal Justice System for the alleged “theft” of US$500 worth of whale meat. To expose large-scale embezzlement within the Japanese whaling industry, Toru and I intercepted the box and handed it in to the Tokyo Public Prosecutor as evidence of a crime, asking for an investigation. However, the embezzlement investigation was quickly dropped and we were arrested instead, detained for 26 days and finally charged with “theft”.

So it is now, with much first-hand experience, that I can tell you exactly how badly the system stinks.

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Posted by Laura at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This is a guest post from Myrto, sustainable agriculture campaigner.

When a giant agri-chemical company with a long track record of environmental crimes and health scandals, such as Monsanto sends a press release praising how wonderful are their products and how the central body of the EU that performs risk assessments (the European Food Safety Authority -EFSA) cleared out their one and only genetically modified maize cultivated in the EU you really need to look behind the smokescreen.

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Posted by Juliette at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What an insane day it was. Avaaz members strip in Rome. Greenpeace occupies four of the biggest polluting coal plants in Italy and puts Obama's face on Mt. Rushmore. Oxfam puts on crazy big heads. WWF pokes fun at the G8 leadership.

This is not business as usual. This is civil society crying out for change.

The @Greenpeace twitter account was for a while in the top five most retweeted in the world as our activists thumbed 142-character messages from atop smokestacks and from Abraham Lincoln's forehead, and the outpouring of support we got from people responding and cheering on our activists was profoundly moving, and an indicator to me that the public temperature is rising over this issue. I saw tweet after tweet saying "Thank god somebody is doing this" and an array of variations -- all suggesting that the activists who were on those smokestacks and messaging from Mt. Rushmore were speaking for them. That's an extremely important sign, and perhaps an indicator that Al Gore's message of two years ago will soon be dated:

Photo: Karen Guy

One of the young people up on Mt. Rushmore was a member of my staff here in Amsterdam: Jess, AKA Action Barbie. (Why? Just look at her!). Jess is not only a skilled webbie, she's a boat driver and one of our best climbers.

Our colleagues in the US had arranged for a live webcast of the banner hang, which was an AWESOME experience for the 3,000+ of us who came flocking from Twitter to watch. My heart was in my mouth as I watched the wind whipping that gigantic banner, like a massive sail next to Lincoln's ear, and slamming something against the rocks that I feared at the time was a climber.

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Posted by Brian at 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hey folks! All the blogs and updates from the G8 actions happening now are being posted on our Climate Rescue Blog!

Posted by Lisa at 12:02 PM | Permalink

We're at the G8, and a lot of other places in Italy as well. Follow our occupation of four coal fired power plants here.

Here's a blog from Julien, one of our climate campaigners who is posting updates live from the top of a coal smokestack!

I'm standing here, 200 metres above Italy's most greenhouse-polluting coal power plant and I don't know what I feel most overwhelmed by: the gargantuan scale of this greenho|use Goliath, or the bravery and ingenuity of the activists around me.

Not only are we preventing the feed of coal into the power plant here, but we are preparing to "write" "Stupid" on the massive chimney stack. Given that we are teetering on the verge of triggering catastrophic climate change, and coal is the single biggest source of greenhouse pollution, continuing to burn coal is a pretty stupid thing to do, especially when there are ready-made solutions such a renewable energy ready to replace coal.

We are here because the heads of the G8 are meeting here in Italy, and we are urging them to demonstrate real leadership on climate change by committing to strong targets to cutting greenhouse pollution.

The G8 have the responsibility, the ability, and influence to lead on climate change.

Right now the G8 nations have proposed such weak actions on cutting greenhouse emissions it would allow for many more coal-fired power stations to be built, and almost guarantee triggering catastrophic climate change. This is sending completely the wrong signal to the rest of the world.

We need the G8 to use their clout and influence. Politicians talk, but leaders act, and this G8 meeting must deliver action to prevent catastrophic climate change and rescue the global climate negotiations.

Half of our activists are on top of the chimney stack, where just above our heads, 40 tonnes per second of greenhouse pollution spews forth. The others are dangling underneath the conveyer belt that, due to our intervention, is no longer feeding the station with coal. Less coal going in means less greenhouse pollution going out. Yay!

This is one of four power plants that Greenpeace is taking direct action on, and my hat goes off to those people climbing ladders, occupying perches, dangling under conveyors or on the side of smokestacks, paintbrush in hand, getting our message out loud and clear.

Truly inspiring.

I'll keep you updated as events unfold.

J.

Posted by Martin at 9:35 AM | Permalink

We are excited about the creation of a new Greenpeace ship - the Rainbow Warrior III. Having just signed a contract for the build of this state-of-the-art vessel - three crew members from the Rainbow Warrior I and II take us back in time briefly - as we look forward to seeing this legend continue.

Bunny McDiarmid, executive Director of Greenpeace in New Zealand, talks about her memories of life on board the original Rainbow Warrior as a deckhand...

I can still see in my mind's eye and often do, the grain of the wooden decks of the old Warrior, I can remember their feel underfoot, and the smell of the black tar when the sun hit them. I first joined her as a deckhand in 1984 in Jacksonville, Florida in a godforsaken boat yard in the backofbeyond. We were turning her from a motor boat into a sailing boat. And she turned beautifully. And it was the 'we', the 12 crew and 5 or 6 dedicated volunteers that did it all over the course of 4-5 months. The doing of this welded us to her and to each other. I remember Ulla the 24 year old danish fitter and turner who redid all the welding on the chain plates after the yard guys buggered it up.

I remember Henk skill sawing the aluminum bridge wings off so we could mount winches for the main sheet, I remember all of us walking the stays of the main mast as she swung over the yard into her sleeve on the main deck. I remember sitting braced on the main deck as we sailed through the night repairing the mainsail on an old sewing machine and I remember how fast we could unscrew all the bolts holding down the benches in the mess and push them into the companionway so that we had enough room for dancing. No campaign office, there was just the mess and the radio room off the bridge. No email just a clamour for the mail when we arrived in Hawaii after two weeks at sea.

The crew of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985 - Bunny is second from the right

I did not know much about Greenpeace when I joined the Warrior, I just liked what she was going to do - an anti nuclear campaign in the Pacific. The first stop was helping 350 Rongelap islanders move from their home island to another island 40 miles away because of the radiation contamination from US nuclear testing.

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Posted by Lisa at 9:49 AM | Permalink

... or how we traveled back in time to dial-up connections and email without attachments.
Warning: This is an entry that might interest more the geeks among you than the general public.

The Arctic Sunrise is on top of the world right now, at 82 degrees North, and the difficulties encountered are not just weather related. Because so few people live that far North, satellite cover is almost nonexistent, and staying in touch with the ship is a complicated operation.
We had to install iridium phones on top of the crow's nest to create a very low bandwidth dial-up connection.

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Posted by Juliette at 12:59 PM | Permalink