If a picture speaks a thousand words, a multimedia-packed, animation-filled interactive town must speak a million. Which is why on the Greenpeace UK website we've launched EfficienCity (like Sim City, but greener) to explain exactly what decentralised energy is and how it works in practice (which can otherwise be a wordy business).

If you believe our government, you'd think we need nuclear power and coal to stop climate change, but come and pay a visit to EfficienCity, which shows how pioneering, real world communities around the UK are using decentralised energy. As a result, they're enjoying lower greenhouse gas emissions, a more secure energy supply, cheaper electricity and heating bills and a whole new attitude towards energy.

We've been working with the incredible team at Biro Creative to build the town and we're pretty chuffed with the result. It's full of video case studies, animations and slideshows that explain exactly how a genuinely clean and efficient energy system works - from wave and tidal power to micro-hydro and anaerobic digestion.

And, most importantly, UK residents can find out how to make their own town climate friendly.

Anyway, enough of the words - just go and visit EfficienCity to discover a cleaner, greener energy future. Enjoy.

That means this blog will eventually be closed down, so point your browser and RSS readers over to the new site. See you there!

He's clearly concerned, and has agreed to talk directly with Paul Wolfowitz, Head of the World Bank, about the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He's also visiting the country later this month, and so he'll also talk to representatives from the government while he's there. But concern just isn't enough, and real action has to be taken on the ground to prevent the wholesale ransacking of the rainforest by the big logging companies.

We'll let you know what transpires at the World Bank meeting, but in the interim we need you to keep emailing Benn, pointing out to him that a crate of beer for vast tracts of valuable rainforest is a bum deal of the highest order - write to him now.

Write to him now and tell him to do everything he can to protect the Congo rainforest. And if you liked the animation, grab the code to use on your blog or website.

<embed src="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/swfs/forests/congo_animation.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" width="430" height="313"></embed>

In recent years, we've put a lot of effort into highlighting the threats facing what remains of the world's forests in North America, South America, and South East Asia. But there's one major area we haven't touched on for some time now: Africa. That's all about to change, however, and you'll be hearing more about what we've been up to in the coming weeks and months.

But first let's set the scene. The forest of the Congo basin stretches across central Africa, about two-thirds of which lies within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but also covers parts of Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo. And it's huge: only the Amazon rainforest is bigger. Millions of people depend on it for their survival, including semi-nomadic pygmy communities, and it's another biodiversity hotspot: forest elephants and three of the great ape species - gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos - all form part of a rich ecosystem.

It's a story familiar from other areas of our forest work, but all this is being threatened by our old friend, industrial logging. Huge tracts of the forest are being opened up by logging companies with hunters and miners following in their wake into previously inaccessible areas.

The reason we’re making a noise about this now is because very soon the government of the DRC will make critical decisions about how their forest is to be managed. Either they'll come up with practical solutions to manage the forest in a manner that protects the people and wildlife that depend on it, or industrial logging will be allowed to destroy it all.

It's not just down to the local government though. Our government is a major donor to the DRC and so has a role to play in making sure proper safeguards are put in place to protect the forest. The £50 million Gordon Brown recently pledged to this very cause shows the prime minister-in-waiting is aware of the problem, but it remains to be seen whether this money will actually deliver benefits to the people of the Congo and will really help protect the rainforest and the global environment. Time will tell, and we'll be revealing more about what's happening in the DRC very soon. Stay tuned.

If every UK retailer did the same, we’d save over five million tonnes’ worth of carbon emissions – more than the CO2 emissions of the 26 lowest emitting countries combined! That’s on top of saving UK consumers around £1.2 billion in electricity bills per year. Not bad for a little gas filled tube...

And there’s more good news (you might already know this but I only just found out); if you’re on jobseekers allowance, income support or housing benefit, you’re probably eligible for free CFLs. Check out the government’s Warm Front scheme, or visit your local energy advice centre for more...

Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Kleenex, Andrex and other big name tissue brands, are chewing their way through the Boreal Forests of North America, all to make the stuff we wipe our nether regions on and flush down the toilet. Is that a sensible use of natural resources? Of course not, so in the latest action a crack team of activists were dispatched to New York City where a camera crew were filming material for a new Kleenex advert.

Thanks to Shedwa for sharing this video of what happened...

Blimey. I’m not sure how time has slipped past so fast but, after a five week frenzy of Faslane blockading, crane climbing, arrests, solitary confinement, losing the ship, getting it back again, bearing witness, gigs, press conferences, political events, rallies and general sleep deprivation, the Trident: we don’t buy it tour has just come to an end.

The Arctic Sunrise set sail for Scandinavia a couple of hours ago, cheered on from the quayside by a smattering of exhausted Greenpeace folk and watched by the police boat that inevitably appears every time the ship moves.

It was a strange moment; I’d realised I was getting sucked into ship life when, about 10 days into the tour, I found myself shouting “Heave to the aft!” without any sense of irony. Waving the ship off this morning, I realised how badly I was going to miss the Sunrise and her crew. It’s hard not to fall in love with the intense whirlwind that is life onboard a Greenpeace ship, and I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with a home that has no portholes and an office that doesn’t rock from side to side.

The tour ended really with the day of the vote - 24 hours of rallies, protests and blockades across the country (including rooftop protests in Edinburgh and blockades at Faslane). We were at Parliament Square, with dozens of other groups campaigning for peace. It was an impressive day; the most powerful part for me was the silent vigil at dusk. A couple of hundred people stood silently and looked up to Parliament, where MPs prepared to vote on whether to create a new incarnation of the most destructive weapon ever invented. The vigil was immediately followed by the ear piercing alert of an air raid siren, to remind MPs of the future they were choosing on behalf of humanity.

A short while later, I was standing next to a friend as he was threatened with arrest under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. Inside Parliament, MPs were voting to breach the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to reintroduce the threat of nuclear war to the world. My friend had pedalled his bicycle around Parliament Square a few times in protest. Which is the serious organised crime?

There was a strange mood onboard the ship after the vote; part exhaustion, part sadness at saying so many goodbyes, part pride at what the campaign has achieved. Or maybe that was just me... Certainly, the crew’s reactions to the vote were mixed, with some people feeling despondent that we lost the vote (we didn’t expect the amendment to win, but we did dare to hope) and others delighted at the scale of the Labour rebellion.

While Blair – who once stood for parliament as a member of CND - has made the world a more dangerous place and signed the UK up to another 50 years of nuclear madness, this was the biggest Labour rebellion since Iraq and the story isn't over, by any means. We’ll hold the government to account over its promises about further parliamentary votes as the Trident plans progress. Faslane 365 will keep taking non-violent direct action at Faslane every day for months to come. And Block the Builders will keep the pressure on at Aldermaston, where the bombs are built...

Unfortunately, the frenzy of the past five weeks has meant that I haven’t had time to write about everything I’ve wanted to. Like the wonderful Faslane 365 folk, MSPs and others who came to support us outside the court in Scotland, with banners reading “You can’t sink a rainbow... And you can’t lock up a sunrise” (referring to the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and the impounding of the Arctic Sunrise). And like Harry, a member of Pensioners Against Trident who rode his motorbike up to the ship one cold night when we were in Greenock, hung up a few banners and stayed as a guest for several days, writing poems, telling stories and singing songs about Trident.

Mostly, I’ve wanted to write more about the crew - wonderful characters of all ages from all over the world with all manner of stories to tell - who have made it an absolute privilege to work on the ship as part of this campaign. But I’ve run out of time, so I’ll have to stick with just saying a huge thank you to them for giving up sleep, their days off and, for a while, their freedom to make it all happen, and for keeping smiling while it was all happening. And, without wanting to get too Gwyneth on you, a huge thanks to everybody else who’s been involved – whether through volunteering, donations, writing to your MP, coming to the rally or visiting the boat. You’ve been grand.

Right, that’s it for me – I’m off to my porthole-less flat to have a very long, hot bath, and then I’m going to sleep for a long, long time...

This morning, the streets of Jakarta were buzzing with the sound of chainsaws. It wasn't a loggers' convention causing all the racket but protesters sawing through a huge wooden wall depicting Indonesia's rainforests. They were commiserating a new world record as opposed to celebrating it, and with good reason because Indonesia stands to gain the dubious title of the World's Fastest Forest Destroyer.

We've been pointing out for a long time that the Paradise Forests of South East Asia are disappearing faster than anywhere else on Earth and, according to a new UN report on the world's forests, Indonesia is the juggernaut behind this massive rate of deforestation. Brazil clears more forest each year but, because Indonesia has a smaller area of forest, it's disappearing much more quickly - two per cent is lost each year compared to Brazil's 0.6 per cent.

With the help of some politicians, musicians and celebrities, our South East Asian office were making the point that this was not something the country should be proud of. This was more than just a symbolic gesture though as they will be making an official submission to the Guinness Book of World Records. Not the kind of thing that would have appeared on Record Breakers, I'll bet.

© Greenpeace/Davison

I wake up, my first decent lie-in since Christmas, and realise it's the 15th of March - the ides of March - not a good day for Julius Caesar who was assassinated in the Senate on this date in 44BC. And not a good day for that other megalomaniac with a receding hairline, Tony Blair. His attempts to quell the biggest domestic rebellion in 10 years failed miserably and now his plans to replace Trident have been utterly de-legitimised nationally and internationally.

Here's some of my favourite numbers:

• 95 - number of Labour MPs who voted against the government


• 4 - number of Labour ministers with a conscience, this week's resignations


• 8 - number of Labour ex-ministers who voted against the government


• 76 billion - number of pounds that the world now knows Blair will squander on Trident

Then on to the Commons, to watch the intrepid Greenpeace leafleteers bring about the meltdown of civilised society and threaten the remaining threads of democracy in front of the mother of Parliaments - by illegally handing out leaflets. Several were threatened with arrest for this seditious activity. Come on the Met, hardly anarchy is it?

Across the road to Parliament Square, past the braying insistency of Brian Haw to be greeted by three bronzed stilt-walkers, eight feet tall and equipped with whips - but enough of past Tory pecadillos - the stilt-walkers were whipping a flock of human sheep, just as the Labour whips had been doing all week as they desperately failed to stem the flood of rebellion. Past the sheep the activists from Block the Builders had blocked one side of Parliament Square for half an hour, and police were now trying forlornly to cut them free from their locked-on concrete tubes and bins. Block the Builders just lay there, puffing sedately on their copious roll-ups as if waiting for a bus. Serenity of purpose. Gotta love 'em.

Now I am drawn in to the media frenzy. I do my third live interview of the week with London's LBC radio, locking horns yet again with an old style radio host who seems to be obsessed by the idea that the Iranians are about to come charging over the hills waving warheads. I firmly remind him that it's the UK that has the warheads, and that is breaking the treaties by ordering a new bomb.

I speak to other regional radio stations and at last a reasonable debate can take place. Then it's a live telly interview with Al Jazeera's London office. Blair's folly is really spreading all over the globe - later on I talk to more overseas news crews and Spanish radio. The Trident decision has massive international implications, destabilising world security by provoking proliferation in a staggeringly hypocritical way.

Next, an hour-long silent vigil begins, powerful and moving. Bearing witness. Speaking (silently of course) to power. The calmness is soon broken as the critical mass bike riders arrive in Parliament Square, cycling slowly but legally. No, sorry, clearly not...the police stop them, for, errrrrmm, I dunno. Clearly too subversive again. The statue of Oliver Cromwell looks on approvingly as the tentacles of the state smother another peaceful protest. Yet the protest goes on, two more critical mass rides take place later and, just before the vote comes in, the emergency siren goes off. It really is five minutes to midnight on the Doomsday clock, Blair is leading us into a new arms race, turning the clock back to the Cold War, scaremongering for all he's worth. It's legacy time at Number 10.

We hear of more resignations and then get the news about the massive rebellion. Blair has failed to get his party to support him, it goes through only with the support of his friend Cameron. Must be like looking in the mirror for them both.

But this story is far from over, Blair's legacy is now Brown's albatross. The new PM inherits a party split over the issue, a public strongly against replacement, and massive holes in his spending plans that £76 billion will do nothing to ease. Life is just going to get hotter for Brown from now on, especially as the Government has made easy promises about further parliamentary votes as Trident plans progress. Rebellions are contagious, and Brown has a major outbreak on his hands that won't go away. Is there a doctor in the House?

© Greenpeace/Vickers

I've just spent the last two days at Westminster but strangely it feels like I have been there for weeks. On Tuesday I got up at 5:30am and headed out from Canary Wharf (where the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise is based) into the heart of London. I joined a bunch of Greenpeace volunteers from local groups across the city and we waited to hand out leaflets to MPs coming in and out of Parliament.

The MPs started to arrive, and quite a few stopped to talk when I asked how they felt about Trident replacement. There was a mix of opinions; some were entirely in support of our campaign against new nuclear weapons, others were ambivalent and some were sadly very supportive of having weapons that can wipe out millions of men, women and children. Nevertheless, whatever their opinions, most of them took leaflets as they went on their way and, at the end of the day, we had given out over 3,000 leaflets to people coming in and out of parliament buildings.

On my way to the tube station I left the remainder of my leaflets in a café that MPs regularly visit and then I headed back to the Arctic Sunrise, docked on the Thames, for a much needed rest. As I was leaving, I looked up at the climbers on the crane and felt pretty lucky to be able to leave, have something to eat and go to the toilet!

Yesterday it was another early rise, and back to Westminster. To my surprise, Vivienne Westwood was also handing out leaflets with us. She stood in the middle of the pavement asking passers "Do you care about being blown up" while wearing a "Tony loves WMD" T-shirt.

Later we were joined by Bianca Jagger (Mick Jagger's first wife) and Annie Lennox. Things really started buzzing; media crews showed up and began interviewing people and I saw Ben Bradshaw and Betty Boothroyd.

In the early afternoon, I walked towards Downing Street, waving at the two climbers still on the crane as I passed. There were still a lot of police milling around but none of them seemed bothered by our continued occupation of a barge right outside Parliament! At Downing Street, there was more leafletting to MPs - and more interesting conversations with police officers. One told me that he wanted Trident to be replaced "so that if we ever got nuked by another country at least we would have the ability to retaliate". My mouth fell open in shock that someone could be so blatantly in support of genocide. He kept denying he supported mass murder but that's essentially what being in support of nuclear weapons means. Most people I met who supported the replacement of Trident seemed to think of it entirely in terms of our own safety rather than the annihilation of others. What they fail to realise is that by having nuclear weapons we can't possibly hope to make the world a safer place.

Later in the afternoon I joined other activists and cycled over Westminster Bridge from the London Eye, on bikes carrying "Tony Loves WMD" and "Trident: we don't buy it!" posters. We pedalled slowly into Parliament Square, making noise and taking up the whole road so that all the traffic backed up behind us.

In Parliament Square, we were blocked by a large number of police who told us we would be arrested if we tried to cycle any further. After dispersing for a while we came back in smaller groups and I made it around the square several times on my bike before I got pulled over by the police again. I decided to join the gathering in the middle of the square, where they announced the results for the Trident vote.

I was expecting Tony to win enough votes for his love affair with nukes but I was pleased that so many MPs voted against it in the end. I'd like to think I had something to do with that and I'm going to keep on trying to convince people to support nuclear disarmament even though I am an oceans campaigner, because people wont care about the oceans anymore if we ever end up in a nuclear war!

“It’s not the end of the story by any means,” said Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn immediately following the vote. “This is a very big rebellion.”

Indeed, we’re counting on you rebels. The vote passed with 409 in favour and 161 against. That’s 88 Labour MPs voted against Trident replacement, 95 voted for the rebel amendment earlier, that's the biggest since the Iraq war. Blair’s proposal also prompted MPs to quit their posts. (See I can yet convince myself this is great news.)

And those Labour rebels are right to be concerned. By going head with Trident today, in 20 year's time not only will the UK have a new nuclear weapon, there will be more nuclear weapons states in the world. Blair cannot preach to other states to ‘do as I say, not as I do’. Far from making the world a safer place, Blair’s lust for nukes will encourage others to follow his dangerous and unnecessary example.

And secondly, only 24% of the public support the government's plans to replace Trident and 51% think that the final decision to replace the Trident should be made through a public referendum.

You're right Jeremy, it is far from over. It may have Blair’s name on it, but Brown’s going to pay the price.