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THE WITNESS
Dan is Greenpeace's deputy campaigns director. 
Crewmembers of the mobile drilling unit Kulluk evacuated after the rig floated around loose off Alaskan coast
As many of you have read, Shell set out to prove to the world in 2012 with big oil conceit that indeed they were Arctic Ready and could drill successfully for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off the North Coast of Alaska. Well, after literally limping back out of our Northern Pole waters, Shells’ plans crumbled under the rigors of the Arctic. Continue reading
The second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster is upon us – and looking at the lessons the oil industry got from it, you’d think it never happened. Here are the most important points governments and oil companies didn’t learn.
In the battle to #savethearctic, it’s all of us against corporate greed.
We’ve just heard that a federal judge in Alaska has decided to impose a powerful legal injunction on Greenpeace US which prohibits even legal protests within a certain distance of Shell’s vessels involved in Arctic drilling operations. An injunction is a special type of remedy normally reserved for extreme and immediate threats and could mean really severe penalties for anyone caught breaking it. Even more disturbing is that Shell based much of its complaint on the actions of Lucy Lawless, who boarded a drillship with Greenpeace New Zealand. Xena may be a badass, but she and a handful of Greenpeace New Zealand climbers over 6,000 miles away are hardly a reason for the involvement of U.S. courts and this extraordinary ruling.
The injunction will remain in place until October 31st 2012 – the end of Shell Oil’s ‘drilling window’ in Alaska. After this date the ice gets too thick for support vessels or spill response equipment to even get to the scene, let alone do anything about it. That’s a pretty terrifying prospect.
Under the injunction Greenpeace USA is banned from going within 1 km of Shell’s two main drilling vessels or 500 meters of the other ships they’re planning on taking to the pristine Arctic. Shell wants to hide their drilling program far away from public view, because the reality of industrial drilling in the Arctic is going to be ugly as hell.
But all is not lost. When an oil company with billions of dollars employs an army of lawyers to undermine the right to peaceful protest and free speech, then you know you’re doing something right. Since Greenpeace New Zealand launched this campaign over 300,000 people have written to Shell telling them that Arctic drilling is one of the great mistakes of our age, and the company has resorted to legal bullying because they’re scared of public opinion.
Greenpeace is just one part of a growing movement which will continue to oppose Arctic drilling peacefully and vigorously this year and in the future. This desperate drilling program will do nothing to bring down gas prices in the US, but everything to endanger America’s last true wilderness and play havoc with our climate. It’s time we start protecting the best interests of the 99% instead of a handful of corporate executives pursuing the next billion dollars in profit.
We invite all of you to join us in exposing this corporate bullying for what it is. Help us show the world that melting sea ice should be a warning that we’re making a major mistake, not an invitation to keep pumping the oil that is causing the problem in the first place. Now is the time to stand together, against the wealth and power of the fossil fuel elite. Now is the time to make your voice count in the battle to save the Arctic.
Twenty-three years ago the Exxon Valdez ran aground at Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
The tanker spilled eleven million gallons of oil into the water, fouled 1,500 miles of Alaska’s coast and killed hundreds of thousands of seabirds, otters, seals and whales, and devastated local communities.
Despite Exxon’s declaration two years later that the spill was “cleaned up,” tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil still contaminate beaches and impact wildlife.
People in Alaska are still living with the very real impacts of the spill more than two decades later. The oil from the broken tanker stopped spilling after a few days, but the impacts to wildlife and communities still continue. There is no end date in sight for recovery. Continue reading
In a remarkable reversal just days after Thanksgiving and months of bad news about the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama Administration showed maybe it did learn something. On Wednesday, December 1, the Administration announced it was reversing its decision to allow for more offshore drilling in the Gulf and along the East coast and west coast of Florida at least through 2017.
This reverses the Obama drilling giveaway of this past March, just a few weeks before the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. This is really good news for all of us and big congratulations to all of you who phoned, emailed, or protested about the Gulf oil disaster.
While much work remains to stop drilling in other places like Alaska’s coast and the Arctic Ocean, and even tougher work to change the way the United States produces and uses energy, it is important to take a moment to recognize how important this decision is. Instead of deepening our reliance on fossil fuels that are causing disasters of every proportion the Administration is looking to streamline siting off-shore wind farms. Instead of giving in to the wishes of Big Oil, they are standing up to the corporations. Steps in the right direction.
I briefly met Department of the Interior Secretary Salazar when he invited many of us to a meeting at his office to discuss the oil spill and the government’s response. He went around the room introducing himself and shaking everyone’s hand before the meeting started. This took place last May, shortly after seven Greenpeaceactivists were arrested in Louisiana protesting drilling and after about 30,000 of you contacted his office pushing to stop offshore drilling.
I introduced myself as being from Greenpeace as I shook his hand and his grip got a little tighter. He seemed to have felt the pressure and was giving me a little back. Maybe next time we meet I’ll shake his hand, say thanks, and ask him about stopping those drilling projects in Arctic.
Congratulations to all of you who have made your voice heard. This is a victory along the way to greater things.
Yesterday was a hot hot day. Not even so much because of the weather — although it was warm. More because a couple of us spent the day on the poop deck of the Arctic Sunrise doing plankton tows.
Now, that may not seem like much, towing tiny little plankton into a net dropped off the ship. But normally a mechanical winch is involved pulling against the force of the ship moving forward, the weight of the water dragging the net backward, and the net itself with weights on it to keep it below the surface of the water. Then add in the tiny little plankton and you’ve got a bit to yank in (no, the plankton don’t add much, but, like any good ecosystem, everything adds up).
We did this 20 times. Tow, tug, pull, tow, tug, pull. Erin from Tulane was very happy because we were actually able to do all 20 samples, which apparently doens’t always happen. We were feeling a bit like John Henry. The sun a’blazing. It was like doing manual labor in a sauna. If only it had been cloudy like today was. We started the day with a quick but refreshing rain storm and clouds hung around long enough to keep today’s chores a bit cooler. It’s not often I find myself hoping for cloudy days but aboard the Arctic Sunrise working with scientists in the Gulf of Mexico to tell an independent story of what’s happening, clouds mean either a little rain or lower temperatures or both. Oh, and a little protection from the sun.
Where I don’t especially like to see clouds is in the spin so common around this and other fossil fuel disasters. There’s a playbook it seems that industry and governments use when any disaster strikes. 1) Initially play it down; 2) Get as much false information out as possible; 3) Sort of acknowledge the magnitude but assure everyone it’s all under control; 4) Find experts to say “it ain’t that bad;” 5) Point fingers at each other; 6) Repeat repeat repeat until the truth is so cloudy anyone wanting to know the truth gets frustrated and gives up; 7) Lobby and give campaign contributions to keep regulations from becoming more strict; and finally, 8) Wait till next disaster then open play book again.
In today’s news, we have a new cloud to hand over this story. We have a super bug. It seems to have come from nowhere but has made the oil completely disappear (again). Reminds me of Dorothy saying “There’s no place like home” repeatedly before she wakes up from her dream back in Kansas. Unfortunately until the attempts to cloud things up stop, we get real answers about fossil fuel disasters, and elected officials change our energy policy, we’ll continue to be stuck in this fossil fuel nightmare.
Recent disasters this year:
The Arctic Sunrise has made it’s way west across the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles south of the Louisiana coast. We’re making our way to the first of a series of blue clab larvae tows scientists from Tulane will be doing to study the populations. This study was not being conducted as part of the oil spill as they took their first samples pre-spill but now they should be able to see the effects of the spill on different populations. On the way, we’ve been looking for slightly larger creatures, whales. With hydrophones and several sets of eyes we’ve been trying to find them. Once we started heading north from the Keys, Sue Rocco from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society was able to hear the whales. The last two days however she has not and none of us has spotted them. We’re not worried yet as they’re hard to spot but we’d love to see them as at least some confirmation that they’re perhaps ok.
One thing we have spotted for the first time on this trip is oil rigs. BIG oil rigs. I’d love to take a tour of one to see how it all operates and how the crews live. We moved between several today, and I couldn’t help but think they were keeping one eye on us and hopefully the other eye on their operations. We’ve also moved into areas that, according to NOAA maps, could have been affected by oil. It’s unlikely we’ll see any on the surface at this point but along with whales, oil is one more thing we’re looking for. Over the next couple of days, we’ll be moving into areas that have definitely been affected by oil.
As for me, life on board the Arctic Sunrise is a fun learning process. And a teaching process. The few things I’ve learned, mostly on ship processes and how to get chores done, I pass onto those who join us along the way. This too becomes part of my life on board education. I’ve also lost track of what day it is cause really it hardly matters. One of the long-time crew said that was good as now I’ve got boat-brain. You wake up, do your chores, get to work on the campaign, help out with ship functions, make sure the scientists and reporters have what they need, then fall asleep and do it all over again. All in search of answers to this oil disaster’s effects on creatures big, small, and everything in between.
After leaving Dry Tortugas out in the Gulf, we came about 10 miles from Key West to take a few people off and put a few on board. The sponge guys left and we were happy to work with them. Now we picked up scientists Caz Taylor and Erin Grey from Tulane University who are going to do plankton tows looking at some of the littlest of creatures (specifically blue crab larvae while also gathering data to enable other researchers to look at impacts on larval bluefin tuna, red snapper, and other species of ecological or economic importance) in the ocean to see how the spill affected them.
We’ll also be looking for the biggest of creatures with Sue Rocca from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, who with help from the crew will scan for whales and sharks to see if they’re where the should be (we hope we find some). To make all this happen our land based team worked out the logistics while those on board did the chores necessary when people come and go. Who gets on when and how do we get the luggage to shore (lots of scuba and camera gear).
Aboard we did the laundry, the extra dishes, cleaning up the deck, preparing for the helicopter, securing loose ends, maintenance, preparing meals and a little spit and shine. With help from our supporters we are able to do the kind of independent work we want to do to tell the story of what’s happening out here after the oil spill bringing aboard a range of scientists to study this in different ways. So with new folks joining us sometimes comes a newspaper. The USA Today ended up in the Mess around dinner. And on page 6 is a story that says the Chemical Safety Board assigned to investigate the oil spill says it is understaffed and overburdened. Really???
Southern Stingray in the Dry Tortugas. Photo courtesy of Todd Warshaw.
One of the largest environmental disasters in the US and the folks trying to figure out what happened don’t have the resources? Thousands of oil rigs out there and we’re not even putting in the people and financial power to find out to see if it’s even possibly safe to do? And the Obama administration wants to lift the moratorium on new exploratory drilling early.
BP wants to move forward with possibly even more dangerous drilling in the Arctic. This all frames the strategy of the administration and BP from the beginning. Do the dog and pony show, sink the oil, sniff some fish, hope everyone forgets, and move right along folks. I’m glad we’re out here with others looking to expose the truth. Cause the truth sure ain’t coming from those in charge of this mess.
– Dan Howells
Greenpeace Campaigner
By now you’ve either seen Paul Horsmans’ blog or read the news on the latest study showing about 80% of the oil from BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster is unaccounted for contradicting the White House’s rose garden view of what happened.
It doesn’t seem hard to decide who to believe given the billion dollar oily question of lawsuits, elections, policy, accountability and corporate profits versus those who just want to find the truth. So while I was deciding which way to chop carrots today on the Arctic Sunrise, do I go julienne or straight up octagons (not that it matters cause I’m not sure what julienne means, it’s just that Willy asked me to cut them that way), my thoughts drifted off to the importance of independent science.
After eight years of the Bush administration dealing with climate change by “studying it” and decades of energy policy progress being put off by “further studies needed” and who knows how many times important decisions have been avoided by “needing to better to understand” our problems I wonder what more is it going to take? My home state, Michigan, just had it’s own oil spill damn it! Nearly a million gallons and all that Enbridge can do is lay some boom and buy out houses nearby.
On this Gulf of Mexico expedition we aim to bring in more evidence to combat the industry and government lies of we can’t, we need, it’ll cost us. We can convert to renewable energy, we don’t need the fossil fuels, and it’s costing us more in lives, environmental damage and wars than we can calculate. I saw some of the first evidence of oil reaching the beaches off Southern Pass near Venice, LA in April, a dolphin with oil on it’s dorsal fin along Barataria pass in May (can’t forget that), and a crab about the same time on the beach of Grand Terre Isle presenting me with the independent truth. So far on the Arctic Sunrise I’ve seen what might be possible to still save. Dolphins, huge schools of fish, turtles, and of course people enjoying being. How’s that for independent science?
This is my first Greenpeace expedition and I’m barely into to it so the many old salts out there try not to have a laugh at my expense or do so anyway, it’s OK. But here are some first impressions.
Cleaning Toilets: There seems to be a mystique about being on a Greenpeace ship and for good reason. The Rainbow Warrior was sunk for protesting nuclear weapons, the ships have challenged whaling, they’ve been to the ends of the Earth and many places in between, and they are a huge platform for the work we do and the places we want to save. But we all still have to clean the toilets. And swab the deck (yes we do that). Wipe down the showers, sort the recycling, the crew is constantly doing maintenance, there’s often safety drills, laundry has to be done… All the while running the campaigns and doing the work we set out to do from the ship.
The Mess: It’s where we eat and no it is not messy. Actually we all work hard to keep it anything but. We have a fabulous cook and a new assistant cook (me, even though I am not much of a cook but can chop a mean veggie). But being part of this kinda important aspect of ship life, people gotta to eat, has given me an expanded view of what it’s like to be on the ship. The Mess is becoming a part of me and my pride in the ship. I don’t want to see debris on the floor or tables nor cleaned dishes laying about. A dirty Mess does not make me happy where 48 hours ago it meant a bit less to me. The Mess is now part of my home. I see this pride in the Arctic Sunrise in the crew as well while they tend to the functions of ship.
The Work: There is always something to tighten up, something to paint, something to wipe down. I started today cleaning toilets, went to the kitchen (I did wash my hands) to help, sent Willie, hung some laundry, had a campaign call and sent some campaign emails, went back to the kitchen to help Willie, did an interview with Time magazine, threw a rope to one of our RHIBS, saw a friend off to hopefully a good result, set up a science briefing, held a campaign huddle, and am now writing this blog. Of course I’m doing this from the deck of the Arctic Sunrise watching lightning off in the distance and discussion campaign strategy with Paul Horsman.
First impressions are that being on the ship is a lot of work. It’s good work but it’s also the day to day of keeping the ship and crew and yourself happy, healthy, and able. It’s a long Greenpeace tradition of working off the ships to expose the truth about issues we care about. Now here we are working with independent scientists to expose the truth of Deepwater Horizon disaster and all the other fossil fuel disasters happening all around us. Life on the Arctic Sunrise isn’t a pleasure cruise by any means, but by all means its a pleasure being here doing the work we do.
Thanks for all the support!