Greenpeace activists float question to Amazon, Microsoft: How clean is your cloud?

Posted on April 19, 2012 by mdorozen

Protest outside Seattle offices highlights companies’ dirty energy connection.

Greenpeace activists floated a cloud over downtown Seattle today in a demonstration to draw attention to the type of energy that tech companies Amazon and Microsoft use to power their cloud computing services.

Activists climbed atop the roof outside of Amazon’s new headquarters, and across the street from Microsoft offices, and rappelled off the roof displaying an 800 square foot cloud-shaped banner over the city’s rooftops. The message on the banner read “Amazon, Microsoft: How Clean is Your Cloud?” Continue reading →

Duke Energy: still profiting from environmental destruction

Posted on May 6, 2011 by mdorozen

Duke Stockholder Meeting protest

Photo from the Charlotte Observer

At Duke Energy’s annual shareholder meeting, the company announced first quarter profits up 15%– profits that don’t reflect the hidden costs of dirty energy: the subsidies, healthcare costs and environmental costs that are passed on to the American public. Profits that Duke built on environmentally destructive practices and at the cost of human lives.

The meeting was marked by significant environmental protests as Duke announced plans for new nuclear plants in Florida and the Carolinas and coal plants in Indiana and North Carolina—in fact, the meeting came on the heels of controversial announcements about the potential merger of Duke Energy and Progress energy, and a weak policy on Mountaintop Coal.

The green coalition press conference and rally, MC’d by Greenpeace’s Charlotte organizer, Monica Embrey, took place on the doorstep of Duke Energy’s annual Shareholders’ Meeting. Speakers from NC WARN and other groups emphasized the risky nature of investing in dirty energy. About fifty environmental demonstrators came out from across the state to express concern about Duke’s merger with Progress Energy, which would make it an even more formidable force for dirty energy interests.

The press conference and rally was countered by a tea party protest. Arriving in buses, the Duke/Tea Party protestors simultaneously called for Duke to withdraw a recent 12 million dollar investment in the 2012 DNC while they chanted “ We need coal.” Tea party protestors were simultaneously criticizing Duke spending shareholder money to bring the Democratic convention to Charlotte – while still somehow engaging in pro-coal bullying and interrupting the press conference by shouting “We need coal.” In fact, Duke gave them permission to be there to get out the pro-coal message.

Mickey McCoy, a prominent MTR activist from Kentucky, came to North Carolina to question Duke Energy’s policy on Mountaintop Coal. Inside the meeting, McCoy said to Jim Rogers that the policy makes Duke “an accomplice to the genocide of my world,” and cited the high cancer rates in his community. While Rogers said that McCoy had “an ally” on the issue, it sounded a bit disingenuous. After all, the current Duke Energy policy says that they’ll buy non-mountaintop coal only when it doesn’t cost more.

The Duke Energy and Progress Energy merger threatens to make Duke the largest energy company in the U.S., environmental opposition grows in response. Replacing coal with clean energy will be an uphill fight in North Carolina—but a fight we’re prepared to have. As opposition to Duke and Progress Energy grows, North Carolina’s people are standing up for the health and safety of our communities.

In the wake of the BP oil spill disaster, news of another oil rig explosion

Posted on September 2, 2010 by mdorozen

This morning, as we were preparing the ship for the next leg of our journey, we got the news that another oil rig, the Vermillion 380, has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, risking the lives of at least 13 workers who were rescued from the site.

Right now, the Arctic Sunrise is docked in St. Petersburg, restocking supplies and preparing to head back out into the Gulf for the second leg of our three-month long research tour of the Gulf. Our science coordinator has been sorting out the last minute details with the scientists, our cook is restocking the kitchen, and the deck crew has been getting the ship in the best possible shape for the next part of our journey. In the past month, we’ve settled into a good, productive rhythm of work, as the crew managed the logistics for plankton tows, diving, whale watching, and more. Some of the results of what we’re doing right now won’t be available for months, but we all know that it’s important to be producing independent science now, so that we can help shape the policies for the future.

But meanwhile, in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, the oil industry hasn’t been waiting for the science that will tell us just what we’ve lost, the true nature of the impact on the many forms of marine life in these waters. Offshore drilling hasn’t stopped, and today’s disaster won’t be the only one.

We’ve all been talking about the BP Deepwater Disaster as a wakeup call, which is why it feels particularly chilling, and a little bit scary, to be reminded that as we’re measuring what we’ve lost, the oil industry is still doing business as usual. In the past ten years, 69 people have died on offshore rigs, and there have been 858 fires and explosions, according to the Mineral Management Service. It’s not insignificant, and it’s not stopping. Despite the rhetoric and the promises from the administration, we’re still drilling offshore, and every day we risk another disaster.

Just this morning, activists from our sister ship, the Esperanza, were arrested after a 40 hour occupation of a rig in the Arctic, where they stopped Cairn Energy from drilling for a couple of days. Everyone on board the Arctic Sunrise, has been following along on the website, and I watched my friend and colleague Simran McKenna, hanging over the icy water, doing everything in his physical power to make an immediate, dramatic stand.

There’s much work to be done to change the policies that guide our energy use—some immediate, and some slow. But as we assess the impact, and study the scope of the disaster, as we measure the irreplaceable things that we have lost, and as we reach out to the policymakers who will determine our future, we should remember that this is also an urgent situation with an unacceptable level of risk. We must all broadcast that urgency loud and clear. How many more wake up calls do we need?

Join us in telling Congress: No new drilling. Period.