Risky Business: Why Drilling in the Arctic is Bad News

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Leah Schleifer

Imagine you’re sitting at a table, playing a game of Russian roulette. Across from you is a five-chambered revolver, loaded with a single steel bullet. If you live, you win a stack of cash. Losing means your life. Would you play?

Big oil companies, like Shell and Exxon, want to play a similar game, with the same chance of losing everything. They’re not wagering their lives, though—they’re betting on the safety of our precious and finite environment. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (formerly the Minerals Management Service) estimates a one-in-five chance of a major spill occurring over the lifetime of activity in just one block of leases in the Arctic Ocean near Alaska. Risky, right? It’s common sense; why risk ruining a beautiful and crucial habitat for something as trivial as the three years’ worth of oil it would provide?

The effects of such a spill could be grave—possibly even worse than the BP Gulf Coast spill. Gushing oil would tarnish the lives of the people and animals who call the Arctic their home. If the well was not sealed fast enough (and with winter sea ice, it could take as much as six months for clean up crews to arrive on the scene), the oil could become trapped underneath winter ice, and flow in the waters below for up to two years.

Even worse, the big oil companies have yet to compose a rational plan for dealing with spilled oil. Part of Shell’s current response would be to burn leaking oil—seriously? A wise woodshop teacher once told me to measure twice and cut once. Shell is going in with no real plan– let’s hope they’re better at drilling than I am at cutting two-by-fours.

What’s most upsetting to me is the fact that oil companies like Shell are making dangerous decisions that will affect not only our generation, but those of the future. Children are so excited about animals like polar bears and foxes, and are so eager to learn about them.

I met a young boy while canvassing for Greenpeace who was so enthusiastic about tigers that he dragged his mother and sister over to talk to me.Telling him that human greed is endangering these creatures broke my heart. He smiled at me and tugged on his mother’s shirt. “We help them?” he asked her with wide eyes, before looking at me and asserting “We help them!” By the time that boy is an adult, we need to make sure there will still be tigers and polar bears for him to help.

The decision on drilling in the Arctic is simple: The risk factor is high, and the consequences are devastating. Is the US willing to risk the safety of the Arctic for three years’ worth of oil? Do you think that burning oil is a viable disaster plan?

Would you play Russian roulette with a five chambered revolver?

For a healthy environment, we need a free Internet

Posted on June 13, 2013 by David Pomerantz

The NSA’s data center is being constructed in Utah, where 84 % of the electricity comes from coal.

Of the 86 groups that formed the Stop Watching Us coalition to protest the NSA’s illegal spying on people’s Internet use, you might wonder why Greenpeace was on the list. We had a bunch of good reasons to join, not least of all the fact that we have a long history as the target of illegal espionage, often at the hands of corporations, though the government has spied on us its fair share as well.

We know firsthand how quickly government agencies can tumble down a slippery slope, using tools that were ostensibly meant to protect people as a political weapon instead. We also recognize an act of heroic civil disobedience when we see one, and Edward Snowden deserves all of our praise for his patriotic action to protect people’s rights despite great personal risk.

But there is a much more important reason why we have taken a stand against the NSA’s spying, and why you should consider doing the same:

A free, open Internet may be our last best hope to save the planet.

Like all tools, the Internet is not inherently good or evil – its value is determined by the intentions of its users.

Thankfully, an incredible number of people are currently using the Internet to make the world a better place. From the Arab Spring, to Gezi, to Greenpeace activists punking oil companies’ propaganda, people are using the Internet as a powerful tool to organize democratically and fight for their rights.

But corporations and governments are slow to cede power, and they will fight back using the exact same technology.

That is one of the greatest threats posed by the NSA’s illegal spying program. The idea that the NSA is monitoring so many people’s communication is deeply unnerving; the idea that they could use the program to entrench governments’ political power is downright terrifying.

The fight over the future of the Internet extends into the non-virtual world as well. Greenpeace has been calling for an Internet powered by clean energy, so that as it continues to grow, it can simultaneously help drive the clean energy revolution we desperately need to slow down climate change.

And what kind of power is fueling the data center that Big Brother is building to store our illegally collected Facebook posts and phone calls? Coal, of course! The data center, which is estimated to draw 65 megawatts of electricity, as much as some towns, is being constructed in Utah, where 84 % of the electricity comes from coal, according to Energy Information Administration data.

Illegal government spying, powered by the fuel most responsible for climate change, represents a special kind of darkness, an absurdly apt metaphor for the worst kind of Internet we could imagine.

We will keep working to build an Internet that is free, open and green. Please join us, starting by adding your name to the over 100,000 people and organizations who have already signed the Stop Watching Us petition.

We can, must and should end the age of coal

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Kumi Naidoo

Coal threatens everything we love and treasure and we now have new research to establish this in our report “Silent Killers”. We must stand together and bring an end to the age of coal. Our renewed fight will kick off on the 29th of June with an international day of action.

“Silent Killers”, based on research conducted by the University of Stuttgart, reveals how coal power plants in Europe cause serious health problems and even leads to premature deaths. In Europe 300 power plants burn coal to produce electricity, spewing out millions of tonnes of pollution, every year. Hour after hour these plants fill the air with toxic pollutants, including mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium and tiny sulphate and nitrate particles that can go deep into people’s lungs.

Pollution from coal is a silent killer. The air breathed in Europe harms everyone – babies, children and adults, especially the elderly. An estimated 22,000 people died prematurely in Europe in 2010 because of toxic emissions from coal plants, the report reveals.

We need to stand up and demand that governments and energy producers respect the fundamental right to breathe clean air and not see it as a threat to their profits.

Continue reading →

Solving the climate crisis with human ingenuity

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Daniel Schreiber

Right now an airplane powered entirely by the sun is nearing the end of its historic journey across the United States.

The project, called Solar Impulse, was initiated by Swiss Psychiatrist and Balloonist Bertrand Piccard and Businessman André Borschberg. They embarked on an ambitious project to create an aircraft capable of intercontinental flights using 100% renewable solar power.

Continue reading →

What Gezi Park Means for us: Update from #OccupyGezi

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Hilal Atici

Account from #OccupyGezi movement in Istanbul, Turkey from Campaign Director at Greenpeace Turkey. Originally posted to Huffington Post

Before Gezi

In the build-up to the unrest life in our office had never been so busy. The past few weeks had brought so many new laws and amendments chipping away at the already weak environmental regulations – we had no idea how to keep up.

Nuclear power regulations are being eased to make construction easier. The government is entering international agreements committing it to new coal plants – bypassing domestic regulations. Rules removing the protected status of environmental areas are being prepared. The cabinet are now deciding whether a forest is “beneficial” or not – all of this and more within just the past few weeks. Continue reading →

Big Oil Dreams

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Richard Duke

Greenpeace was in the Arctic to document the lowest sea ice on record, a low point projected to pass again this summer.

It’s almost like you pursue a dream for the sake of the memory of the pursuit. When you take something far larger than any single effort, and you break it down into manageable pieces, you rob it temporarily of its life. When you plan and strategize and work and bear down and physically just make it real, it is easy to parse out the meaning and lose it. Isn’t it only when you step back and understand the whole that it regains its splendor? You get to forget the “slow boring of hard wood” that got you there. You get to feel the weight of the whole thing at once. And in that tension is where most dreams come to life. It’s almost like you create a dream for the sake of the memory. Continue reading →

Russian Indigenous communities clean up Rusvietpetro’s oil spill as company does nothing

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Laura Kenyon

Russian Komi Indigenous community members clean up oil spilled in the Kolva River in the Komi Republic in Northern Russia.

On May 26, oil began flowing down the Kolva River through Komi Indigenous land in Northern Russia. For a week now the oil has been coating the river and building up on the banks, with no reaction from Rusvietpetro, the joint venture company of VietPetro and Zarubezhneft, a state-controlled Russian oil company, and no cleanup being organised by the company or even the local authorities. Continue reading →

PHOTOS: Brutal Police Clampdown on environmental protesters in Istanbul, Turkey

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Cassady Sharp

Greenpeace Condemns Brutal Police Clampdown On Peaceful Gezi Park Protest.

Greenpeace activists join other protesters to defend Gezi Park in solidarity and to protect the right to peaceful protest.

**VIEW LIVE CHAT with Greenpeace Activist in Istanbul

Greenpeace condemns the brutal police clampdown on the Gezi Park protest and defends the right to peaceful protest. What started as a peaceful protest against the destruction of an iconic and historic park by Taksim Square has grown into a wider struggle for Turkish democracy and the right to peaceful protest all across the world. Taksim Square is the last remaining green space in Istanbul, and is slated to turn into a shopping mall.

Greenpeace’s Mediterranean office is in the heart of Taksim Square. See more photos of the protests below, and stay tuned for more updates from activists on the scene.

Greenpeace staff and volunteers help some of the many people affected by tear gas.

Continue reading →

#FeelGoodFriday: New Jersey approves massive solar proposal, turns landfills and brownfields into solar farms

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Cassady Sharp

What once was an 81-foot tall trash heap in New Jersey is now a 12,500-paneled solar farm, providing renewable energy to nearly 650 homes. And there will be plenty more where that came from.

In the same week as President Obama and Governor Christie toured the recovering post-Sandy New Jersey, the Garden State approved a $446 million solar proposal. The plan is to turn many of the state’s 800 closed landfills and 10,000 brownfields, closed industrial sites, into gleaming solar farms.

This news from New Jersey proves that not only are global warming solutions possible, they’re more urgent than ever in a state directly feeling the power of climate change.