July 2012

My colleague Alicia and I recently had the great opportunity of travelling down from the Greenpeace office to Falmouth to meet the amazing all-female Cornwall group composed of Vicky, Helen, Leila, Lisa and Becky. They were accompanied by Clarence the Cod (aka Colin – the only man in the group) to spread their contagious enthusiasm for our Be a Fisherman’s Friend campaign to the public.

I don’t know what I expected notorious Spanish fishing barons to look like. Strapping and medallioned, with deep tans and fancy wrist watches? Or sinewy, wiry and sly? In any case, the four defendants (three men and one woman) looked like fairly normal folk, if a little perplexed by the throngs of local and national media wielding cameras and questions outside the Truro Courthouse in Cornwall.

Having started here just a couple of weeks ago I knew that I was joining a dynamic, creative and passionate group of people. But when, on the first day of my second week, activists shut down 78 Shell petrol stations across the UK and broadcast the action live from the world's first live direct action TV channel I realised just how different this is from other organisations.

The future of the UK's energy supply - and our ability to hold back climate change emissions in Britain - is hanging in the balance. Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems must intervene to protect the Climate Change Act from George Osborne and his mates in the gas lobby.

This week, people like you and me, all around the world, stood up to #tellshell – no. We don’t have as much money as Shell but we do have courage and creativity on our side and with a million people already signed up to our scroll to protect the Arctic we also have people power.

1968. That was a hell of a year. The people were on the streets, revolution
 was in the air, we released the White Album, and perhaps the most
 influential photograph of all time was taken by an astronaut called William
 Anders.
 

The Chancellor’s assault on our climate must stop. It’s time for David Cameron and Nick Clegg to intervene and stop him.

Over the weekend, Shell quite literally ran into further problems with its near-farcical attempts to drill in the Arctic when its dilapidated drillship Noble Discoverer appeared to run aground after slipping its anchors in Dutch Harbour, Alaska, in what was described as a “stiff breeze.” Whilst Shell denied its vessel had grounded, eyewitnesses painted a very different story, with one local saying that “the stern certainly struck bottom and any report to the contrary is a pure fabrication bordering on outright lies.” Either way, the bizarre scene of a giant rig floating aimlessly towards the shore in such sheltered waters does not say much for the ability of Shell to operate safely in the much more extreme conditions of the icy Polar north...