In recent news: The Arctic sea ice melt began significantly earlier this year than last year. UK's CO2 emissions higher than official figures, government admits. CO2 emissions up by nearly a fifth in 12 years. Avoiding climate change is affordable, says PWC.

And yet, still, the government plans to build new coal plants and, of course, new runways.

I've been playing around with Google Earth's KML spreadsheet as we're thinking of ideas we can contribute from the UK office to the Greenpeace layer in the Global Awareness section (recently added: highlights of our marine work), and I was checking out some of the showcased examples of good visual mapping done by other organisations. Amongst them, I came across this little beauty which visually represents the differing rates of deforestation around the world and it's quite, quite brilliant.

We're still working to build a coalition of companies which are determined to reform the palm oil industry so no more forest is lost due to the expansion of their plantations in South East Asia and with Unilever's help we're in contact with other major players in the palm oil trade. However, some are less keen than others to co-operate and need some persuading.

Our activist friends, Junichi and Toru, are still behind bars: 23 days without charge after exposing a whale meat smuggling scandal.

A huge thanks to all 200,000 plus of you who've written to Japan's prime minister to free them - let's keep up the pressure!

And keep an eye on the latest count, updated hourly:

This week's been busy for me, what with two demonstrations on two different campaigns. After the protest outside the Japanese Embassy, it was the Department of Transport's turn to welcome us. The government wasn't listening when we said NO to Heathrow's third runway last month. So this morning, we flashmobbed the Department of Transport and launched paper planes saying ‘NO AIRPORT EXPANSION' at transport secretary Ruth Kelly's office.

Art is a great way of campaigning and that's exactly what our EU unit did at the European Commission's headquarters in Brussels today. A 12 metre illegally logged Amazon tree trunk was unveiled, studded with nine video monitors by celebrated Brazilian artist Siron Franco. The monitors drew attention to the trade in illegal timber from the Amazon by displaying images of the rainforest's destruction and also its beauty.

We received an email from Harvey Parkes, one half of the film production company Balti and Havana, promoting their new short Scott of the Antarctics so I'm giving it a plug here. Not merely because they've kindly given Greenpeace a mention at the end (thanks guys!), but because it's a rather gorgeous little piece about penguins, swimming pools and the antarctic ice cap.

It's been entered for the Virgin Media Shorts competition, so if you feel inclined you can cast your vote or just enjoy the film.

It was only my second Greenpeace demonstration after the Big NO to Heathrow's third runway a few weeks back. But this time, we were calling for the release of Junichi and Toru, our Japanese campaigners who are being held in prison without charge for the past ten days and counting. They were arrested for exposing Japan's 'scientific' whaling mission to be a cover up for trade in whale meat. We gathered outside the Japanese embassy with 'Free Junichi and Toru' posters along with a bi-lingual banner with the same message in English and Japanese.

Update July 1 2008: 23 days in custody without charge for Greenpeace Japan activists

Greenpeace supporters gathered outside the Japanese Embassy in London this lunchtime. They held a peaceful protest to express solidarity with the two anti-whaling campaigners currently being held without trial in Japan for their role in exposing a large scale embezzlement scandal within the Japanese government-sponsored Southern Ocean whaling program.

Among the ranks was Greenpeace UK Director John Sauven, who handed in a letter to Ambassador Shin Ebihara asking him to make urgent representation to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda for their immediate release, and to order a further investigation into the scandal exposed by Greenpeace.

Offshore wind - 3,500 new turbines by 2020?

Although the PM has taken a few verbal pastings from us over the past few months on key climate issues like airport expansion and new coal-fired power stations, in a new speech today he did much to redeem himself by announcing an ambitious plan to ensure Britain generates 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

To be sure, the government has promised as much in the past and failed to deliver, but there seemed to be something different about today's Renewable Energy Strategy Consultation - some meat on the bones which indicated that the plan might just be more than empty rhetoric. The government is consulting on ambitious plans designed to allow the UK to meet its share of an overall EU target to generate 20 per cent of energy (electricity, heat and transport) from renewables within 12 years.