Breaking: Our campaigners scale a giant oil rig off the Shetland Islands

Great work Greenpeace, and about time someone got out there to confront the ever more reckless behaviour of the oil industry. As to 'what to do instead of oil' then isn't that's kind of the point? that Greenpeace confronts the oil industry at sea to create the public awareness and the political pressure to develop and use some of the solutions. In terms of those solutions then IMO we need to develop big and small scale renewable projects, from the Thames Array to community owned wind turbines. If we're going to subsidise an industry and all that off shore expertise then let's use it to develop wave technologies. there's some really interesting projects in the UK, that are dying due to lack of funding. And yes ships run on oil, but let's look forward to a future where that is no longer necessary, rather than once again wheeling out the same tired old arguments to criticise the people who are trying to do something about the problem. John

Interesting piece on the UK governments cuts in energy research here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jul/19/funding-cuts-low-carbon-technologies But to be honest if you type the words 'renewable energy' and 'cuts' into google you'll find a 100 articles saying the same thing The government talks the talk on tackling climate change and moving to a more independant energy future, and then does the opposite. As to oil companies investing in renewables, who are you trying to kid? BP/Shell and all have slashed their investments, and undoubtably now spend more on advertising their 'green' image than in earning it. The little they do spend is also dwarfed by the huge amount of money they spend prospecting for new oil, and developing the technology to go into even more dangerous places to find it. So its time to start treating these irresponsible companies like the pariahs they are, making obscene profits out of destroying the ecosystems future generations need to survive.