In it for the polar bears

We've had a bumpy week in the blog relay after Jim dropped the baton earlier this week (shame Jim), but here's hoping one of our other climate campaigners, Anita, will get us back on track in this whistle-stop tour of Greenpeace staff here in the UK. Click here to catch up on the other entries.

I'm on my second run at Greenpeace having taken a short trip around other non-governmental organisations in between times, but I've always worked on climate issues here.  At the moment I'm lucky enough to head up the aviation team and work with some really smart, fun and inspiring people. But Greenpeace is like that. It has introduced me to some of the most amazing people from around the world. From schoolteachers, children and subsistence farmers in the Philipinnes who we worked with to successfully defeat a proposed new coal fired power station, to grandmothers who chained themselves to petrol pumps to ‘Stop Esso', and now, with local residents from Sipson who will lose their homes if the government and BAA go ahead with their crazy plans and build a third runway at Heathrow.  Not that we will let them!

Working at Greenpeace is a privilege.  It can feel quite removed at times, setting your objectives, working out the best strategy to deliver them, trying to get your head around the latest utterance from the Department for Transport - although to be fair that last bit isn't so hard, it generally translates into ‘full speed ahead to climate disaster.'  But without a doubt, it's the most fun you can have while working on the most important issue that we as a planet, face today. 

When I first started at Greenpeace, almost a decade ago, we struggled to get coverage in the media - climate change was seen as simply too huge an issue to break down for people to understand.  Now pretty much anyone with a brain gets it, and Gordon Brown, Geoff Hoon and their mates at BAA are seen as the dinosaurs.

It's still true though, it is huge and if you let it, it can get you down.  But the point is that we can stop dangerous climate change, and it's this fact that makes me get up and take a two hour journey (by train!) to work everyday.  Because whether it's organisations like Greenpeace or people like you blocking a third runway, together our actions count.  Me, I'm in it for the Polar Bears.