Paula Bear: Where's your spill response plan, Cairn?

Posted by jamess — 26 May 2011 at 10:35am - Comments
Paula blocking the entrance to Cairn's HQ
All rights reserved. Credit: Felix Clay / Greenpeace
Paula blocking the entrance to Cairn's HQ

This morning Paula Bear swung into action as a Greenpeace activist. While our ships are confronting Cairn Energy's oil rig in the Arctic, she’s blocking the entrance to the wildcat drillers' headquarters in Edinburgh.

Horrified that Cairn Energy are drilling for oil in the Arctic, Paula’s rage was tipped over the edge when she learned that Cairn won’t even make their oil spill response plan public.

With the help of her human friends, Paula jumped from the back of a van and waddled over to Cairn’s revolving doors, reversing her way into them.

Office workers, tourists and locals flocked to see what Paula was up to and have a quick cuddle, while learning about the outrageous practices of the company inside the building.

Meanwhile a few of our volunteers scrambled up ladders and slapped a few stickers on the walls, making it clear who we were protesting against. One activist managed to slip into the building and through the doors of Cairn’s office – interrupting a meeting to hand out leaflets about reckless Arctic drilling and Cairn’s secret plans.

Needless to say, Cairn’s bosses were a bit flustered, telling our activist “you must leave, you’re not allowed here”. Which is funny, because that’s exactly what Paula and the crew of the Greenpeace ships in the Arctic are saying to them.

Earlier this week, we learned from confidential government documents that our own ministers think an Arctic spill would be all but impossible to clean up.

But Cairn say they have a spill response plan that can cope with the Arctic environment. So why are they keeping it secret?

Today we sent a letter with the two other biggest green groups in Scotland - Friends of the Earth Scotland and WWF Scotland - to Sir Bill Gammell, Cairn's boss, demanding that he stops hiding those spill response plans. You can help too:

Tell Cairn to publish their Arctic oil spill response plan now

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