Greenpeace Blog

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” — Oscar Wilde

With so much at stake in the Arctic, and so much mind-boggling corporate ineptitude at play in places like Alaska, Greenpeace has taken matters into its own hands — or rather, put the power back in the hands of the everyday workers who are confronted nearly daily with the reality that the industry is simply not Arctic Ready.

Three years ago last Sat­urday, an oil rig around 50 kilo­metres off the coast of Louisi­ana exploded. The explo­sion killed eleven work­ers instant­an­eously, and marked the begin­ning of an 87-​day period of uncon­trol­lable crude oil spillage into the Gulf of Mex­ico, the sea-​floor well spew­ing out around 4.9m bar­rels of oil before it was finally capped on 15 July 2010.

Last Saturday, more than 10,000 people came together all across the globe to take a stand for the Arctic. Organisers hosted human banners in the shape of a heart, spelling out 'I Love Arctic', in more than 280 cities in 38 countries from Chile to New Zealand and from Norway to South Africa. Looking at these beautiful photos, I think the results speak for themselves.