I spent yesterday in the company of around 100 Greenpeace supporters discussing plans and ideas for the next 12 months or so. It was the annual get-together of the key volunteers who keep our nationwide network of supporters motivated and informed about our campaign work. These are the people who donate their time and skills, and as always I came away amazed (not to say reinvigorated) by their commitment and enthusiasm for what Greenpeace does.

What would you build on our piece of land to stop the third runway?

Lordy. When we launched the Airplot fortress competition a few weeks ago, I don't think we were prepared for the sheer range of ideas we'd receive. We've had plenty of suggestions for forts of some kind, while others have trod an underground pathway with tunnels and bunkers, and others have gone fully 'outside the box', proposing bold and outlandish new design concepts. Read more »

Ever since we bought our piece of land on the site of the proposed third runway at Heathrow, we've been receiving suggestions for what to do with it. We've already sunk our roots into it by establishing an allotment and planting an orchard, but now we want to go one step further and for that we want to get your ideas. Watch the video above for more details, and read on for the full lowdown on how to enter the competition.

Small islands bereft of mountains are going to sink beneath the waves as sea levels rise and for the millions of people living on them, climate change is not some distant, abstract concept but a concrete reality. As noted last week, the Sundarbans islands of India and Bangladesh have lost four islands completely. Sorry, 'lost' implies that they were carelessly misplaced behind a cupboard. 'Forcibly taken' would perhaps be more apt.

Still melting

Juliette in our international office posted this on the Climate Rescue blog and, as similar thoughts have been going through my head in response to the current cold weather, it's worth reposting here.

It cannot be said too often that climate and weather are not the same thing. The first regulates the temperature and weather patterns on a long term basis, the other one is guilty for blocking the traffic with snow this morning, or making the heat today unbearable. NASA puts it better than I could:

Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere "behaves" over relatively long periods of time. Read more »

With Copenhagen and Christmas taking up most of our attention in the undignified scrabble at the end of the year, a few things have fallen through the gaps so I've only just seen the email from Jörg Iversen about the video he produced with Roman Rütten. They're both design students at Buckinghamshire New University and made this impressive short as part of their coursework. There's even a behind the scenes film! Read more »

It's over. The fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties has this afternoon officially drawn to a close (or rather all but collapsed), but what are we left with? Very little is the honest answer and, no matter how the politicians spin it or how the media interprets it, it sucks.

Obama called it a "historic first step" and it's neither historic nor a first step. The Kyoto Protocol was both, yet in the 12 years since it was laid down, we've barely progressed - the increasing severity of climate change impacts and the urgent warnings from scientists should have had leaders scrabbling for solutions. Instead, yesterday a small group of these leaders flew in, claimed the deal was done and flew out again, leaving chaos in their wake – and other leaders outraged. Read more »

It's a gut-busting, heart-breaking cop-out and I'm so very, very angry although sadly not very surprised. The exhaustion we're all feeling in the Greenpeace team here in Copenhagen only adds to the appalling sense of frustration - our leaders swanned in and let us all down. The deal isn't fair or ambitious and it certainly isn't legally binding. Even though the agreement, such as it is, has yet to be sealed, they have failed.

I hoped it would be different but the skewed nature of international diplomacy has led the Copenhagen summit through two turbulent weeks into an exercise in arm-twisting and back-room deals. The bullying tactics of the developed countries have ensured they have got what they want, despite the attempts of some developing countries to stand their ground. Read more »

With the Copenhagen talks going nowhere fast, a leaked document has caused some excitement here in the Greenpeace office and throughout the campaigning fraternity here in the Danish capital. Actually, that's probably an understatement, and Greenpeace ED Kumi is calling this "the single most important piece of paper in the world today". Read more »

Since early last week, rumours have been flying round the Copenhagen negotiations about what would happen as we got closer to the arrival of the heads of state. Then a couple of days ago it was confirmed: access the conference centre would become more and more restricted for non-governmental organisations such as Greenpeace, and today was the start of those restrictions. We only have a few ID badges to go around the team and we'll have fewer with each passing day.