Posted by jossg -
26 February 2008 at 11:11am -
Written yesterday for The Guardian's Comment is free.
Today's Greenpeace demo at Heathrow upped the ante of climate change activism. But if that's what it takes to get the government to act...
In 1971, the United States government proposed testing its nuclear arsenal near the tiny island of Amchitka - a wildlife paradise off the west coast of Alaska. A number of protest groups sprang up. One particular group of people came together with the idea to charter a boat - the Phyllis Cormack - and sail it into the nuclear testing site. Through placing themselves in the area of the bomb blast, they wanted to draw a line in the sand, and to make sure that the whole world would bear witness to what their government was doing. Later, the US government called off its tests. Greenpeace was born.