Greenpeace Blog

The essential Greenpeace guide to surviving a shark attack

Posted by Willie - 6 August 2013 at 10:36am - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Willie Mackenzie
Giving a hungry shark something else to chew on might be a good tactic.

It’s Shark Week. Despite us trying to tell you otherwise, some of you still worry about getting chomped by a shark. So, to allay your fears and help give you some practical ways to avoid being shark sushi, here is the handy Greenpeace guide to avoiding shark attacks.

Article tagged as: oceans, Shark Week, sharks

Shaping up for a fin-filled Shark Week

Posted by Willie - 5 August 2013 at 9:30am - Comments
All rights reserved. Credit: Paul Hilton / Greenpeace
Every week is Shark Week for the oceans campaign.

It’s Shark Week. You’re allowed to be excited. If you already like sharks you will doubtless be enjoying that the internet is awash with sharp-finned fun. But if you don’t know much about sharks, or are a bit wary because they’re scary, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about.

Article tagged as: oceans, Shark Week, sharks

Slideshow: oil spill clean up in Thailand

Posted by Angela Glienicke - 31 July 2013 at 4:12pm - Comments

Normally you associate Thailand’s beaches and holiday resorts with emerald water and white sands, but on Saturday morning 50,000 litres of crude oil spilled from a leak in a pipeline into the Gulf of Thailand, off Rayong province.

Article tagged as: beach clean, beaches, oil spill, slideshows, thailand

Sharks need parks (and for you to stop rubbing them on your face)

Posted by Willie - 29 July 2013 at 4:34pm - Comments
Selfridges Project Ocean save our sharks display
All rights reserved. Credit: Willie Mackenzie
Selfridges Project Ocean - making sharks more fluffy

Okay, so it’s unlikely you’ll ever see a hammerhead on a helter-skelter; it’s fair to say you won’t see many basking sharks see-sawing with sawfish; and woe betide the wobbegong that tries to have a go on a roundabout. But sharks need parks too. They have as much right to play in safety as anyone else, right?

Article tagged as: marine reserves, Project Ocean, Selfridges, Shark Parks, sharks

Slideshow: devastating fires sweep through Sumatran forests

Posted by Angela Glienicke - 26 July 2013 at 4:48pm - Comments

Sitting in my comfortable office chair and watching these terrible images come through the picture desk, I feel a desperate need to stop this destruction. The devastating forest fires that swept through Sumatra recently caused record breaking air pollution in parts of Malaysia and Singapore.

Article tagged as: forest destruction, forest fires, indonesia, peatlands, slideshows, sumatra

Video: how to climb the tallest building in western Europe

Posted by victoriah - 24 July 2013 at 6:08pm - Comments

Since the six of us climbed the Shard, many people have asked: how did we do it? How much training did it take? How did we go to the toilet?

Article tagged as: arctic, climb, film, henry, iceclimb, london, oil, protest, shard, shell, victo, video, watch, women

Blackfish: when whales turn killer

Posted by Willie - 24 July 2013 at 4:24pm - Comments
An orca performing
All rights reserved. Credit: Dogwoof
Being held in captivity can chop 50-60 years from a killer whale's life expectancy

When I was little, I can vaguely remember a trip to Blair Drummond Safari Park for my birthday. This was back in the days when the world was black and white, Starburst was called Opal Fruits, and they still had dolphins in captivity in the UK. I don’t remember much, but I know we watched a dolphin ‘show’ with balls and hoops and clapping and ‘ooh-ing’.

You can’t see a dolphin in the UK doing that today. That is progress.

Article tagged as: aquariums, blackfish, dolphins, killer whales, oceans, whale watching, zoos

Road-building plans are being driven round the bend

Posted by Sian Berry - 12 July 2013 at 6:26pm - Comments
Car exhaust fumes
All rights reserved. Credit: Gowan / Greenpeace
New road-building plans ride roughshod over the green economy

Last week's spending round was another nail in the coffin of "the greenest government ever". Treasury minister Danny Alexander's speech was a stream of plans and proposals to carve up the countryside, ratchet up road emissions and slash funding for green transport. So much for a green economy.

Article tagged as: cars, climate change, road building, transport

Hell yeah, I'm scared, but I'm still scaling the Shard to save the Arctic

Posted by victoriah - 11 July 2013 at 8:26am - Comments
The Iceclimb team
All rights reserved. Credit: David Sandison / Greenpeace
Victoria, third from left, with her fellow activists before heading up the Shard

With any luck, as you read this I’ll be clinging to the side of the Shard, hundreds of metres up in the sky.

But as I write this, with less than a week to go, I’m just feeling... tired. I have sores on my shoulders from training with backpacks full of weights, and every night brings tiresome dreams about carabiners and tangled ropes.

Article tagged as: climate change, iceclimb, Save the Arctic, shard

'No one owns the fish of the sea': landmark ruling prevents ocean privatisation

Posted by Ariana Densham - 10 July 2013 at 10:32am - Comments
Sustainably caught fish in Hastings
All rights reserved. Credit: David Sandison / Greenpeace
The High Court ruling prevents big business from claiming ownership of fish stocks

This morning I was at the High Court in central London where a historic ruling was handed down on who controls the UK's right to fish.

An attempt by big fishing firms to protect their decades-long stranglehold on Britain’s fish was resoundingly defeated in court. The judgement gives back control of our seas to the public and the UK government, rather than big industry.

Article tagged as: judicial review, NUTFA, oceans, overfishing, richard benyon

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