July 16th 2012 was a day of action to try and persuade Shell not to drill for oil in the Arctic.
The day started early; volunteers, including representatives from Bristol, reached the Shell “focus” station at 06:45am.
There was hardly anyone there so one person removed the switch to cut off power to the pumps then two volunteers D-locked pumps together 4 at a time and laid them on the floor. Volunteers then put tape that said “Save the Arctic” around all the pumps and symbolically blocked entrances to the station. While all this was going on another team was getting up on the roof of the station with Paula the life-sized polar bear.
Once this had been done, it was just a case of standing by the entrances handing out leaflets to interested passers-by and waving to people who beeped their car horns as they went by. We aimed to stay as long as possible. We directed drivers to the nearest petrol station as this one was shut!
As the “media focus” station, reporters from the BBC, ITV, Evening Standard and The Guardian came to visit us during the morning.
During the day several people stopped for a chat and one guy stayed with us all afternoon and helped us pack up at the end. Two girls from a local charity had been watching the action online so came down to say hello and look at Paula the polar bear. Two student nurses come by as one had told the other that there was a polar bear on the garage roof so they came to say hello and admire Paula. Other visitors included a guy from Occupy London and two bus driver union reps. All in all, there was a lot of interest in the action both from people who made a special effort to visit and also random passers-by.
During the day we were hearing that 10, 20, 30 and more Shell garages had been shut down around London and by the time we left at 6.15pm there were 77 possibly 78 Shell garages shut down. There was no significant police presence at this “focus” garage and no arrests were made. It seemed to be a successful day.
A nice picture of a roof-dwelling polar bear can be found in Greenpeace's Flickr stream here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenpeaceuk/7583219774/in/photostream/
And don't forget to join the Save The Arctic campaign online:
www.savethearctic.org
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