In June 1972, the fledgling Greenpeace arrived at Moraroa atoll in the south Pacific to protest against French nuclear testing. It was the beginning of a confrontation with the French authorities that would eventually lead to the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior 13 years later by French secret service agents.
Back then the World had gone MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), with the nuclear arms race in full swing. And today the World is still MAD, but not through a cold war and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Today's threat comes from humanities inexorable exploitation of the environment.
The economic system that dictates our society has put us on a treadmill - a treadmill that is brilliantly outlined in this engaging presentation by Simon Michaux, in which he outlines the folly in following the irrational myth of limitless growth. In short, once you have exploited readily available resources, what's left is more difficult to get at and requires more energy to extract. It's the law of diminishing returns. More resources are allocated in order to exploit more resources. It's a positive feedback loop that can only lead to one conclusion - collapse of the entire system. Couple that with environmental degradation and you have the recipe for a perfect storm leading to wholesale ecological collapse.
With the melting of the Arctic sea ice we have a latter day 'gold rush', with nations swarming like flies around shit - buzzing to get at the possible resources that the Arctic may offer. And that includes an oil rush. The exploitation of the Arctic's fossil fuel reserves is about as close a you'll get to 'pressing the button'.
So it was then that the Arctic Sunrise steamed into the Barents Sea last week, in the wake of those early Greenpeace pioneers - who sailed to Amchitka and Moraroa to protest against the madness of the bomb - in order to raise awareness of impending climate change. The boat was boarded by Russian commandos and impounded, with the crew detained at gunpoint.
The Russians probably won't make the mistakes the French made. But even if mainstream media was quiet about what was a major international incident, social media wasn't. This was illustrated in the rather bizarre situation where we had a BBC article that documented the boarding of the Arctic Sunrise, but was nowhere to be found on the main news website yet it was listed as the third most distributed article on the site.
But regardless of the media attention - or lack off - one thing is for sure. Greenpeace will return. It will take much more than reckless and corrupt corporate backers and their political cohorts to silence the voice of reason. Almost 4 million people have spoken. Last week we had the Ice Ride. Prior to that Finland became the first country to endorse the proposal for an Arctic sanctuary.
Russia's over-the-top reaction and propaganda nonsense won't wear. It is estimated that given its current speed under tow, the ship will arrive in Murmansk on Monday.
Our community awaits with bated breath and a sense of pride for whatever outcome may prevail.
Update: Latest from The Guardian.
Comments