A year ago, I was wallowing deep in despair after the Copenhagen climate talks, despite the excitement of sailing there of the Rainbow Warrior (which was by any standards pretty special)
A year later seems an opportune time to celebrate all the great campaigning Greenpeace UK volunteers, activists and active supporters have been involved in, in what has been a busy year.
- January – Ask the Climate Question; Active supporters organise meetings around the UK for the public to ask their MPs to commit to tackling climate change ahead of the election.
- February – Outside local constituency offices, activists use clean graffiti to make sure climate change is part of the pre-election debate.
- Greenpeace sets up the Peace & Disarmament network to ensure the nuclear weapons budget is included with other budget cuts.
- March - Active Supporters street polling gathers 1000’s of votes saying ‘no’ to spending £97 billion on Trident. They visit MPs in their constituencies to deliver the results.
- Activists put words into MP’s mouthjs, on billboards to expose the true cost of replacing Trident.
- April - At Nestle’s UK headquarters, activists take direct action to tell the company to stop destroying Indonesia’s rainforests for palm oil.
- Over 250,000 people watch Greenpeace’s Killer / KitKat video within 24 hours.
- May - Ongoing street campaigning adds to the pressure and Nestle cancels its contracts with forest destroyers Sinar Mas in a quick about-turn.
- Activists hoist a new flag at BP’s headquarters to brand the company ‘british polluters’. Greenpeace launches a competition to rebrand BP.
- June - Behind the Logo - Active supporters encourage the public to reveal what’s behind BP’s logo. They make banners to convince BP to stop its plans to exploit the Canadian tar sands.
- 140 volunteers help out in the Greenpeace field at Glastonbury. While helping build and run the different features of our field, they also campaign on HSBC and its forest destroying investments.
- July - Festival season continues with more supporters recruited as people sign up at festivals across the UK to stop rainforest destruction.
- August - Active supporters visit BP petrol stations around the country. Greenpeace also delivers over 10,000 messages collected from the public to staff at BP’s headquarters.
- September - Scores of activists shut down 46 BP petrol stations across London to tell BP to go beyond oil.
- October - Active Supporters help put people in the picture about forest destruction with a little help from Banksy who created a backdrop especially for the occasion.
- November - Active Supporters take to the street with stickers telling the oil industry that it’s time to go beyond oil. Soon after Greenpeace launches a legal challenge to the governments plans to drill in deepwater off the UK coats.
- December - Activists scale the Treasury before the comprehensive spending review to remind George Osborne of his promises to create a green investment bank.
And then there was a whole lot more campaigning, from the Esperanza ship tour, to Lobbying politicians regarding the Energy Bill, to all of the activities behind the scenes, to 101 local activities, and special events that there's not space to describe here.
So a huge thank you to everyone involved, we hope you’re looking forward to campaigning with Greenpeace in 2011, and if you’d like to get a real view of what campaigning with Greenpeace is like, then please check out some of these blog posts;
How we won the battle against Nestle, Trident and Heathrow by Islington Greenpeace
Review of 2010 by Birmingham Greenpeace
2010 Highlights and Reflections by West Dorset Greenpeace
2010 Top Ten by Southampton Greenpeace
Highlights of 2010 by Greenwich Greenpeace
2010 The Year that was by Nottingham Greenpeace
New Adventures in London by Waltham Forest Greenpeace
Looking back on 2010 by St.Albans Greenpeace
Goodbye Noughties by Preston Lancashire Greenpeace
My Greenpeace Year by Northumberland Greenpeace
We had joy, we had fun, we had Nestle on the run, by Northamptonshire Greenpeace
What did we get up to, by Edinburgh Greenpeace
Review of 2010, by Berkshire Greenpeace
Time flies when you're having fun, by Telford Greenpeace
Janet's (non GM) roundup, by Oxford Greenpeace
Our apple tree's blossoming and other success stories by Richmond&Kingston Greenpeace
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