Saturday was International Arctic day and Greenpeace supporters all over the world were out and about sharing our message of “I love the Arctic” with thousands of people. They like me want to protect the Arctic from the onslaught of multinational companies only interested in profit at any cost.
The ice in the Arctic Ocean is disappearing due to a warming planet mainly caused by carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation. Ironically the oil companies want to exploit the ice free Arctic to drill for more oil to then burn and increase carbon emissions, that’s not a sensible plan if we want to avoid a rise in global temperatures of over two degrees. Industrial fishing fleets also see this as an opportunity to harvest the as yet untouched wealth of marine life; these seas are part of the vital food chain that sustains life in our oceans, oceans where fish stocks are already under threat, take away the Arctic resources and everywhere stocks will suffer more. We may be too late to stop the ice completely disappearing in summer and the knock on effect that will have on Arctic land mammals but the environment can still be kept pristine if we achieve our goal.
So to that end I find myself in sleepy Dorchester helping my fellow campaigners. Fourteen of us set up a replica survival pod (a round tent actually) and street stall in South street for five hours. We took 40 photos with messages that we will send to the Arctic council meeting on the 15th May and we collected £232 from the very generous people of Dorset to help build a new Greenpeace survival pod. We were very encouraged as lots of people were interested in our campaign to persuade the United Nations to make the Arctic a global sanctuary. In 1991 after a seven year campaign led by Greenpeace the Antarctic was declared a world park, we did it then and we can do it again for the Arctic.
If you want to help us make a difference contact us via this webpage, together we can succeed.
'Save the Arctic' campaign at http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/arctic
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