October 2010

In a letter in today’s Guardian 36 science professors are calling on the Prime Minister to protect core science funding - by cutting government investment in developing new nuclear weapons. We asked Stuart Parkinson, co-ordinator of the letter, to tell us what it’s all about...

As the announcement of the government’s spending review gets ever closer, the lobbying to defend this or that area of public spending is becoming more and more intense.

Now that I'm out of the water, off the Esperanza and back on dry land, I've been thinking about what it takes to stop not just one oil rig but all of them.

There's no dodging the fact that the oil industry is immense. In the North sea, where we confronted Chevron, companies have spent more money on extracting oil in the region than NASA spent putting a man on the moon. In the Gulf of Mexico, where BP's Deepwater Horizon platform exploded this summer, there are over 3,500 other rigs ready to bore away at the seabed.

Tcktcktck's Paul Horsman delivers a traditional Chinese stamp to UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres to mark the wall in support of collective action against climate change.

Michelle Meideros writes from Tianjin, where the latest round of climate talks have just ended. She has been living and working in Beijing for 6 months and tells us how her perspective has changed this year.

I haven't been to a climate talk since Copenhagen and not a whole lot has changed inside the negotiations. One thing that has changed is how I see this US/China "I won't, until you will" rhetoric. In the US our government is always pointing its finger at China, now the largest emitter in the world, claiming China is to blame, all the while hiding from its own lack of ambition.

Dr Fox looks nervous about his Trident budget cc  Steve Punter

Yesterday was, amongst other things, time for the Conservatives to debate defence at their conference.

First up was Dr Liam '13th century' Fox, who declared that we live in a "world more dangerous than any other time in recent memory". Hmmm - what about the Cuban missile crisis, Liam? Or Hitler invading Europe?

Scrubbing the toilets this morning a bizarre thought crossed my mind: I’m going to miss this. The squeaky whiteboard, with our names for the 8am cleaning rota, reads: Messroom/Leila, Lounge/Frank, Showers/Victor, Alleyways/Elena, Laundry/Ben and Toilets … James.

A strange thing to miss perhaps, cleaning the ‘heads’ – my ship lingo is rapidly expanding – but it’s another part of the daily routine that has defined the communal life on board our floating Esperanza.

This is a working ship and everyone is busy pretty much all the time. Whether it’s in the engine room, the galley, the fitter’s workshop, the Radio Operator’s room, up on the bridge or out on deck, there are always things to do, just to keep a ship going.

Everyone’s got their personal reasons for taking action. For me, deciding to jump in front of a moving drill ship was not only about protecting the environment and stopping climate change, it was also about peace. Our addiction to oil fuels conflict, corrupts governments and destroys lives.

Today BP’s got a new boss, Mr Bob Dudley.  Like anyone who starts a new job, he could do with a bit of advice.

Taking over from the gaffe-prone Tony Hayward - who headed the company during the Deepwater Horizon disaster - Bob’s hoping to draw a line under the world’s biggest oil spill and start again.

And we want to help him. We want to like BP. We believe it could be the kind of company that pioneers clean energy technology and doesn’t invest in dirty fossil fuels.  It could be a company that deserves a green sunflower as its logo.