April 2012

For several months, our intrepid active supporters Jedis have been out in force, persuading thousands of members of the public to sign VW Darkside cards - which we've been sending through to the top brass at the VW's headquarters in Milton Keynes, and to their biggest dealerships.

For almost a year now, you’ve been asking VW to turn away from the dark side and reduce its fleet’s CO2 emissions. Today we took that message to the company’s AGM in Hamburg with a giant banner reading "Take responsibility seriously! Honest climate protection now" (in German, obviously).

Today we took the ‘How Clean is your Cloud’ challenge directly to Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, the three companies which need to switch from dirty coal to clean, renewable power. This challenge follows yesterday’s launch of our 'How Clean is your Cloud’ report.

Early this morning climbers from Greenpeace International scaled the European HQ of computer giant Apple in Cork, Ireland challenging Apple to clean up its act and stop powering their iCloud with dirty coal. The very public message covering 15 metres by 5 metres across the glass roof of the HQ asks the company to ‘Clean Our Cloud’.

This morning, two activists in Germany climbed the towering VW office building, dropped a banner reading “CO2 - Das Problem”, demonstrating that VW’s boss needs to show more responsibility when it comes to climate change. The climbers were removed, but another Greenpeace activist has since managed to paraglide around the tower - sending the message that the rebellion will continue until VW commits to real climate protection.

If you use a smartphone, Facebook, email or any sort of online storage then you're using what is referred to as "the cloud". Every day, our lives revolve more and more around the phenomenon that is the cloud. We check our email, store our music, and share photos and status updates. It’s a key part of how we connect with our friends and family.

But have you ever stopped to wonder… where does the cloud actually exist?