Greenpeace Blog

Is the Amazon rainforest doomed? Not if we can help it

Posted by jamie — 12 March 2009 at 3:53pm - Comments

There are some alarming stories in the press today about how much of the Amazon rainforest will be lost due to climate change. According to a new report from the Met Office's Hadley Centre, up to 85 per cent of it will disappear if we see a 4C rise in global temperatures.

It's a nightmare scenario and on the face of it, it makes you wonder if we shouldn't just throw in the towel - I have to admit to the occasional dark thought along those lines myself. But on the contrary, information like this illustrates yet again how crucial it is that we address climate change and deforestation together, and do it now before we get locked in to huge temperature rises.

Bail out the planet or you're not getting out

Posted by jamie — 10 March 2009 at 6:20pm - Comments

Greenpeace volunteers blockade a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels

Bailing out the planet in Brussels © Eric de Mildt/Greenpeace

Hundreds of Greenpeace volunteers from 16 countries arrived in Brussels today and set up a barricade around the conference centre where EU finance ministers are meeting to discuss funding options to tackle climate change. Linking arms to block the exits, the volunteers were determined not to let the politicians out until they agreed a proposal to bail out the planet.

(Twitter was a-buzz with regular updates from the scene - look back over the #climateaction tag.)

Whaling? Not with our taxes!

Posted by jossc — 9 March 2009 at 4:13pm - Comments


Not With Our Taxes! from Greenpeace on Vimeo

Despite the worst recession in a generation, Japanese government officials arrived at the intersessional meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Rome this week still determined to defend a multi-billion yen whaling programme that is reviled by the international community and unwanted by taxpayers at home.

Video: Fox News takes the tissue paper test

Posted by jamie — 6 March 2009 at 2:09pm - Comments

Fox News is a strange beast which is at once both wonderfully entertaining and deeply, deeply disturbing. Here in the UK, we're insulated from its 'Day Today gone real' presence (although I'm not so smugly parochial that I haven't noticed our own TV news drifting in a similar direction) and if it weren't for the wonder of YouTube, we might not see it at all.

So a big thumbs up to Rolf Skar from Greenpeace USA who gave an interview this week about the new tissue paper guide they've recently released. The two newscasters get to do a tissue texture test (recycled comes out good), and Rolf valiantly presses on when one says she finds recycled toilet paper "really hard and scratchy". But there are creams you can get for that.

Ship of fools sails off laden with nuclear fuel

Posted by jamie — 6 March 2009 at 1:14pm - Comments

Greenpeace volunteers protest as a container of plutonium nuclear fuel is driven past in Cherbourg, France

Mention Cherbourg and what springs to mind? Brigit Bardot skipping through the rain with a song on her lips, twirling one of those famous umbrellas? Sadly, that was all a long time ago and the quaint port of Jacques Demy's masterpiece is now a major link in the fuel chain for Japan's nuclear power stations.

Yesterday, a shipment of plutonium mixed oxide (Mox) fuel left France bound for Japan. It's the first shipment of Mox fuel to Japan in eight years, and the largest shipment of plutonium the world has ever seen - 1.8 tonnes of it in fact, enough to make 225 nuclear weapons.

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