Leila, Greenpeace climate campaigner, writes from the Esperanza...
Blimey, isn't everyone getting their knickers in a twist about where the great ship Esperanza is headed. After the news of The Faroe Islands calling on 'special forces', the internet is alive with speculation about where we'll end up.The Faroes' massive overreaction makes the point more clearly than Greenpeace could - our countries are addicted to oil and we all need help to get off it.
It highlights how vulnerable and frightened our governments are when
it comes to maintaining the supply of oil. Because we depend on oil,
mainly for transport which is essential in all of our lives, governments
are greasing the rails for companies to come into our countries and
punch holes in our planet. They are making it cheaper for oil companies
to access the last drops of oil. In doing so they turn a blind eye to
the risks that in the last months have become reality - from the Gulf of
Mexico in the US to Dalian, China.
Not so far from the Faroes, there is another oil controversy
emerging. In the UK this year, the same year that we have been told we
must cut all essential public services to ribbons, the new coaliton
government has promised new tax breaks for companies to explore our oil
fields off the coast of The Shetland Islands. Meanwhile the already
minor incentives for developing new clean technologies, like electric
vehicles, are facing the threat of being reduced further still.
This UK government promised to be 'the greenest yet'. Despite that,
only weeks after the BP spill has shown the world just how much damage
deep-water drilling can do, they are allowing BP to start drilling its
deepest ever well in UK waters, off the coast of North Uist. This well,
1300 metres beneath the surface, is not as deep as the Macondo well in
the Gulf of Mexico, but it's much deeper than need be to qualify as
deep-water and to be ruled out under the US moratorium.
Oil is dictating our way of life, and we will risk just about
anything to keep it coming. It's that addiction that has got us to the
point where governments are ignoring the risks of
deep-water drilling, the human rights issues around digging up the
tar sands of Alberta from under the feet of indigenous communities, and the clear climate hypocrisy of drilling in the Arctic whilst pieces
of the melting arctic glaciers sail by.
Like any addiction, our dependency on oil is not gonna be easy to
quit, but the important thing is to admit we have a problem and start
talking honestly about a solution.
--Leila
