Greenpeace Blog

Update: Rainbow Warrior ends peaceful protest at Pagbilao

Posted by jossc — 27 May 2008 at 1:37pm - Comments

Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior passes by the coal ship Sam John Spirit as it exits the Pagbilao coal-fired power plant pier in Quezon Province, 150 kilometers south of Manila.

The Rainbow Warrior's protest at the Pagbilao coal-fired power plant in the Philippines has ended on a high note. Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri sent a message of support to the crew saying, "I will file a resolution in the Senate seeking a halt in the construction of new coal fired power plants in the country."

The action ended on the eve of the G8 Environment Ministers Meeting in Japan, where the richest industrialised countries in the world gathered at the weekend to discuss solutions to climate change. Ending the use of coal needs to top the agenda.

More information on our international site »

It's a Facebook face-off for free Glastonbury tickets

Posted by jamie — 23 May 2008 at 5:05pm - Comments

Win Glastonbury tickets with our Facebook application

Want a cheap (ie free) way of getting into Glastonbury, but our skateboarding competition isn't your bag? Your luck may very well be in and all you have to do is send a message to your friends on Facebook - what could be easier?

Tide turns for Pacific tuna

Posted by jossc — 23 May 2008 at 12:32pm - Comments

Is the tide turning for Pacific tuna?

Hurrah! At last some good news for threatened Pacific tuna. Eight Pacific Island nations have signed an agreement to stop foreign fishing fleets taking their tuna. Our ship the Esperanza has been in the Pacific for the last seven weeks confronting unscrupulous foreign fleets that take 90 per cent of the fish, and even more of the profit.

"Quit coal" tour gets underway in Philippines

Posted by jossc — 23 May 2008 at 11:58am - Comments

The Rainbow warrior blocks coal shipments at the Pagbilao coal-fired power plant in Quezon province, 150 kilometres southwest of Manila.

The crew of the Rainbow Warrior kicked off a month long "Quit coal" tour around south-east Asia today when they blocked a coal shipment at the Pagbilao coal-fired power plant in Quezon province, south-west of Manila.

Deep Green: Going deeper

Posted by bex — 23 May 2008 at 9:36am - Comments

Deep Green - Rex Weyler

Yay - Rex Weyler's latest Deep Green column has arrived!

Rex Weyler was a director of the original Greenpeace Foundation, the editor of the organisation’s first newsletter, and a cofounder of Greenpeace International in 1979. He was a photographer and reporter on the early Greenpeace whale and seal campaigns, and has written one of the best and most comprehensive histories of the organisation, Greenpeace (Raincoast, 2004). His book, Blood of the Land, a history of the American Indian Movement, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. “Deep Green” is Rex’s monthly column, reflecting on the roots of activism, environmentalism, and Greenpeace’s past, present, and future. The opinions here are his own.

Since the late Pleistocene, 100,000 years ago, when a few thousand Homo sapiens poked around Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean, human population has doubled 22 times. We have one more such doubling left, and that's it. Human population will likely level off at 10 to 14 billion sometime around 2100, exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity. Mass human starvations are already underway in degraded environments.

Last chance to Make A NOise about Heathrow expansion

Posted by bex — 23 May 2008 at 9:00am - Comments

Celebrity mums say no to Heathrow

Actor Rula Lenska and journalist Rosie Boycott join other celeb mums in a vigil against Heathrow expansion in Parliament Square

As the date for the government's decision on Heathrow's third runway hurtles towards us (they'll be deciding in June or July, we think), a whole gamut of voices has been speaking out against the agenda for airport expansion that will destroy our chances of slowing climate change.

At the risk of sounding like a bad joke, an actress and a bishop (OK then, an archbishop) have both joined the fray, along with several celebrity mums and the head of the Sustainable Development Commission. Eclectic, eh? They're all calling on the government to shelve its plans for airport expansion.

Standards are slipping in the nuclear industry?

Posted by jamie — 22 May 2008 at 5:21pm - Comments

A projection near Prague Castle says 'Non merci' to nuclear power

A projection near Prague Castle says 'Non merci' to nuclear power © Horejsi/Greenpeace

Prague, that wonderful city admired by horror film makers and stag parties alike, is currently hosting the European Nuclear Energy Forum (ENEF), a gathering of those involved in shaping nuclear policy across the EU. One of the hot topics at this meeting is safety standards within the nuclear industry and a very scary proposal has been floated to lower standards in many member states.

When is a coal plant not a coal plant?

Posted by jossc — 21 May 2008 at 4:23pm - Comments

Drax from a distance: the UK's biggest source of CO2 pollution

Drax from a distance: the UK's biggest source of CO2 pollution

Silly question I know. A coal plant is a coal plant is a coal plant - still the dirtiest form of power generation known to us, no matter which way you look at it. But now that more and more people are uneasily waking up to the fact that the government are about to sanction a new generation of the things, suddenly we're knee-deep in spin about how environmentally friendly they could become. How surprising.

First there's been a great slew of CCS 'clean coal' stories. Carbon capture and storage may be theoretically feasible but it's expensive (up to twice the cost of unabated coal), technically complicated (involving deep cooling the CO2 into liquid form and creating a network to pump it out back under the North Sea where our oil and gas reserves originally resided) and commercially untried (so far no one is keen to pay for it themselves).

Indiana Jones' new hair-raising eco-adventure

Posted by jamie — 21 May 2008 at 4:13pm - Comments

If you simply can't wait for the new Indiana Jones film released tomorrow (I certainly can), this short film might help ease the tension in which the man with the bullwhip, Harrison Ford, lends a very personal part of himself to the fight against deforestation and climate change. It's either brilliant or grotesque, I can't quite make up my mind, but the old pun 'hair today, gone tomorrow' is definitely appropriate in this instance. But judge for yourself.

Will Brazil's new environment minister save the Amazon?

Posted by jamie — 21 May 2008 at 10:27am - Comments

Deforestation in the Amazon

After losing respected environment minister Marina Silva from his cabinet last week, President Lula of Brazil has filled the gaping hole left by her departure. But whether the new minister Carlos Minc has the same commitment to protecting the Amazon as his predecessor, we'll just have to wait and see.

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