Greenpeace Blog

Weekly green web: get 'em while they're young

Posted by jamie — 29 February 2008 at 1:34pm - Comments

Playmobil's airport security set

Curios and bizarros currently floating around in hyperspace:

  • Heathrow activists beware. Playmobil have turned their cute claw-handed plastic toys to the defence of the realm with an airport security kit, including x-ray machine, walk-through metal detector and handheld sweepy gizmo. (From Foreign Policy.)
Article tagged as: weekly green web

Army brought in to help illegal Amazon timber crackdown

Posted by jamie — 29 February 2008 at 12:45pm - Comments

An illegal logging camp in the Amazon

An illegal logging camp in the Amazon © Greenpeace/Daniel Beltra

Stung by the recent rise in deforestation rates in the Amazon, the Brazilian government is cracking down on the illegal loggers who are ripping up the rainforest; their year-long initiative - known as Operation Fire Belt - is targeting areas where deforestation has been most acute.

Article tagged as: amazon, brazil, deforestation, destructive logging, forests, illegal timber, south america

Government "wobbling" over Heathrow

Posted by bex — 28 February 2008 at 6:35pm - Comments

Heathrow voices tour

Out and about on our Heathrow Voices tour last year.

If you're one of the many, many thousands of people involved in the opposition to Heathrow expansion, you may want to give yourself a pat on the back. The day after the 'consultation' closed, there's news that we're getting the message through to 'the highest levels of Labour'.

In one of two Heathrow stories in today's Evening Standard, the paper's chief political correspondent wrote:

Ministers are under increasing pressure to rethink plans for Heathrow expansion after 18,000 people lodged objections to the plans.

The scale of the protest is understood to have taken the government by surprise and is causing concern at the highest levels of Labour at the political fall-out if plans for a third runway are given the go-ahead.

Article tagged as: airport expansion, aviation, climate change, heathrow, public consultations

Which is the real security threat?

Posted by jossc — 28 February 2008 at 3:13pm - Comments

Heathrow climate protest: yes it really is this serious

Two audacious and well executed climate actions have deservedly grabbed headlines this week - Plane Stupid's 'No third runway' banner drop on the House of Commons yesterday perfectly complimenting our own Heathrow Airport plane protest on Monday. Both sets of activists involved spoke eloquently to the media about why they were there: to expose the government's 'public consultation' as a sham, and to remind us all that climate change is the greatest threat that we face, and we have little time to start getting serious about it.

Article tagged as: aviation, climate change, direct actions, heathrow, plane stupid

Energy companies sued by Inuits over sinking village

Posted by jamie — 28 February 2008 at 2:37pm - Comments

I just found this great story via Treehugger: a small Inuit community is suing 24 big, bad energy companies, claiming damages due to climate change. The melting ice pack has pushed up sea levels and exposed the residents of Kivalina to an increasing number of storms; the cost of relocating the entire village (which is sinking into the sea) is placed at US$400 million. Arctic communities are of course extremely vulnerable to the effects of changing weather patterns and are feeling the effects of climate change right now.

Article tagged as: arctic, climate change

The Weekly Geek: micro-hydro power

Posted by bex — 27 February 2008 at 9:23pm - Comments

It's Weekly Geek time, and this week we're looking at micro-hydro power: a truly reliable, highly efficient, and extremely clean (it has no direct carbon emissions) way of generating electricity.

It needs no fuel but offers a constant supply of electricity which often increases in winter, along with demand. It has a long life cycle (typically 25 years or more). It can have low implementation and maintenance costs. And, unlike some large scale hydroelectric power schemes, it has minimal environmental and visual impacts.

Article tagged as: climate change, decentralised energy, micro-hydro, renewable energy, weekly geek

Read all about it: our official response to the Heathrow consultation

Posted by bex — 27 February 2008 at 7:16pm - Comments

We've formally submitted our main concerns about Heathrow expansion to the government (almost as if this was a real consultation and the government was genuinely seeking views on airport expansion...).

You can read the full submission, but this is the introduction:

Greenpeace believes that if the government is serious about tackling climate change, there should be no question of increasing the number of flights coming in and out of Heathrow Airport. Instead the Government should be radically rethinking its out-of-date policy on aviation, implementing strategies to cap the number of flights at current levels with a view to reducing them in the future and move towards a sustainable, low-carbon transport system.

Greenpeace also considers this consultation process to be seriously flawed: designed to push through a decision that has already been made and without properly taking into account the effect on the environment, or seriously considering alternatives.

Article tagged as: aviation, climate change, heathrow, public consultations

Plane Stupid takes protest to Parliament

Posted by bex — 27 February 2008 at 11:18am - Comments

BAA's HQ

Plane Stupid protest at the Houses of Parliament

Another day, another voice loudly opposing plans for a new runway at Heathrow. Today, Plane Stupid campaigners have scaled the Houses of Parliament to protest at the collusion between government and the aviation industry.

In the absence of a genuine consultation with Londoners, the protest is a brilliant way to get the word out on the day the Heathrow 'consultation' ends. They've dropped banners reading 'BAA's HQ' down parliament's facade, and are enlightening the great and the good on their way to Prime Ministers' Question Time below by throwing paper aeroplanes - made from secret Whitehall documents that prove BAA has written parts of the consultation and the government has already decided to build a third runway - from the roof.

Article tagged as: aviation, climate change, direct actions, heathrow

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