Greenpeace Blog

Yesterday, we took action. We closed 78 petrol Shell stations in London and Edinburgh to protest against Shells mission to drill for oil in the Arctic. We broadcast the action live from the ground, on the world’s first live direct action TV channel (we think), which ran for 12 hours, watched by over 14,000 people around the world. This happened as part of Greenpeace UK's contribution to the Greenpeace global week of action happening all around the world to save the Arctic.

It's action stations at the petrol stations. Right now, teams of Greenpeace volunteers are shutting Shell forecourts across London and Edinburgh. The teams are fanning out across the two cities, going station to station shutting down the pumps. In total, over 100 forecourts will be out of action, and it's all because Shell has a fleet of vessels on its way to the Arctic where they'll be drilling for oil in the next few weeks.

Q: What do you do when you run out of fish?

A: go catch someone else’s!

Cheeky perhaps, but that is the gist of what is referred to in European fishy politics circles as ‘The External Dimension’. Although it sounds like something from sci-fi, this is quite simply European fishing boats catching fish in non-European waters. Earlier this year I joined a Greenpeace ship in West Africa to see the scale of this first hand. It’s a pretty big deal, in every sense.