Beaufort Sea, Alaska, 1700 BST, -- For the second day running, Greenpeace activists confronted the construction of BP's controversial Northstar offshore oil project. Braving wind chills of minus 50 degrees F (-46C), activists towed a fiberglass dome into the construction area with two Greenpeace activists locked inside, while UK activist Martin Cotterell and one other protestor made for the man-made gravel island to display banners reading, "Stop BP's Northstar, Save the Climate". As police and security guards attempted to remove the protestors from inside the hut, Alaska State Police, North Slope Borough Police and BP security personnel came outside the security zone and tried to block all video documentation of the event.
BP Amoco's Northstar project is the spearhead for oil development in the Beaufort Sea, which will lead to a sprawl of oilrigs across the Arctic Ocean. Greenpeace, and other groups including Alaska Natives and responsible investment organisations, are opposed to new oil development in the Arctic because of the dual threats of localized pollution and global climate change. Recent studies by NASA have confirmed that in the Polar Regions, global warming has already taken a significant toll as the ice pack melts and takes with it the habitat and hunting grounds of marine mammals such as polar bears and walrus. In the past 40 years, the average thickness of the polar pack ice has decreased by 40 percent, and in the past two decades an area the size of the state of Texas has melted away.
Melanie Duchin Climate Campaigner at the Greenpeace ice Camp said,
"Greenpeace will continue to oppose Northstar until BP Amoco shifts its resources to sustainable renewable energy. It is irresponsible to continue to develop the Northstar project when we know that we can not afford to use even a quarter of known fossil fuel reserves if we are to avoid dangerous climate change."
On Thursday 13 th April, BP Amoco will hold its Annual General Meeting for shareholders in London. At this meeting, shareholders will have the opportunity to vote on a resolution which calls on the company to switch away from high-risk, environmentally harmful ventures like Northstar, and reinvest resources in solar and clean, renewable sources of energy. Although BP Amoco has aggressively promoted its solar division as proof it is concerned about global warming, the company actually spends over 100 times more on oil exploration and production.
Duchin said,
"BP Amoco knows that oil fuels climate change and that clean, renewable energy is technologically available, but it is stalling widespread commercialisation to the detriment of the climate and the Arctic environment. "
