Twenty-one Greenpeace volunteers today (Sunday, 1st April, 10.30am) took part in a dramatic mass occupation to stop a JET oil exploration rig as it was leaving Scotland's Cromarty Firth. The oil from US multinational JET is fuelling dangerous global warming which is threatening the lives of millions and flooding homes.
Four Greenpeace climbers are setting up camp high up on one of the rig's legs and two more have abseiled down one of the rig's legs to paint 'OIL KILLS' in giant letters. A further 10 volunteers have occupied various parts of the operations deck, including the drill stack and rig's heli-deck. Five one-man sailing dinghies are criss-crossing the Cromarty Firth, and the ship, the MV Greenpeace is currently standing by.
The Drillstar rig, on contract to the US oil giant JET, had upped most of its anchors and was on its way to drill in the central North Sea. Air pollution from using oil is the main cause of global warming. Greenpeace calculates that we can only afford to burn one quarter of known oil, coal and gas reserves before global warming results in catastrophic changes to the climate. This climate change has already brought flood misery and freak storms to Britain and threatens the lives of millions world-wide.
Laura Yates, one of the volunteers on the rig, said:
"Jet's oil is killing people and flooding homes so we are stopping this rig from drilling for more. Our only hope of stopping our weather careering out of control is to leave three quarters of the oil, coal and gas underground. It's criminal for companies like Jet, BP, Shell, Esso to risk the lives of millions of people by drilling for more."
25 people have been killed in UK floods over the last two years - last autumn's floods alone affected 10,000 UK homes (1). Globally, extreme weather events have already killed 100,000 people in the last three years (2). UK Government scientists have predicted that by 2080, 94 million people worldwide will be at risk from floods every year and an additional 290 million worldwide will be at risk from malaria (3).
This year, the world's top climate scientists concluded that global warming is happening faster and on a larger scale than previously predicted, and that oil, coal and gas are the primary cause. Tony Blair said we cannot afford to treat these predictions as 'scaremongering'. The scientists also confirmed that energy investment decisions in the next few decades will determine whether or not these catastrophic impacts will happen.
JET is not investing in real green fuels despite the fact that air pollution from oil-based petrol and diesel is the fastest growing cause of global warming. Alternatives to petrol and diesel are already available; bio-diesel can be put in fuel tanks today and there are no technical barriers to other green fuels like hydrogen and green electricity being used by new vehicles.
In November 2000 and March of this year, Greenpeace gave away 20,000 litres of bio-diesel at its own green garages to motorists in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Bio-diesel is made from vegetable oil and can be put in normal diesel engines. It is widely available on the continent and has about half the impact of normal diesel on the climate.
Laura Yates added,
"JET should give us the choice of real green fuels at the pumps, like bio-diesel, hydrogen and green electricity. Oil from companies like JET can't fuel our future because its killing people and flooding homes."
Notes to Editors:
JET is the brand name for the CONOCO company
1. Environment Agency Press Release, 11.9.2000
2. Catastrophe, David Keys, 2000
3. Climate Change and its impacts, DETR, October 1999.
Further Information:
Contact:
Greenpeace Press Office on 020 7865 8255/7
