Greenpeace volunteers have set up an ice camp on the frozen Arctic Ocean to investigate and monitor the construction of BP Amoco's 'Northstar', the first offshore oil rig to be built in the Alaskan Arctic. Equipped with polar survival gear and communications equipment, the eight volunteers, braving temperatures of minus 42 C, set up camp just one mile from the controversial Northstar site. The camp was completed early this morning (Monday).
Due to the extreme Arctic winter, the ice camp, which consists of two survival huts powered by five wind turbines, took over two weeks to deploy. The volunteers used snow machines to travel to a temporary site seven miles from the camp, where they spent 15 days living in tents, preparing a runway for a supply plane. A parachutist helped guide the plane in to land. The supplies were then shuttled out on snowmobiles to the final camp, one mile from BP's Northstar site.
Speaking from the camp, Dan Ritzman, Greenpeace climate campaigner said,
"We're here to highlight the threat BP poses to the future of the Arctic. Our camp is on the frontline of global warming - the Arctic is heating up faster than anywhere else on the planet. The ice is melting, polar bears are starving yet BP is digging for new oil which will only make the problem worse. BP's customers would be shocked to see what the company is trying do out here."
BP Amoco's Northstar will speed up the effects of climate change, which is having a devastating effect on the Western Arctic. Polar bears are already starving as the Arctic ice pack on which they hunt melts away. Overall ice thickness has already declined by 40% and an area of ice bigger than Wales disappears every year.
Northstar will use risky and untested technology to transport oil ashore in pipes buried beneath the seabed. The US Army Corps of Engineers have said that there is an up to one in four chance of a major spill during Northstar's lifetime. Oil spills would harm polar bears, endangered bowhead whales and seals that migrate through the area.
If built, Northstar would produce oil from an artificial gravel island six miles off Alaska's north coast. Oil would be transported ashore in a pipeline buried only six feet beneath the seabed. Subsea pipelines are untested in the Arctic Ocean, where conditions mean an environment of solid or broken ice for more than nine months of the year as well as extreme temperatures, harsh storms and months of darkness.
The ice camp was established just weeks after Greenpeace filed a shareholder formal resolution giving investors in BP the chance to vote on whether Northstar should go ahead. The resolution submitted by British and American investors, also asks BP Amoco to invest capital freed up from Arctic projects in to expanding its solar manufacturing capacity.
Greenpeace climate campaigner Stephanie Tunmore said,
"Greenpeace is campaigning against Northstar to stop global warming at its source. Climate science tells us that we've already found four times more fossil fuels than we can ever safely burn. Against this backdrop, it is insane for BP Amoco to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this dangerous Northstar project."
Further information:
Contact:
Greenpeace Press Office on 020 7865 8255
