Bp

Want to be this man? Apparently not.

Yesterday someone pointed me to an article on the BBC lamenting the drop in young brains chasing jobs in the dirty oil sector. It seems that having lost the battle for our hearts many moons ago, the oil industry has now officially lost the battle for our minds, too.

Cairn Energy has fired the starting guns on its 2011 Arctic drilling operation.

Their plan is to lug a couple of massive rigs up to the icy waters around Greenland and drill four exploratory holes in the seabed.

Several weeks after BP announced that the leaking well was firmly capped, the Arctic Sunrise is still in the Gulf assessing the damage caused to marine life and habitats. Oceans campaigner John Hocevar is part of the investigation team and his latest blog is below. More blogs, photos and videos from the Arctic Sunrise's expedition can be found on our US website.

A couple days ago, we advanced the cause of science and conservation by throwing someone else's hundred thousand dollar piece of equipment over the side of the ship.  It sank to the bottom.

Fortunately, this was all part of the plan. The scientists we are working with, Steve Ross and Mike Rhode from University of North Carolina Wilmington and Sandra Brooke from the Marine Conservation Biology Institute and the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, plan to come back next year to retrieve the equipment, called a benthic lander, and use it to learn how deep sea corals are surviving in a rapidly changing and heavily impacted environment.