Go Beyond Oil

Cairn fails to find Arctic oil

Posted by jamess — 26 October 2010 at 3:41pm - Comments

One of Cairn's tugs, towing an iceberg out the way of its Arctic oil rig

Bing. Email received. Cairn Energy sent its “Greenland Operational Update” this morning at 7.05am with news to investors of its Arctic drilling. Despite its best efforts to put a positive spin on the news, the important words stood out:

“Plugged”, and “abandoned” for its first two drill sites. “Primary objectives were not reached” for number three, with “further re-entry work depending on the results of further evaluation”.

The media were more blunt, with headlines saying “Cairn Energy fails in Arctic oil drilling”.

Article tagged as: arctic, bill gammell, cairn, cairn energy, go beyond oil, oil spill

BP funding climate change deniers in US elections

Posted by jamess — 25 October 2010 at 2:18pm - Comments

In 2009, our US campaigners protested against Big Oil-funded spin which aimed to nobble the climate change debate

If you ever wanted to witness the grimy political hand of Big Oil, now's your chance: it's US mid-term election time.

The web of dirty money is global, with BP and other European companies complicit in funding climate change denier candidates for the US senate.

Article tagged as: climate change, go beyond oil, lobbying, us elections

Submarines for a healthy Gulf

Posted by jamie — 19 October 2010 at 1:39pm - Comments

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.

Article tagged as: BP, go beyond oil, gulf of mexico, oceans, oil spill, research

Oil companies answer to who?

Posted by jamess — 12 October 2010 at 5:55pm - Comments

Now that I'm out of the water, off the Esperanza and back on dry land, I've been thinking about what it takes to stop not just one oil rig but all of them.

There's no dodging the fact that the oil industry is immense. In the North sea, where we confronted Chevron, companies have spent more money on extracting oil in the region than NASA spent putting a man on the moon. In the Gulf of Mexico, where BP's Deepwater Horizon platform exploded this summer, there are over 3,500 other rigs ready to bore away at the seabed.

Article tagged as: BP, chevron, climate change, drilling, financial risk, go beyond oil, legal & general, oil, pension, UN

Are you a secret superhero?

Posted by jamess — 4 October 2010 at 1:34pm - Comments

Scrubbing the toilets this morning a bizarre thought crossed my mind: I’m going to miss this. The squeaky whiteboard, with our names for the 8am cleaning rota, reads: Messroom/Leila, Lounge/Frank, Showers/Victor, Alleyways/Elena, Laundry/Ben and Toilets … James.

A strange thing to miss perhaps, cleaning the ‘heads’ – my ship lingo is rapidly expanding – but it’s another part of the daily routine that has defined the communal life on board our floating Esperanza.

This is a working ship and everyone is busy pretty much all the time. Whether it’s in the engine room, the galley, the fitter’s workshop, the Radio Operator’s room, up on the bridge or out on deck, there are always things to do, just to keep a ship going.

Article tagged as: cairn, chevron, climate change, go beyond oil, oil spill

Going beyond oil is also about peace

Posted by jamess — 2 October 2010 at 4:11pm - Comments

Everyone’s got their personal reasons for taking action. For me, deciding to jump in front of a moving drill ship was not only about protecting the environment and stopping climate change, it was also about peace. Our addiction to oil fuels conflict, corrupts governments and destroys lives.

Article tagged as: BP, climate change, go beyond oil, oil spill, peace, war

BP's got a new boss - can he fix it?

Posted by jamess — 1 October 2010 at 4:01pm - Comments

Today BP’s got a new boss, Mr Bob Dudley.  Like anyone who starts a new job, he could do with a bit of advice.

Taking over from the gaffe-prone Tony Hayward - who headed the company during the Deepwater Horizon disaster - Bob’s hoping to draw a line under the world’s biggest oil spill and start again.

And we want to help him. We want to like BP. We believe it could be the kind of company that pioneers clean energy technology and doesn’t invest in dirty fossil fuels.  It could be a company that deserves a green sunflower as its logo.

Article tagged as: bob dudley, BP, climate change, go beyond oil, tar sands

We're out of the water, but it's not over

Posted by jamess — 29 September 2010 at 7:01pm - Comments

After a mammoth 50 hours in the water in front of their drill ship, following 100 hours on Chevron's anchor chain, the oil giant's lawyers have again stopped our protest.

Last night we received news over the ship's radio that Chevron had gained another injunction against us, preventing us from interfering in any way with their operation - otherwise face massive daily fines.

We pulled our last swimmers out of the water yesterday afternoon at about four, all of us exhausted after round-the-clock shifts to block the 228-metre Stena Carron from reaching its drill spot.

Article tagged as: chevron, deepwater drilling, go beyond oil, oil, shetland, stena carron, swimming
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