oil spill

UPDATE: The Danish Navy has arrested our activists and seized the Pod after nearly 100 hours stopping Arctic drilling

This morning we started taking direct action against the world's most controversial oil rig: Cairn Energy's Arctic driller, the 53,000 tonne Leiv Eiriksson, which was hours away from its drill site in Iceberg Alley off Greenland.

There’s a dangerous storm brewing in the North Sea. But this is no natural disaster - it’s been whipped up by oil and gas companies lobbying for a major tax cut.

In the Budget, the Chancellor, George Osborne, announced a fuel duty stabiliser. When oil prices were high – over $75 a barrel to be precise – he’d cut taxes on motoring, and tax oil companies instead. When oil prices dropped below $75 a barrel, he’d whack a tax on fuel, but give oil companies a break. 

This morning Paula Bear swung into action as a Greenpeace activist. While our ships are confronting Cairn Energy's oil rig in the Arctic, she’s blocking the entrance to the wildcat drillers' headquarters in Edinburgh.

Horrified that Cairn Energy are drilling for oil in the Arctic, Paula’s rage was tipped over the edge when she learned that Cairn won’t even make their oil spill response plan public.

We obtained a series of documents [download part one and part two, both pdfs] today under a Freedom of Information request that show the government is saying privately what we've been saying publicly: an Arctic oil spill would be all but impossible to clear up.

As our action against Cairn's Arctic-bound oil rig gets underway, there's no better time to remind us all of what's at stake - watch and share these powerful pictures.

UPDATE: Force 7 gales have forced the activists down from the rig and to safety. But the campaign continues - stay tuned.

It's the only rig on the planet that is destined to begin new deep sea drilling in the Arctic this year.

Cairn Energy's Leiv Eiriksson is on its way to Baffin Bay, Greenland, leading the new oil rush.

This morning at 5.40 local time, a handful of our volunteers intercepted the rig shortly after it left Besiktas near Istanbul in Turkey.