The UK wind industry had a massive boost today when the Crown Estate gave the green light to 18 new offshore wind farms around the coast of England and Wales, with the combined potential to supply one million homes.
Greenpeace today (Monday 2nd April) revealed that Texas-based oil giant JET has been funding US President George Bush's sabotaging of international action on global warming. The revelation comes as seven Greenpeace volunteers approached the 24 hour mark in their occupation of JET's oil exploration rig the Drillstar. The activists have been successfully preventing the rig from leaving Scotland's Cromarty Firth to drill in the North Sea since Sunday morning. JET has now taken the Greenpeace volunteers to court to force them to end their peaceful occupation.
Bush has recently shocked Europe by going back on his promise to cut pollution from US power stations and is refusing to co-operate with the world's efforts to combat global warming saying it is not in the US's "economic interests".
At dawn today three Greenpeace volunteers began their descent from the 180ft drillstack. The Greenpeace volunteers have maintained their occupation of the JET drillstar for over 24 hrs, successfully preventing it from going to sea to drill for more killer oil.
One of the three volunteer climbers just down from the rig said, "we spent most of yesterday positioned half way up the drillstack determined to prevent the rig from moving to drill for more oil, but as it started to get cold and dark we made our way further up the drillstack to join the six other climbers who had already made a safe warm base."
Nine Greenpeace volunteers were barricaded up in the oil-rigs 180ft drill stack, before abseiling down the JET rig to safety. The climbers were in good spirits and determined to stop JET wrecking the climate with more oil.
Laura Yates, Greenpeace volunteer, said "It was windy and starting to get cold, but we were feeling really pleased that we managed to stop the Jet oilrig from going out to sea to drill for more oil that we can't burn".
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.
JET/Conoco, an American company, is one of the ten largest oil companies in the world. The marketing and retailing (downstream) end of the business uses the name JET, while the exploration and production (upstream) end uses the name Conoco. JET/Conoco bosses have consistently denied the link between the oil they produce and global warming. Worse still, JET/Conoco is one of the major funders of US president George Bush, who has recently reneged on a pre-election pledge to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.
Global warming is bringing flood misery to Britain and drought and disease world-wide. Pollution from fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas) is the main culprit. If companies like Esso carry on unchecked, Britain will experience much more serious and frequent storms and floods.
We can stop this situation from becoming catastrophic by switching from fossil fuels towards renewable energy and green transport fuels.
