climate change

With the government's long-delayed decision on a third runway at Heathrow rumoured to be imminent, the intrepid women and men of the Climate Rush will be making their suffragette-inspired opposition felt at the airport next week.

MPs return from their winter holiday on Monday 12 January, so that evening at 7pm the Climate Rushers will hit Heathrow Terminal 1 for a peaceful picnic. Terminal 1, for those not familiar with the airport, deals principally with domestic flights, the sort of short-haul journeys which could easily be made by other, less climate-wrecking forms of transport. And they are inviting all of us who are fed up with the obvious lack of action on this most serious of issues to join them.

The papers have been filled with reviews of the year and we're barrelling into awards season, so it's only fitting that we have some awards of our own. My colleagues over on the very entertaining Nuclear Reactions have been staging their own award ceremony, "to recognise those who have help make the nuclear industry the over-subsidised and under-scrutinised joke it is today".

Exciting footage just in from the London HQ of international energy giant BP. After discovering internal company documents which reveal that the company, which has been stying itself 'Beyond Petroleum', is actually still spending 93 per cent of its budget on oil and gas extraction, we sent a crack team of smartly dressed greenwash-busters to locate BP boss Tony Hayward and present him with our coveted Emerald Paintbrush award for this year's most outstandingly brazen piece of greenwash.

Find out how they got on below:

But remember folks, this is just the tip of the greenwash-berg. With so many companies desperate to trumpet their 'green' credentials, even if the reality is very different, there are bound to be many more potential award winners out there. So if you know of, or work for, one of them, be sure and drop us a line so we can consider them for furture Emerald Paintbrush presentations...

Our podcast has skipped a month, but then with the Rainbow Warrior gracing our shores things have been a tad busy around here of late. As you may know, she was here in October as part of the international Quit Coal tour, and we went to meet some of the Greenpeace supporters who came to have a look round during the open boat days.

Also on our radar was the recent Indonesia tour undertaken by that other Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza. I was lucky enough to be there and while the crew were busy painting and blockading palm oil tankers in Sumatra, I was able to talk to them about what it's like being in the middle of a major piece of direct action.

And you'll have to excuse my froggy throat in the introduction, there's a cold going around the office.

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Kingsnorth Six leaving Maidstone Crown Court after being found not guilty © Rezac / Greenpeace

Last time I looked we had a long and honourable tradition in this country of respect for justice and juries. And, though some might think it strange to say so, that respect lies at the heart of Greenpeace's direct action culture. Greenpeace volunteers take personal responsibility for their actions and leave it to 'the people', in the form of a 12-person randomly selected jury, to determine whether that action was appropriate and lawful or not.

The New York Times magazine isn't on my normal reading list but my attention has been pointed towards their annual Year In Ideas issue. This festive celebration of high-concept thinking (and the odd stocking filler, like never-ending bubble wrap) is their take on the year in review and there was great excitement in the office this morning when we heard that the Kingsnorth Six had made it into the August list.