Greenpeace

Our campaign to achieve zero deforestation in the Paradise Forests continues to gain momentum.  After moving Nestle to cut deforestation out of its supply chain in just eight weeks, we are pleased to see movement on the political front as well.  This morning, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a two-year moratorium on new forest and peatland destruction.  The commitment came in advance of the governments of Indonesia and Norway signing a $1 billion deal in Oslo to develop capacity to implement strategies to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

This is the first major international support for a REDD deal since the disappointing UN climate talks in Copenhagen last December.  And its big news for the climate since Indonesia is the world's third largest greenhouse gas polluter after the U.S. and China because of the destruction of its rainforests and peatlands.  Expectations are now rising for President Obama to build on the announcement made by Indonesia and Norway.

How does REDD work?  While the details of REDD policies can be confusing, the basic idea is simple: industrialized nations pay developing nations to keep tropical forests standing in order to protect our climate and the diversity of life that benefits us all.

If the money is sufficient and used in the right way, it can drive systemic changes, help overcome corruption, and aid in the development of long-term solutions.  If the money is not well spent, or if inadequate safeguards for things like local communities, Indigenous peoples and wildlife are not in place, REDD schemes can subsidize business as usual and be little more than greenwash.

The announcement by the Indonesian President is good news, and we should be cautiously optimistic that this could be the start of new cooperation between governments to tackle rainforest destruction and climate pollution.  But, it is only a first step, and there are uncertainties and missing pieces left to deal with.

For example, the moratorium announcement does not deal with the vast areas already under concessions to companies like Sinar Mas and APRIL – it only applies to new concessions not yet granted.  That means we still need to pressure consumer companies and retailers to reject products linked to rainforests and peatland destruction.

Also, it is unclear when the moratorium actually takes effect.  If it starts in 2011, as stated in some press, it could spark a rush by forest-destroying companies to grab as many concessions as they can now.  This would be a terrible consequence from an announcement that is supposed to be good for forests.  If they are serious about slowing deforestation, the governments of Norway and Indonesia should make sure the moratorium is effective immediately.

In addition, we must remember that the Paradise Forests include important rainforests outside of Indonesia in places like Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and other nations not yet party to a deal like the one unveiled in Oslo today.

Another question is: will Obama step up to help Indonesia reach zero deforestation as quickly as possible?  If a small Scandinavian country of less than 5 million people can pledge $1 billion to save some of the world’s most important forests, what will the United States do?

That question will soon be answered.  President Obama is returning to Indonesia, a country he lived in for four years as a child, in mid-June.  Millions of acres of pristine rainforest have been slashed, burned, logged and destroyed since he was a boy.  Now that he is President, Obama has a unique opportunity to protect Indonesia’s remaining rainforests and peatlands.  Take action now encourage him to build on, and improve the first steps established by the Norwegian/Indonesian announcement.

For the forests,

-Rolf

The news today out of Washington has been somewhat promising, but these are small steps in a very long march towards a clean energy economy — an economy with none of the potential for massive ecological destruction such as we've seen in the Gulf.

Greenpeace has been bearing witness to the BP Deepwater Disaster and oil spill for the past month. Click here to read more blogs, view videos and more images.

Minerals Management Service (MMS) Director Elizabeth Birnbaum submitted her resignation letter this morning. Also today the Obama Administration renewed a moratorium in the pristine Beaufort and Chukchi seas in Alaska for the next 6 months, canceled the pending lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Virginia, and suspended action on 33 wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Greenpeace welcomes any and all investigations of the root causes of the BP Deepwater Disaster. Furthermore, Greenpeace welcomes the President’s call to develop clean, renewable sources of energy. These are all positive steps.

But preventing another massive ecological disaster can only be guaranteed by a complete and permanent legislative ban on all new drilling off of America’s coasts.

To put today's news into perspective: The Washington Post is reporting that BP's oil spill in the Gulf is officially the largest in American history, and the company’s latest round of bungling attempts at stopping this massive flow have not been successful. Enough is enough.

In order to move forward from this tragedy in a meaningful way, Congress must:

• Ban all new offshore drilling so that no more of America's coastlines are threatened with ecological catastrophes such as the BP Deepwater Disaster and oil spill;
• Place stricter regulations on extractive industries (coal and oil) to make them safer and more accountable for the damage they cause;
• And pass legislation that jumpstarts the clean energy revolution.

Also, Arctic Alaska must be taken off the table permanently. Harsh weather and ice-infested waters are the norm in the region, and the risk of blowouts is even higher than in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil spill “clean-up” in the remote environment, where the nearest Coast Guard station is a thousand miles away, is even more impossible than it is in the relatively more hospitable and accessible Gulf. As a result of today’s announcements, Arctic Alaska is out of harm's way for a mere 6 months. Shell’s Arctic drilling threatens distinctive species such as polar bears, walrus, seals and whales, as well as the Alaskan Native communities who have relied on them for culture and subsistence for millennia. Alaska’s Arctic and its inhabitants deserve better.

We can not afford another catastrophe on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy — especially in Alaska where oil spill response infrastructure is virtually non-existent. We're learning in the Gulf that there is no such thing as cleaning up an oil spill.

Half measures, loopholes, and giveaways to polluters won't cut it this time. Now is the moment for action.

Because of today’s announcements concerning the suspension of pending leases in Alaska, we have happily closed our online petition calling on Interior Secretary Salazar to ban Arctic drilling. But your members of Congress still need to hear from you. Sign our petition to Congress telling them that now is the time for a permanent ban on ALL new offshore drilling.

The vast majority of the world's internationally traded seafood moves by sea. Many unfortunate fish find themselves ripped out of the ocean only to be gutted, frozen, shoveled into containers, and sent plowing across the top of it in a massive cargo vessel. The companies that transport seafood from port to port play an indescribably important role in the seafood industry's chain of custody.; After all, if you can’t get a fish onto the land, it becomes a lot tougher to put it in the oven.

It is in this respect that the imperiled Chilean sea bass — or more appropriately, the Antarctic and Patagonian toothfish — have recently gained an enormous ally.

Maersk is the world’s largest shipping company. In addition to jet engine parts, hybrid cars, stretch pants, and countless other items, the Maersk shipping fleet transports approximately 20% of the world’s entire ocean-going seafood supply. It’s a staggering amount of frozen fish, and that’s why it’s so heartening to hear that the company is now refusing to ship any Antarctic or Patagonian toothfish due to environmental concerns.

How great is that?

David Pawlan, Maersk’s Line Head of Global Seafood, makes no equivocation about the reasons behind this progressive policy shift. “We recognize the global concerns over the overfishing of toothfish species,” says Pawlan, “and support efforts to curb this trade.”

Pawlan is right to be cautious in this regard. It has beyond debate that much of the toothfish industry is inextricably linked to a massive illegal fishing enterprise operating in an unregulated manner in the Southern Ocean. The tremendous market value of Chilean sea bass fillets has prompted the fishing industry’s equivalent of a Klondike gold rush in the Southern Ocean: a desperate, greed-fueled free-for-all in a frigid and lawless wilderness.

Maersk is a welcome addition to a small but growing movement to protect the toothfish. Greenpeace has been pressuring companies throughout the seafood chain of custody to stand up for this animal and its vulnerable habitat for years, but it hasn’t been until relatively recently that major players in the seafood industry have started to get on board.  In the United States, the world’s largest market for toothfish, some large retailers are beginning to take a progressive stance on this critical issue.  Ahold USA refuses to sell any toothfish products and actively disseminates information about the animal to its customers.  Wegmans, a smaller high-end grocery chain, has pledged not to sell any seafood from the Ross Sea — ground zero for Antarctic toothfish fishing – whatsoever.  Several other major US retailers have also discontinued their toothfish sales in the past year or two.

So the toothfish tide may be turning — but that’s not the end of Maersk’s commitment. The shipping company has also pledged that it will not carry any shark products, any whale meat or whale blubber, or any orange roughy, a fish notorious for its exemplification of unsustainability.

This is earth-shattering. We finally have a shipping company that is beginning to stand up for the very thing that keeps it relevant and in business: the ocean. Still, there are still some missing pieces, including a very important one: the last few members of the world’s most endangered commercial fish species still ride atop the waves in freezer containers stacked high on the deck of Maersk, Hanjin, and other shipping vessels — not to mention in the guts of trans-Pacific jumbo jets — and this animal has very little time left indeed.

We must stop trading in bluefin tuna. If not, we will lose it forever.

On Tuesday, Greenpeace held a protest at computer giant Dell's Round Rock, Texas headquarters over the company's backtracking on its public commitment to eliminate key toxic chemicals in its products by 2009. Our decision to directly communicate with the company's leadership and employees was not taken lightly — it was reached after it became clear that Dell is not moving quickly enough to honor its public to phase out the use of toxics by 2011.

Our message, delivered on Dell’s campus with an enormous banner suspended from the roof, was addressed to CEO Michael Dell and read: “Michael, What the Dell? Delete Toxics Now.” The protest follows similar demonstrations against Dell at its offices in Bangalore, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. Greenpeace is pressuring Dell around the world to let the company and the public know that while Dell's competitors are phasing out the use polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), Dell is falling behind and is contributing to the mounting e-waste problem that is poisoning communities in places like China and in West African nations.

PVC and BFRs are highly toxic and can release dioxin, a known carcinogen, when burned. With the growing tsunami of electronic waste being shipped to developing countries for open burning, workers who deal with e-waste are at the most significant risk for health impacts. Eliminating these substances will decrease exposure to workers and consumers and will increase the recyclability and reusability of electronic products.

The amount of electronic products discarded globally has skyrocketed recently, with 20-50 million tons generated every year. If such a huge figure is hard to imagine, think of it like this: If the estimated amount of e-waste generated every year would be put into containers on a train, it would go all the way around the world. E-waste now makes up five percent of all municipal solid waste worldwide, nearly the same amount as all plastic packaging, but much more hazardous. And it's not only developed countries that generate e-waste: Asia discards an estimated 12 million tons each year.

E-waste is now the fastest growing component of the municipal solid waste stream, due largely to people upgrading their mobile phones, computers, televisions, audio equipment and printers more frequently than ever before. In Europe, e-waste is increasing at three to five percent a year, almost three times faster than the total waste stream. Developing countries are also expected to triple their e-waste production over the next five years.

Greenpeace and Consumer Electronics

For the past five years, Greenpeace has been campaigning for electronics companies to reduce toxic chemicals usage and improve take-back and responsible recycling programs. This involves regular meetings with many of these companies to exchange information and discuss company progress and relevant industry developments.

Our primary tool for tracking the progress of consumer electronics companies is the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics, which is updated quarterly. In the latest version of the Guide, both Apple and HP moved up, their scores fueled by having new computer lines free of PVC and BFRs, demonstrating the technical feasibility and supply chain readiness of producing alternatives to these hazardous substances. Dell stands in 10th place, having been penalized in the previous ranking for its backtracking on PVC/BFR phase out.

There is still time for Dell to do the right thing and honor its commitment to phase out toxic PVC and BFRs. As an electronics industry leader, Dell’s move would be seen as a true game changer. People concerned with Dell’s toxics backtracking can take action.

From the Gulf Coast to the West Coast to the East Coast, Greenpeace activists are out in full force to send the Obama Administration a message: Ban Arctic Drilling!

As the BP Deepwater Disaster and oil spill has made plain for all to see, we desperately need to move away from dirty, dangerous fossil fuels like oil and toward clean, green renewable energy. Unfortunately, even as the Gulf continues to fill up with filthy crude oil, the Obama Administration is intent on going ahead with more offshore drilling, a move that will prolong our addiction to oil rather than end it.

In fact, despite the moratorium the administration said it had placed on all new offshore drilling permits, we have now learned that the Interior Dept.’s Minerals Management Service has actually approved several new offshore drilling permits since April 20th, when BP’s rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and sank, leading to several million gallons (and counting) of oil being spilled. Worse yet, most of these new permits were given the same environmental exemptions as BP was given for the Deepwater Horizon.

And of course, the administration is so far allowing Shell to move ahead with its plans to drill in the far more ecologically sensitive Arctic region this summer. As you might have seen already, several of our activists sent a loud and clear message to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar earlier this week when he was down in Louisiana by painting “Arctic Next?” on a Shell support ship soon to be headed for the Arctic.

But we didn’t stop there. Salazar was called before the Natural Resources Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives today, and our activists were there with a similar message: “Salazar: Ban Arctic Drilling.” Like the painting on the Shell ship, the signs these activists were holding were painted with some of the dirty crude that has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico for the past month.

Here’s an awesome photo of Sec. Salazar and Deputy Interior Sec. David Hayes turning around to read our activists’ signs:


We had a message for Salazar’s boss, too. President Obama was out here in the Bay Area today campaigning on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, and several of us went down there to send the exact same message to the Pres. Here’s a pic of Obama’s motorcade whizzing by our banner:


So, Obama and Salazar have gotten our message, we know that much. But that doesn’t mean our work is done. We need as many folks as possible to be hammering this message home. Help stop the next oil spill: write to Sec. Salazar right now and tell him to stop Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic.

Two days ago, the gavel came down in an adjudication decision which may, more than any other recent hammer-strike, determine the future of fishing: The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) officially bestowed its blue-and-white fish-check label to a massive factory operator that targets Antarctic krill.

This is not a good thing.

Antarctic krill are tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that cluster in vast multitudes (known as “blooms”) in the waters of the Southern Ocean.  They form a critical building block in the oceanic food web: small fish consume the krill before being eaten themselves by seals, penguins, toothfish, and other animals.  Krill are also a primary source of nourishment for migratory whales -- in fact, the majority of the world’s baleen whales journey to the southern ocean to feed on krill and replenish their energy supplies after depleting their reserves during their mating and calving seasons.

While krill in their vast numbers do seem on the surface to be an “inexhaustible resource,” one would hope that, by this time, we have learned that this mindless assumption will never be accurate in regard to any of the inhabitants of our finite planet.  There is no such thing as an inexhaustible resource.  Ask any great auk or passenger pigeon, they’ll tell you.

Oh, wait -- you can’t ask them.

Because there aren’t any left.

Because there’s no such thing as an inexhaustible resource.

There are a few things that we are certain of about krill.  The first is that the tiny animal, like many other sea creatures -- especially crustaceans -- is vulnerable to climate change, especially through the ocean acidification trends resulting from the rising levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.  Nowhere in the Marine Stewardship Council certification system are the potential effects of climate change even discussed, let alone taken into account by the methodology.  Strike one.

Next, we know that Antarctic krill exist in the Southern Ocean – an area adjacent to a land mass that is uninhabited by humans.  The simple fact that we are sending fishing vessels into this area bespeaks an unsustainable paradigm, known as finite expansion.  There is a certain amount of ocean on this planet.  That we continue to fish farther, deeper, and longer simply underscores the fact that we are not approaching the management of our oceanic resources from a sensible and comprehensive standpoint that would account for the idea that one day – one day quite soon, actually – these fishing boats are going to bump up against the ice shelf.  No more expansion.  What then?  The Marine Stewardship Council methodology again fails to even consider these perspectives, concentrating instead on discrete management techniques that do not consider the idea that sustainability is more than a fishery-by-fishery label – it is a way of looking at the world.  Strike two.

Finally, we know that we have only a very rudimentary understanding these tiny animals.  Krill have been studied only cursorily and we have almost no knowledge of their life history and behavior.  It is irresponsible in the extreme to proceed with the certification of a fishery that is so cloaked in mystery – we have no idea what kind of damage we could be doing.  Strike three.

And yet in the face of all these worries, the rubber stamp comes down and the MSC pronounces the krill fishery to be sustainable.  Let’s not forget that vehement objections to this certification have already been lodged by the Pew Environment Group and the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition.  These objections were overruled -- but let us not forget that the three strikes listed above were not taken into account in the decision, as they are simply not part of the MSC methodology... and if something isn't part of the system, it apparently doesn't have any relevance on reality.  Or so the adjudication decision would lead one to believe.

There is a conceptual concern here too.  The certification of this fishery gives an unofficial nod to the basic idea that vacuuming up the tiny life forms forming the foundations of the oceanic ecosystem is an acceptable practice.  In reality, it’s not.  Even the United States fishery management authorities banned fishing for krill in US waters, specifically to allow it to remain in the ocean as a food source for other organisms.  Legitimizing and expanding Antarctic krill fishing is simply transferring our unceasing resource demand to a hitherto unrecognized protein source.  This is not the way to move forward – in fact, pulling too hard on this loose yarn just might unravel the whole tapestry.

The certification of krill makes no sense.  It’s a minuscule building-block animal on the other side of the world that simply doesn’t belong to us.  We can’t even eat it – the krill will just be used to make oil, fish food, and other rendered products.  And for this, we may end up short-changing whales, toothfish, seals, and other animals – all because the powers that be refuse to look at the entire issue from a larger perspective.  Fishing for krill will not feed the world -- but it just might end up starving it.

Greenpeace activists, scientists and photographers have been working for weeks in the Gulf, witnessing first hand the destruction of the BP oil spill. On Monday, seven Greenpeace activists took action to prevent the next oil spill. Using oil from the Gulf spill, they painted the message “Arctic Next?” on the bridge of a supply ship that Shell has contracted for their proposed work in the Arctic.

The message was directed at Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who, only miles away inspecting the Gulf at the time, has the power to cancel Shell’s Arctic program.

Shell hopes to begin drilling off of Alaska’s North Slope this summer. It could be a bigger disaster than what we’re seeing in the Gulf with BP. There is simply no effective way to respond to a spill in the Arctic.

The activists were joined by each of you who helped carry this message to Secretary Salazar. So far over 27,600 emails have been sent and over 2,900 calls have been made to the Secretary!
 
Salazar is expected to make his decision this week on whether to allow Shell to begin drilling in the Arctic Ocean. This is a crucial opportunity to protect the Arctic. We all need to join these activists and work together to make sure Salazar keeps hearing our message!  If you haven’t sent your message, please do so now.  If you have already called, call again and get your friends to call as well. 

The seven activists were arrested in the Gulf face heavy-handed charges.  As Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford puts it, these charges are a “a disproportionate response to the peaceful protest that took place while not a single BP executive has been charged for the devastation they have wrought on the Gulf of Mexico.”

All this left me wondering what comes next so I asked my friend and Gulf activist, David. Here’s what he had to say:

“Well, I am truly inspired that thousands of Americans took action with me to prevent drilling in the Arctic Ocean. If we all keep this kind of pressure on Salazar, he’ll cancel Shell’s program and prevent what happened in the Gulf from happening in the Arctic.”

I couldn’t agree more.

With the memory of BP’s failed "fail safe" shut-off valve fresh in our minds, one can only begin to imagine the nightmare that millions of pounds of chlorine gas could bring to the Delaware valley thanks to DuPont. The inspection report we gave to DuPont on May 21st was the culmination of weeks of work. For example, we photographed 90-ton rail cars parked outside their fence line. Just one of these rail cars can put millions of people at risk of sudden death or serious injury 20 miles down wind. From our airship we saw many rail cars of chlorine gas inside their plants.

As former DuPont CEO Charles Holliday told the media in 2007, there’s little anyone can do to prevent a plane from flying into one of their plants. But what DuPont can do is switch to safer processes. Even Dow Chemical is doing that at one of their plants. They partnered with K2Pure Solutions and will eliminate the storage and transport of 90-ton rail cars of chlorine gas by switching to a small batch process. Clorox is also doing the same company-wide. And the railroads, which bring the chlorine to DuPont, no longer want to haul these cargoes. The Association of American Railroads says if these plants won’t convert, Congress should make them.


Inside the Edge Moor, DE DuPont plant we met DuPont spokesman Rick Straitman. He didn’t dispute the inherent danger of their chlorine gas and assured us that they were looking for safer alternatives. But he wouldn’t comment on why DuPont is lobbying Congress to kill legislation that would prevent chemical disasters.

Together 300 U.S. chemical plants put 110 million Americans at risk. Yet 40 million Americans no longer face these risks thanks to the conversion of 500 plants to safer chemical processes. But at the current rate of conversions it will take over 40 years for the highest risk plants to convert. The Senate needs to adopt legislation (H.R. 2868) passed by the House last year. They need to make sure that the highest risk plants use safer alternatives where ever possible. Let your Senator know today.

And the Winner is........the creative spirit inspired by the love of whales.

Greenpeace invited activists to submit creative photos to show President Obama that people are serious about saving the whales, and people of all ages, from all over the world have responded.  Greenpeace has offered prizes for the top three images chosen by Phil Kline, Greenpeace Senior Oceans Campaigner, Diana Silbergeld, Greenpeace National Activist Network Director and myself.

The images they are sending to http://www.greenpeace.org/photocontest are posted on http://www.flickr.com/photos/save_the_whales. We will be delivering the images, along with petitions and signatures to the White House on June 3.  Some are charming in their simplicity and others are breathtakingly complex. All are individual expressions of love and respect for these amazing fellow mammals that remain at risk of violent destruction more than two decades after the International Whaling Commission voted to stop commercial whaling. Now the IWC is considering a proposal to resume commercial whaling and the United States is supporting that proposal.

Greenpeace and other groups are in an all out effort to let President Obama know that this must not happen. The pictures show that people care, and express that in so many ways. There are images of whales, leaping humpbacks, breaching tails, Grays, pilot whales, orcas, fin whales and dolphins. They are in the ocean, in the middle of the air and in outer space. There are horses, birds, dogs and people. People graduating, leaning on cars, holding signs, young people, elderly folks, kids and a great diversity in between. There are words, signs, banners, symbols and expressions. Waves, sunsets and lighthouses.

Seen together and great multilingual visual story of why we love whales and don't want them slaughtered anymore. Contest entries close at midnight Wednesday, May 26, 2010. Stay tuned for the announcement of the winners as we stay focused on the U.S. position and the outcome at the IWC meeting June 20 in Agadir, Morocco.

The sticky, hot oil was so deep that my boots sank three inches and nearly came off when I took my next step.

Where the beach looked clean, I let my eyes follow baby crabs a foot more on shore where I saw the wall of debris and grass saturated four inches deep with thick, reddish-brown oil.

Last Thursday marked one month since the Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing 11 people and setting in motion an unfolding, unprecedented disaster in the U.S.

[BP]resident Obama?

What was so unsettling in the Gulf was that when I was down there I couldn't tell where President Obama began and BP ended. Greenpeace boats full of reporters were physically blocked by the coastguard and forbidden to take pictures of the oil on the beach. When asked why, the coast guard staff replied: "It's not our policy. It's BP's policy." The President's response to the spill, until yesterday when Lisa Jackson demanded that the toxic dispersants be replaced (kudos to her for this), has seemed like a page out of BP's playbook of focusing on image damage control as much as oil spill damage control. He has not batted an eye in defending further off-shore oil drilling and has withheld from the public the scale of the problem.

I was heartened to hear that the President called for truck mile per gallon standards be upgraded and that fuel economy standards should be strengthened in the long-run for regular cars. The big question is if the President will virtually phase out the use of oil in cars by 2030 or continue down Ken Salazar's misguided drill baby drill policy.

The Coast Guard's "Nightmare Scenario"

As leviathans of underwater oil move their way up the East Coast, President Obama is opening the door to what the Coast Guard called its "nightmare scenario" - drilling in the Arctic.

Shell Oil plans to begin exploratory drilling in Alaska's Arctic Ocean this July. According to the Coast Guard, the pristine Chukchi and Beaufort Seas are extremely remote, freezing cold, covered in darkness for much of the year, and the water is incredibly choppy, making a spill a "nightmare." The rig being shipped right now to the Arctic is older than the BP Deepwater rig that exploded. Regardless, President Obama and Secretary of Interior Salazar continue to push the interests of big oil companies.

This moment will require that the President do more than say that he is frustrated with BP and (rightly) pointing the finger. President Obama should ban all offshore oil drilling and call for an end to the use of oil in our cars by 2030.

Stopping Shell's drilling plan would be a good, first indicator that the President is moving away from the Salazar-BP oil policy. Getting America's cars and trucks off of oil by 2030 would prove that the President is finally actually leading.

Today Greenpeace activists took a stand on the ship the Harvey Explorer to send a message to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The activists used oil from the spill to paint the message "Arctic Next?" on the bridge of the ship, which is scheduled to depart for Alaska to support drilling operations in July.

No matter how you frame oil: in a fancy television commercial or newspaper ad featuring different shades of green, a popular song, or a logo of the sun, it will still always be oil. This is the truth no matter how well crafted a marketing spin really is. It isn’t exactly easy to put on green-tinted glasses and see oil in a different way. However, it’s what BP has been trying to do for years.

Ironically however, even oil companies have picked up on society’s drive for the words “eco-friendly,” and the dirtiest of companies are attempting to benefit from it. In the greenwashing game, profit often comes before any reputation of honesty or respect for the true meaning of “green.” Today, BP plays the game with a lot of guts.

For some time, Greenpeace has been covering BP’s greenwashing schemes. However, now that they are responsible for what could become the largest oil spill in U.S. history, we felt that recapping on their long history of environmental ploys is vital. Perhaps not all of BP’s deception has been as serious as their gross underestimate of how much oil is truly pouring from their rig. However, their smaller duplicities, the ones that haven’t left as physical or destructive of footprints, have simply served as a foundation for the much larger ones.

Lets reminisce.

The goal to be painted green: The truth behind the marketing

Last year, Greenpeace awarded the BP the first “Emerald Paintbrush” award for greenwashing. Greenpeace in the UK attempted to present the company with a trophy: a paintbrush covered in green paint.

But BP wasn’t exactly cordial when accepting. See this video of Greenpeace UK attempting to deliver the award.

 

The award was granted to the company in recognition of its 2008 multimillion dollar marketing campaign, boldly stating a pledge to alternative energy. But the clever catchphrases, such as “from the earth to the sun and everything in between” and “the best way out of the energy fix is an energy mix,” which define their ‘green’ advertising, are hardly more than statements created from a well-paid public relations flack.

Greenpeace UK calculated information from company documents and found that the company’s investments do not match their public relations statements. BP invested 93 percent of investments into oil and gas in comparison to 2.79 percent on biofuel and 1.39 percent on solar initiatives. The ratio speaks for itself. It demonstrates (in actual numbers), the misleading nature of BP’s marketing claims of dedication toward alternative energy.

 

 

But the desire to be branded as ‘green’ has been a decade long goal for BP. In 2000, the company launched its $200 million advertising campaign to highlight a more environmental side. Their popular idiom “Beyond Petroleum” was also developed at this time.

In 2001, BP received a “Campaign of the Year Award” from PRWeek in the category of “product brand development” for that campaign, according to Source Watch.

This photo and the one above were recently taken by Greenpeace photographers at the scene of the oil spill along the Louisiana coast. Here, that same ‘Beyond Petroleum’ catchphrase simply stands as an ironic and perverse indication that oil is the true focus of this company.

 

But should there be any surprise?

Since the branding began in 2000, the company has been absolving itself of any accountability to its marketing.

For example, in 2009 BP further affirmed that it was never truly committed to alternative energy when that division of the company in London was shut down.  Vivienne Cox, the director of solar and wind power for the company resigned at the same time. Shortly before the entire division was cut, BP’s solar projects in both Spain and the United States were ended, cutting hundreds of jobs.

The same time last year BBC reported that BP had decided to shift its priorities from being "green" to being "responsible," backing away from their environmentally friendly commitment.  

"The new brand value, 'Responsible', encompasses BP's original aspirations towards the environment, in addition to other key areas such as safety and social welfare," said spokesman for the company, David Nicholas, in a April 2009 BBC story. "Our aspirations remain absolutely unchanged: no accidents, no harm to people and no damage to the environment."

A history of harm past deceptive advertising

No accidents? No harm to people, or damage to the environment? Considering the current situation, it might be an incredible underestimate to say that they haven’t exactly met their “aspirations”. While society watches as BP oil floats in a thick layer on the top of the Gulf waters destroying natural habitats and ecosystems as well as hurting the seafood industry, fisherman and locals along the coast, the quote is a biting incongruity.

However, it should be well known that the most recent oil spill is not the first time that BP has not kept its aspirations to be safe or responsible. It’s not just misleading advertising and marketing strategies related to alternative energy that define the company’s historical relationship to the environment. In fact, there have been a number of more detrimental actions than just deceptive branding.

In 2005, an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City injured 170 people, killing 15. The company faced approximately $87 million in fines for safety hazards at the refinery including settling with the families of the victims of the explosion for $1.6 billion. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or OSHA, BP was charged with “willful”safety violations, meaning a company was aware of the hazards and violations.

A year after Texas City, in 2006, BP became responsible for the largest spill on the North Slope in Alaska. A corroded pipeline in Prudhoe Bay dumped 200,000 gallons of oil over the course of 5 days. It was estimated to have covered two acres. Months later, the pipeline leaked 1,000 gallons again.

And in 2007, OSHA also fined BP again for safety violations at their Toledo, Ohio refinery. The violations were synched with the cause of the 2005 refinery explosion.

The Center for Public Integrity also recently found that in total, BP was responsible for 97 percent of all violations found in the past three years.

Considering these instances, there is no wonder or surprise in the fact that safety is being considered as a factor in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. A recent investigation by Representative Henry Waxman found that the rig’s “blowout preventer” had a leak in the hydraulic system and that it had failed a pressure test hours before the explosion. This finding was exacerbated when a whistleblower in the industry said that BP was aware of safety issues related to the Atlantis, another deepwater rig in the Gulf.

Despite the significant amount of evidence proving that they had a history of safety violations, serious irony occurred on the same day of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Also on April 20, BP flew officials onto the rig to celebrate its safety record. The circumstances almost seem too strange to be real: something that would happen in a comedic cartoon of the event.

 While it’s not exactly a secret that many companies have piggy backed on the swelling wave of interest in the term ‘green,’ it’s slightly ironic that BP, with this kind of history would have the fortitude to ever consider themselves a truly environmentally friendly company.

Group vice president for marketing for BP, Anna Catalano, once told the New York Times that BP is "the company that goes beyond what you expect from an oil company -- frank, open, honest and unapologetic."

Given the information above and the current oil spill, it’s hard to agree that the first three of the above adjectives accurately describe this company. Its clear that one of these applies.

Jo Billups is a friend and supporter of Greenpeace who lives in the Gulf region.

I was born in New Orleans and grew up on the Bayou. I spent my childhood looking at alligators and being on the river. I used to go fishing on these waters, and my dad had a camp at South Pass.

The Gulf is such a big part of my life. That’s why the oil spill has been so hard.

I feel betrayed. BP should never have been allowed to put our communities and our ecosystem at risk like this. Eleven people are no longer with us because of offshore drilling. All our fishermen, shrimpers and oystersmen are out of work. Our culture is in ruins.  

The fishing community

Most people in the fishing community live paycheck to paycheck. They’ve been working on their boats all year and investing everything they have into them. Now, as soon as fishing and oyster season opens, they can’t fish. The spill has stopped the fishing industry. The fish are starting to wash up dead.    

Our community is centered around the beach life and the Gulf. So many people make their living off it and they’ve done it for generations. The fishermen are fishermen because their fathers and grandfathers were fishermen. It’s the same for the shrimpers and the oystermen. Who knows if they’ll ever be able to return to life as they knew it on the Gulf. An entire way of life has been devastated.  

The impacts

Over this last month I’ve gone from walking the beaches for pleasure to walking the beaches in search of dead animals and animals in need. There is a split reality here. You’ve got people lying on the beach in bathing suits, and 60 feet away there are dead sea turtles and people in hazmat suits. You’ve got people who know it’s dangerous and won’t get near the water, and you’ve got people coming down for vacation.  

There’s a lot of denial. BP just paid the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce $500,000 for a campaign that says “Come on down, the water’s fine.” But the reality is there’s a lot of fear and anxiety. The tourist industry is beginning to suffer. Memorial Day is coming up and a lot of the hotels are not booked.    

I don’t think I’ll ever swim in the Gulf of Mexico again, or eat fish from the Gulf. Some people are still at the beaches and the seafood is still being served at the restaurants, but I haven’t seen any tests being done. They’re going to need to do a lot of testing to ensure that fish is safe to eat.

Everybody will tell you that it smells like kerosene. People are coughing and complaining of headaches, dizziness, and nausea. The air is toxic, and we’re being told that we’re not smelling anything.

From the minute the leak began BP said it wasn’t leaking. From the very first day BP has been lying about this. We need to constantly combat the misinformation. BP has people cleaning the beaches of dead animals, like it didn’t happen. Our beaches have never been cleaner. They won’t give us the information. They won’t give us a true animal count. They’re doing such a huge campaign to make it seem like it’s not as bad as it is.

Hurricane season

But this is happening. The Bayou Region is being destroyed, and now we are approaching hurricane season. People aren’t even talking about this yet, and it could be bigger than anything we’ve seen. It won’t take a big hurricane to push this oil inland. It won’t take much to push this up to drinking water sources, up the Mississippi.

Everyone down here is just coming back from Katrina, and a hurricane would be devastating. If we get a 30 foot tidal wave of oil there’s no way to tell the damage it will do. We saw the damage water alone that was done after Katrina, and now we’re adding oil and dispersants to the mix. No one knows how bad that could be because it has never happened. We’re truly in unchartered waters.    
 
The government can prevent this

I hope people realize that fossil fuels are dirty, nasty and dangerous to people and ecosystems.  

To be dependent on fossil fuels is like being in the dinosaur age. We have to more forward. We have got to harness the sun, the water, and the wind. We need to embrace clean energies. I do not trust energies that put people and ecosystems at risk. Alternative fuels are the only answer.  
 
I hope people learn to question and not become complacent about dirty energy operating in their backyards. Those rigs have been there all my life. When something is there that long you get lulled into a false sense of security. Every single rig has the potential to cause this kind of damage. I hope that people learn to speak out and not allow this to happen in their community. It can ruin everything.  

I’ve been teaching others about recycling, biodiversity, and conservation for 20 years, but that doesn’t touch what’s happened here. This goes beyond the lesson I was teaching. You can teach those concepts, but if you’ve got BP in your backyard it doesn’t matter how much you recycle or conserve.

Our government can stop this. I’d like to know the plan so that this never happens to another community like it did to mine. I’d like to hear the government’s plan to spare any other communities from having to deal with a disaster like this one.  

- Jo Billups

It’s been a month since the BP oil disaster in the Gulf and over 6 million gallons of oil has already spilled and is showing no sign of letting up. A WHOLE MONTH has gone by and the situation only seems to be getting worse! And yet BP is rebranding themselves as “beyond petroleum” claiming that it sums up their brand as a company that is moving towards a “lower carbon future”?

On BP’s website they claim that they are a company that is “exploring, developing and producing more fossil fuel resources to meet growing demand”. But how exactly can you develop and produce more fossil fuels when it’s not a renewable resource and is made from the organic remnants of prehistoric life. BP claims they are trying to “meet the challenges of our time in a sustainable way”, but our resources are being depleted fast and once they’re gone, they’re gone…

So I guess when BP says they are “exploring, developing and producing more fossil fuel”, they actually mean they are about to make a decision on whether to invest billions of dollars into the Canadian tar sands - the dirtiest oil currently being produced. The tar sands of Canada are roughly the size of Belgium and are currently the biggest industrial development and opencast mining operation on the face of the Earth. They are natural deposits of heavy oil mixed with clay and sand that lay beneath the wilderness of Canada for which the only access is clearcutting the Boreal Forest. To produce one barrel of oil, two tons of land must be unearthed and when the pits are producing 1.82 million barrels a day, habitats are destroyed and many species are being driven to the brink of extinction. Sounds sustainable, right?

If they are supposedly trying to use more sustainable approaches, is there any rational reason as to why they would choose to invest in the tar sands which produce about three times the emissions per barrel of oil than you would get from normal crude? The projections of oil in the tar sands will create enough carbon emmissions by the end of the century to raise the global temperature by six degrees. As I said before; sounds sustainable, right?

Greenpeace agrees. This morning our climbers scaled the corporate headquarters of BP in London to give them their own rebranding makeover that better suits their dirty business. BP, now aptly known as “British Polluters” for their investment in the dirtiest oil on the planet, needs something else than a nice shiny green flower as their brand identity.

Take action today and tell Congress that it’s time that we end our addiction to fossil fuels. It’s time to invest more in sustainable energy unless we are prepared for more loss of life, more ecological catastrophe, and more economic ruin.

 

 

So what if the waiter spit in your soup? The amount of spit is tiny compared to the amount of soup in your bowl.

So what if there’s arsenic in the water? The amount of arsenic is tiny compared to the amount of water in the municipal supply.

So what? Well, I for one wouldn’t want to eat that soup or drink that water, despite assurances that the good stuff is in more abundance than the bad stuff. Would you?

Incredibly, this is basically the argument being advanced by BP CEO Tony Hayward, who recently told the UK Guardian of the BP Deepwater Disaster oil spill in an attempt to play down the impact of the oil spill on Gulf ecosystems: “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

Some 5 million gallons of oil have spilled so far — and that’s based on conservative estimates of the rate at which oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. And BP has reportedly used an “estimated 400,000 gallons” of dispersant — itself a highly toxic and dangerous substance — to try and cover its tracks.

Several attempts by BP to stem the flow of the oil have failed, so Hayward is touting the use of dispersants as a major success by BP because it has kept the oil from washing ashore in “large amounts.” Of course, as we’ve been reporting, this is only a good thing for BP, because images of the oil washing up on beaches and coating wildlife such as sea birds who are currently nesting in the delicate ecosystems of the Gulf’s shoreline would compound the damage to the company’s already beleaguered public image.

In reality, the dispersant and the oil are both toxic and are both poisoning fish, which the seabirds need to eat. Funny thing about an ecosystem is that everything is interconnected, and you can’t do harm to one part without effecting the rest. But that, apparently, is no concern of Tony Hayward’s.

The truth is, Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems will be dealing with the effects of this oil spill for generations to come. The real extent of the damage won’t be known for some time, but it’s sure to be disastrous. Livelihoods are already being lost, dolphins and other marine mammals are already turning up dead on beaches — and it’s only just begun.

Try as he might, there is no way for Tony Hayward to minimize the impact of his company’s negligence in this case. And it’s only a matter of time before the next oil spill — which could be even more disastrous if it occurred in a place that is far more fragile and hard to reach, such as the Arctic. It’s time Congress took serious action to end our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and usher in a new era of clean, green renewable energy.

During the Summer of 2007 I was fortunate enough to travel on Greenpeace’s wonderful vessel, the Esperanza. As we left Homer Alaska to begin our two-month journey into the Bering Sea, my home, we made a quick stop at Port Graham in Kachamak Bay in the southern Cook Inlet. This was a blessing for me in many ways, mostly because it was one of my Parishes in my other life for eight years! Port Graham was also one of the many Alaskan Native Villages severely impacted by the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. Here is some of what I learned during this visit.

May 15, 2010 - Dr. Erica Miller, a member of the Louisiana State Wildlife Response Team, cleanses a pelican of oil at the Clean Gulf Associates Mobile Wildlife Rehabilitation Station on Ft. Jackson in Plaquemines Parish, La. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Justin Stumberg/Released) Read more latest news about the BP Deepwater Disaster, view more pics, and take action to prevent the next oil spill

We arrived in Port Graham and immediately visited one of the Tribal Council’s most respected elders, Eleanor. She had so many stories to tell that if we had stayed for a whole day we would not have heard them all, so she chose a few important to what we were doing. One of the statements she made regarding the impacts of the oil spill was, “It never ends….never goes away.” And to this day I am deep in thought over those words. What did she mean? Why did she say that?

She said that her grandchildren, born right around that time in 1989-90, were lost children. Lost because they would not know what it means to go hunting, fishing or berry-picking and gather food, their traditional food, and share it with the village. They did not know, nor would they ever experience, the joy of giving a five-gallon bucket of clams to the elders in the village, the shear goodness of carrying on this long-standing and sacred tradition. They would not know the blessings of capturing a harbor seal for food — not killing the animal but rather receiving it from the animal itself as a gift to them. They would not know the experience of bringing the animal to the beach and ceremoniously thanking the animal, and returning unused parts of the animal back to the sea. They would not know that respecting the seal and all foods in this way and returning parts of it back to the sea was a respectful thank you. They would not know the certainty that the animal will return once again to offer itself as a gift to the village as food. They only would hear stories of how it was done once and what it means.

Eleanor continued to speak in a way that only a suffering grandma can speak: in slow, quiet, well-chosen words peppered with patience and longing.

She continued: "My grandchildren will not know the joy of being hungry and exhausted following one of these food gathering journeys so familiar to those of us blessed to have been born at a different time. When one gathers food in such a manner, creating an unmistakable tie to centuries of ancestors, doing what they did in a manner considered the only way to do it, it opens thoughts and feelings in the mind and heart one can only experience by doing these activities. They will not know this. And the exhaustion, the hunger can only be granted by following these traditions, feelings granted by our ancestors because of our efforts. This is not suffering. This is real connection to life, to holy things. They will not know this."

“It never ends,” she concluded. “These generations of young people cannot experience these gifts because they have grown older and these things can only be done at a certain age, at certain places, at certain times and certain seasons.”

The forlorn sounds and expressions in her voice and deeply in her eyes said it all. They are lost. This is a part of what the oil giant Exxon spewed upon an ancient people. Not only was the environmental disaster totally destructive to the ocean and its flora and fauna, but to generations of lost people, as well. People who can only dream about what could have been. People who could not experience this important transitional time of their lives. Surely the ocean and lands, mother nature may some day recover so future generations can return to their sacred traditions. But can they really? There may not be anyone around who knows these things to teach them — or worse, they just would not know what they could have learned.

And now Shell plans to begin drilling in the Arctic Ocean, even as the oil continues to pour into the Gulf of Mexico.

It never ends.

Greenpeace UK oceans campaigner Willie Mackenzie tells us what's wrong with the way most tuna are caught.

Greenpeace is not against purse-seining. That may surprise some people. Sure it’s a big industrial-looking fishing operation, involving huge nets and catching lots of fish. But that’s not always a bad thing.

If we are to assume we’re still going to catch and eat fish, then purse-seining as a method is probably going to be something that continues. Purse-seining involves setting a large circular ‘wall’ of net around fish, then ‘pursing’ the bottom together to capture them. Where purse-seining is best used is with large single-species schools of fish, that shoal tightly together. Examples like herring or mackerel spring to mind. These can be caught relatively ‘cleanly’ by purse-seining.

But where purse-seining is a bad idea is when targeting fish that a) also involves the bycatch of non-target species, and b) simply can’t take the fishing pressure on their populations.

And that’s where we get to tuna. At both ends of the tuna size and value scale, purse-seining is employed.

For skipjack, the smallest species, and staple of tinned tuna, purse-seining is used throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The problem here is that skipjack tuna often shoal together with young bigeye or yellowfin tuna. These often end up in the nets too. As do sharks, rays, turtles, and other species of fish. Then when you add in the complicating factor of Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs) – the use of which increase the amount of bycatch – then the problem gets even worse.

The solution here is firstly to stop using FADs, thereby immediately reducing the amount of other species ‘accidentally’ caught. Then to employ measures to further reduce, and wherever possible free, unwanted species caught up in nets. Given the endangered species of oceanic turtles, sharks, and bigeye tuna, this is not wishful thinking. Cleaning up skipjack purse-seine fishing must happen, and happen soon.

Then at the other end of the scale, massive bluefin tuna are also caught by purse-seines, in places like the Mediterranean. This is by no means a ‘traditional’ fishing method, and in fact the increase in purse seining over the past few decades has been at the expense of local, and traditional methods of fishing that have existed much longer.

What happens today is that the bluefin, aggregating to spawn, are targeted by vast purse-seine nets. Then those that are too young to sell on are towed off to be kept and fattened up in cages.

The Atlantic bluefin population simply can’t take fishing at this level. It is this fishing method, and the associated ranching, all in turn driven by a new-found appetite for bluefin sushi around the world (and especially Japan) that have caused Atlantic bluefin numbers to plummet.

They are now an endangered species, and purse-seining rhinos or tigers would be equally reprehensible.

And the losers in this set-up, aside from the bluefin themselves, or the bycatch in skipjack nets, are the traditional fishing communities who have been catching these fish with minimal impact for centuries.

-- Willie

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Since oil started gushing into the Gulf of Mexico nearly a month ago, BP has been doing everything it can — to protect its profits, image, and reputation. Even as their oil is destroying the Gulf of Mexico’s unique ecosystems and the marine animals and local economies that depend on them, BP has launched a public relations campaign to try and minimize the fallout of this disaster to their bottom line.  But no matter its efforts to rebrand itself or downplay the significance of this disaster, BP, can't hide from this.

BP is certainly trying though. The company withheld video evidence that revealed that much more oil was pumping into the Gulf than the official estimates – perhaps 10 times as much or even more.  And it's executives have been trying to deflect the blame onto someone else at congressional hearings.

They’ve been injecting thousands of gallons of toxic dispersants to keep the oil from reaching the surface, even though no one knows what the effects of this massive experiment will be on fish and other organisms. Independent scientists and Louisiana fisherman understand why — it’s not about cleaning up the oil, it’s about hiding it from public view on the surface, even though spreading it throughout the Gulf could just be exacerbating the damage. Indeed, independent scientists have found that the use of dispersants may be causing the oil to form massive underwater plumes, which could harm sperm whales, bluefin tuna, and other creatures that live in the open ocean.

But don’t bother BP's CEO Tony Hayward with that news, who recently said: “Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact will be very, very modest."

That's not what we're seeing.

We’re pretty skeptical of claims by the oil industry and the government officials who still seem to be doing more to protect polluters than to hold them accountable for the devastation they are causing. That’s why Greenpeace’s team on the Gulf Coast has been bearing witness to the disaster and conducting an independent assessment of the impacts. On board the Greenpeace boat “Billy Greene,” we’ve sought to bring oil spill experts and media to see what is really happening to the Gulf and the Mississippi Delta, no matter what the latest spin from BP.

This is the cost of our reliance on dirty and dangerous energy.

It's time to announce "another big forest victory!" This one I take great pleasure in sending out myself. At first blush it might not appear as sexy as our unfolding Indonesian forest story or as awe-inspiring as our ongoing Amazon soy and cattle story, but I believe that someday we will look back at the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement and deem it the most important of all.

Canada! Where Greenpeace started. Canada! Where the Greenpeace Forest Campaign started. Canada! Home to the world’s largest timber industry! Canada! Now home to the biggest eco-regional land use planning process in history!

Read more, check out a slideshow, video, and find links to full documentation about the Boreal Agreement

Why? Because people like you have been helping us campaign on the issue for years. This is why we ran the Kimberly-Clark campaign in the first place!

On the table will be 277,992 sq miles of boreal forest – that’s like one Texas plus one New Hampshire put together! Of that, 111,969 square miles of prime habitat will be immediately placed in 100% moratoria – that’s like one Nevada and one Rhode Island put together. No logging, no road building, no nothing.

To be clear, today’s agreement is an agreement to START a three-year negotiation process. For the next three years Greenpeace and a bunch of other environmental groups will be negotiating with a consortium of 21 logging companies. Seats will soon be filled by First Nation representatives, too. A 100-something page framework for talks has already been agreed with 60 something measurable milestones that must be met along the way – all monitored by an independent 3rd party.


Download map as PDF

For you older folks or students of history, think of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement as the giant, oversized child of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement which is today considered the global hallmark of conservation agreements. The Great Bear multi-stakeholder, eco-regional land use planning process was a first-of-its-kind, unprecedented achievement with huge conservation gains, as all logging is mandated to meet or exceed FSC standards. This new Boreal Agreement, if the 3-year negotiation process succeeds, will be the same thing … only much, much bigger.

Will it be a 3-year hair-pulling, teeth-grinding fight? Hell yeah! Friendships will be gained and strained. Some may turn to the bottle. But mark my words, we’re gonna win it. We’re not negotiating from scratch. A lot of important “givens” are already built into the process.

Thanks to everyone who ever did anything to help any Boreal forest campaign! Now the real work begins. Wish us luck.

Finally... some good news! Nestle, the world's biggest food and drinks company, announced that it will cease using products that drive the tropical rainforest destruction.

This is great news for our environment in what has otherwise been a bleak few weeks. President Obama continues to dig in (or drill in) and stand firm behind his plans to increase offshore oil drilling despite the BP Deepwater oil disaster and continues to work to lift the ban on commercial whaling.

In the midst of it all, Nestle's recent act is a refreshing act of leadership.

Here is why this matters: 17 percent of global-warming pollution comes from deforestation. Brazil and Indonesia are among the four most polluting countries (with China and the U.S.) because cutting trees releases carbon pollution.

To address the main driver of deforestation in Brazil -- cattle ranching -- Greenpeace worked with Nike, Wal-Mart, Timberland, and other companies to pressure their suppliers to stop grazing cattle on recently deforested land.

In Indonesia, palm oil and pulp plantations are both driving deforestation and pushing orangutans to the brink of extinction. After being caught red-handed, Nestle has committed to identify and exclude companies from its supply chain that own or manage "high-risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation." This exclusion would apply to companies such as Sinar Mas, Indonesia's most notorious palm-oil and pulp-and-paper supplier, if it fails to meet the criteria set out in the policy. It also has implications for palm oil traders, such as Cargill, which continue to buy from Sinar Mas.

Read more at Grist.com >>

 

Reports are trickling in about an increasing number of dolphins and sea turtles washing up dead on the Gulf of Mexico coast. We are starting to see oil-covered seabirds, bringing back memories of the terrible photos from the Exxon Valdez spill. There were even rumors this week, as yet unconfirmed, of several dead sperm whales.

Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. No one seems to know for sure how much oil has been spilled, but the estimates keep increasing. Some scientists are now saying that the equivalent of two Valdez spills per week is gushing into the Gulf right now. So far, most of the oil has remained below the surface, offshore, and out of sight – and so have the impacts to marine life.

Part of the problem with assessing what the spill is doing to Gulf species has been a lack of transparency by those doing the assessing. BP has hired contractors to test dead animals, but what we’ve seen from them so far has been a bit dubious. When contractors tell the media that the number of dead dolphins is no cause for alarm, or that there is no link to the spill, it doesn’t exactly instill confidence.

NOAA is the federal agency we would expect to lead this, and it is good to see that they are taking a larger role now. Unfortunately, before even preliminary analysis has been shared about whether use of toxic chemical dispersants is compounding the threat to marine life, the Environmental Protection Agency has just approved their use at depth. No one knows the impact this will have on the Gulf ecosystem, but it will keep more of those impacts out of sight – and at least for now, that is enough for BP and the Obama Administration.

But not for us.

What’s sweeter than a candy bar?  The new pledge by food giant Nestle to cut forest destruction out of its products and out of its supply chain.  In just weeks, a global Greenpeace campaign has transformed Nestle from a company driving rainforest destruction through its use of palm oil, to one pioneering an ambitious new policy to ensure its products have a zero deforestation footprint.

With its new policy, Nestle commits to identify and exclude companies from its supply chain that own or manage “high risk plantations or farms linked to deforestation.”  This would apply to the notorious Sinar Mas group, a palm oil and paper conglomerate that Greenpeace has repeatedly caught destroying Paradise rainforests.  It also has implications for Cargill, a Nestle palm oil supplier which purchases from Sinar Mas.  In short, companies can either stop destroying rainforests, or they will stop having Nestle’s business.

While this victory came swiftly, there was a lot of work leading up to it.  For years, Greenpeace has worked to achieve major breakthroughs with some of the world’s largest users of palm oil including Unilever, Kraft and other giant consumer product companies.  Despite this, Nestle – the largest food and drink company in the world – was dragging its feet.  To motivate them, Greenpeace launched a global campaign on March 17th targeting the company and exposing its links to Paradise Forest destruction.

Within a few hours of the campaign launch and publishing of our Caught Red-Handed expose, Nestle agreed to cancel its direct business contracts with Sinar Mas.

But, that was a relatively small move for Nestle – most of the palm oil they purchase comes from third-party traders.  We had to keep the pressure on the company.  Thanks to supporters and activists like you around the world, we did just that.

The support online has been overwhelming.  The edgy “Have a Break” campaign video removal from YouTube sparked an online uproar and video reposting to Vimeo, driving 100,000 online views within the first 24 hours.  Within weeks, the video had been viewed more than 1.5 million times!

Facebook was another key online arena for the campaign, where a steady stream of pressure was applied to Nestle via comments you posted on its Facebook page.  The response was so overwhelming, it incapacitated Nestle’s page, spiraling into an online PR disaster for the company.  The Wall Street Journal, among other international media, was prompted to declare that “Nestle Takes a Beating on Social-Media Sites.”

The power of social media combined dramatically with our direct actions to deliver the message directly to Nestlé at events like its annual shareholder meeting on April 15th.  Outside the meeting venue, investors and executives were greeted by protesting orangutans as they arrived.  Inside, our activists hid in conference center's cavernous rafters, then dropped down on banners over executives heads telling Nestle to stop destroying rainforests.  You can read more about those dramatic actions in one of my previous blog entries.

Despite its new commitments, Nestle has plenty of work to do to implement its policy.  You can rest assured Greenpeace will be watching closely to make sure it does.

Greenpeace will also be making it clear that other large companies and retailers must take steps to clean up their palm oil and pulp and paper supply chains.  The Nestle policy does not mean the problem is fixed.  Rather, it is a model and starting point for other companies to build on.

Governments need to get involved as well to make sure actions by companies are not short-circuited, and to ensure long-term protections for the Paradise Forests.  President Obama is going to Indonesia in June and is expected to address forest issues while there.  Tell him to encourage Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to protect peatlands and create a moratorium on forest destruction immediately.  Click here to take action!

Also, spread the good news about this huge victory to friends on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace!

For the forests,

-Rolf

After spending decades as a commercial fisherman in the North Pacific, I fully understand the economic hardships facing Gulf fishermen. I’ve faced seasons that were either delayed or closed for various reasons myself. The economic disruption and resulting stress for my family was miniscule compared to what Gulf fishermen are facing. But at the time it seemed like our world was crashing down around us.

May 5, 2010 - Fishermen wait to talk to a representative of BP to registe their boats and work with the cleanup effort in the Gulf of Mexico. It's the only work they can get now that most local fisheries are closed. © Tim Aubry/Greenpeace Find more images of the BP Deepwater Disaster, read the latest news, and take action to stop the next oil spill

As the old saying goes: “Timing is everything.” It goes without saying that there’s never a good time for an oil spill. However, for fishing fleets in the Gulf of Mexico, the timing of this spill couldn’t have been worse. During the winter, while not fishing and living off the previous season’s earnings, the family coffers drain to empty. The stress at home goes up as the bank account goes down.

Winter slowly fades to spring, and optimism about the upcoming season begins to build as captains and crews get ready to start doing what they do best – fish for their living. Knowing there’s just a matter of days from the first paycheck of the season, some bills sit on the counter unpaid: “Oh well, we’ll pay the late fees.” You have to be ready for the opening – get out the credit cards, make a deal with the fuel dock to pay later, borrow from friends, family, the bank – whoever – to buy the groceries, fuel, ice, and needed equipment. The boat is ready and the bank account empty but not to worry, fishing season is literally hours away! Watch the weather forecast. Recheck everything. It’s almost time… It will all work out, it always has…

And then BAM! Oil everywhere, poisoning the fish, poisoning the birds, washing up on shore, destroying the ecosystem you have built your living on your whole life.

The impact of this oil spill is not going be a short-term event, and then back to business as usual. There’s a real possibility that the very ecosystem that supports Gulf fisheries will be damaged for years to come.

For BP to offer a quick $5,000 one-time payment to the fishermen and their families who have quite literally lost their livelihood is outrageous. Fishing families need money to pay their bills immediately and support payments need to continue for as long as it takes the Gulf to recover.

Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, the Tokyo Two (T2) are two Greenpeace activists on trial in Japan for exposing a whale meat embezzlement scandal within Japan’s Southern Ocean Whaling Program. Yesterday, two crewmembers of the Nisshin Maru whaling and processing ship took the stand.  These two men were central figures in the embezzlement investigation completed by the T2 and Greenpeace, and they had to answer questions on record about the whale meat embezzlement. 

Greenpeace/Molly Intersimone. Artist sketch of witness in Aomori District courtroom. May 14th, 2010

Through the investigation by Greenpeace and the T2, and subsequent evidence in court, it has been shown that the whaling industry is a corrupt government-subsidized annual whale hunt disguised as scientific research.  By the end of the day yesterday, one crewmember confirmed much of the T2’s investigative work in 2008.  He described the involvement of the Fisheries Agency of Japan and the Japan Whaling Association as recipients of whale meat gifts.  Previously in court, a former crewmember identified government officials not only as recipients of “gifts” but actually accused employees of the government’s Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) of taking the best cuts of whale meat off-the-record and for personal gain. The ICR is the body of the Fisheries Agency that accompanies whalers so they can claim to be doing "lethal scientific whaling."

The other crewmember who testified could not keep his story straight, explain why he had brought materials commonly used in preserving whale bacon on board, or say what was in the boxes he sent home.  At one point, he even claimed that he was shipping home Arctic Ice and unwanted whale cuts before the defense reminded him that all of his boxes were shipped at room temperature.  The Public Prosecutor's Office has chosen to silence citizens calling attention to embezzlement instead of investigating the real scandal.  Embezzlement in a tax-payer funded enterprise where beneficiaries of illegally procured whale meat go all the way up to the Fisheries Agency of Japan.  As more and more evidence comes out, it is apparent that this is a political trial meant to protect those in Japan receiving unmarked boxes of valuable whale bacon.  

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Junichi and Toru had been arbitrarily detained and their freedom of expression violated.   See UNWGAD summary. 

On the other hand, Junichi and Toru have used the trial to show with utmost transparency their investigation and to show how they consistently operated within their rights to Freedom of Expression:

“Through the course of this trial we have consistently proven that we acted in the public interest, which is protected under international law,” said Toru Suzuki, Greenpeace Japan. “The United Nations Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was clear in its opinion(1) that neither Junichi or I should have been detained and this prosecution is political. We trust that the court will take this into account, and acquit us.”

 -Toru Suzuki

The next trial date is June 8th, where closing arguments will be heard and the prosecution will request a sentence for two citizens they should be applauding for their courage not silencing to save face.  

Sign the petition for the T2

Read the  International Press Release and Past Blog Trial Coverage

Whaling 101

Keep up to date the about Tokyo Two and the whaling issue by joining the T2 facebook page.  

As BP’s oil continues to spew unabated into the Gulf of Mexico, Shell continues to push forward with plans for exploratory drilling off Alaska’s Arctic coast. If Shell gets its way, it will begin exploratory drilling in July in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, home to polar bears, walrus, whales, seals and other distinctive Arctic species, as well as communities who have relied on these animals and the environment for their culture and subsistence for millenia.

Shell is scrambling to show that its plans are nothing like BP's. Shell’s 2010 Exploration Plan for the Chukchi Sea states, "a large oil spill, such as a crude oil release from a blowout, is extremely rare and not considered a reasonably foreseeable impact.” Shell dismisses the risk of a blowout, just like BP’s 2009 Exploration Plan downplayed the possibility of a catastrophic accident with the Deepwater Horizon, suggesting that it was unlikely, or virtually impossible, for an accident to occur. Yet 11 workers were killed and oil has been gushing from the well for more than three weeks, with no end in sight.

BP’s Deepwater Horizon drill rig was built in 2001 and heralded as state-of-the-art, ushering in a new era of exploratory drilling. In comparison, Shell plans to use a drill ship built in 1966, when Lyndon Johnson was president. Clearly, the risk of a blowout during exploratory drilling are very real, despite what BP and Shell say.

The BP Deepwater Horizon spill is in a temperate part of the country with substantial oil spill response infrastructure nearby. Yet BP’s spill response has been hampered by weather — choppy seas, wind, etc — and “cleanup” in open water has been limited to burning patches of oil or spraying toxic dispersants which merely break the oil into smaller pieces where it can still do damage to the marine ecosystem, not to mention the toxic impacts of dispersants on marine life.

To be blunt, the Deepwater Horizon demonstrates that it’s difficult to respond to an oil spill of this magnitude in the Gulf of Mexico, and “cleaning it up,” actually removing the oil from the environment, is impossible. On a good day, only 10-15 percent of spilled oil is actually removed from the environment. Estimates for BP’s spill in the Gulf are a fraction of that.

Now take the scenario of BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and superimpose it where Shell wants to drill in Alaska’s Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. These seas are in the Arctic, where “summer” means temperatures hovering in the 40s, gale-force winds, week-long storms and heavy fog that restricts visibility. Sea ice is also a factor, in fact, Shell’s fleet of seven ships for Chukchi and Beaufort exploratory drilling includes an icebreaker. Some of the wells in the Chukchi Sea are up to 140 miles from shore. Most importantly, oil spill response capacity in this remote part of the world is a tiny fraction of what exists in the Gulf of Mexico, and oil spill “clean up” in Arctic waters is impossible.

The last time the oil industry conducted an oil spill response test in Alaska was back in 2000, off Prudhoe Bay in the Beaufort Sea. I observed the mock test from one of industry’s barges and a smaller response boat. Sea ice prevented the smaller boats from even leaving the dock, the test was a failure, and Alaksa state regulators acknowledged that. However, that was the last time the state required an oil company to test its equipment in a mock, open-water oil spill on the North Slope of Alaska where Shell plans to conduct exploratory drilling this summer.

Shell and the rest of the oil industry will say that oil spill response and “clean up” technologies have advanced since then, that they can deal with an oil spill in the Arctic, but don’t believe it. They rely on field tests where relatively small amounts of oil are released in controlled environments and then extrapolate from there. Moreover, none of their studies are peer-reviewed. The US Coast Guard calls an oil spill in the Arctic its “nightmare scenario,” and with good reason. As difficult as it is to respond to an oil spill in the temperate waters of the Gulf of Mexico, responding to an oil spill is fraught with problems in the Arctic, and “clean up”  is impossible.

BP’s Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill have already taken the lives of eleven people and caused as-of-yet uncalculated damage to the people, economy and environment of the Gulf. We can only hope that the horrible loss and damage from BP’s disaster is the turning point for US energy policy so that Alaska’s pristine Chukchi and Beaufort seas are protected from Shell’s drilling and spilling.

The Kerry-Lieberman climate bill has finally been released, and it appears that all the delays gave polluter lobbyists ample time to really do their dirty work on the bill. It's now what you might call more of a "dirty energy bailout" bill than anything else. Greenpeace cannot support the bill unless several key weaknesses are changed, as outlined in this press statement.

Why is it a dirty energy bailout? It incentivizes offshore drilling — at a time when a disastrous oil spill is still pumping over 200,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day. It would subsidize coal at a time when most folks are asking how we can limit the damage coal is doing to our communities and the environment in the aftermath of the terrible explosion at a mine in West Virginia. Earthtrack has a good breakdown of the subsidies for dirty energy industries.

Never has the time been more ripe for making the case to America that we need to transition off of the dirty fossil fuels of the past and toward the clean, renewable energy sources of the future. Instead, Kerry and Lieberman’s American Power Act will actually prolong our dependence on destructive, dirty fossil fuels.

The bill does nothing to address our addiction to oil, but would endanger more of our coastlines with catastrophic oil spills like the BP Deepwater Disaster — all for a miniscule amount of oil, as you can see in the graphic to the right. Clearly the cure for our oil addiction is not more offshore drilling, but to aggressively move into renewable energy.

 Perhaps the biggest boon to the dirty energy industries, however, is the weak emissions targets called for in the bill. Dirty energy purveyors are desperate to evade regulation of their carbon emissions so that they can keep pumping millions of tons of global warming pollution into our atmosphere free of charge. And with the emissions reductions called for in this bill – roughly 4% below 1990 levels by 2025 — they will essentially get to do just that.

To add insult to injury, this bill literally guts the EPA’s authority to regulate dangerous greenhouse gases at a time when global concentrations are rapidly becoming critical. Also, even if the states decided to set tough emissions standards, the bill would preempt them from setting tougher emissions standards than the federal government. This “climate bill” guts key provisions of the Clean Air Act and the EPA’s authority to enforce proven legislation that is designed to protect Americans from some of the most dangerous pollutants.

It’s time to get serious about national energy policy. A truly visionary energy and climate bill would spend $54B on electric cars, smart grid technology, and public transportation instead of nuclear madness. It would level the playing field to allow clean energy technologies to compete in the marketplace on an equal footing with fossil fuels, not throw money at mythical technologies like carbon capture and sequestration.  

A clean energy policy truly deserving of the name would significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide substantial incentives for transforming our economy with clean, renewable energy technologies and in the process generate new green jobs on a national scale. This is how leaders respond. Now is the time for Congress to act with a comprehensive, science-based plan to take America into the 21st Century and provide real international leadership.  

Even with opposition from Americans for Prosperity, Glenn Beck, American Petroleum Institute, the Chamber of Commerce, and all the other climate deniers, the American people still know that we need to find solutions to global warming. All we need is leadership and to clear the dirty energy lobbyists out of town. You can take action right now to call on Congress to provide that leadership and pass a bill that doesn’t hand out giveaways to the fossil fuels industries.

It’s now been over three weeks since BP’s oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded, burned and sank in the Gulf of Mexico. These have been hectic weeks for all concerned, no doubt, but the paucity of information available to the public is, at best, discouraging.

How much oil is flowing / has flowed into the Gulf of Mexico? 

The figure we keep hearing is 5,000 barrels or 210,000 gallons per day. After 23 days, that adds up to 4,830,000 gallons. A week into the spill, there was speculation that the rate of flow might actually be 25,000 barrels (or 1,050,000 gallons) per day. If that’s true, then 24,150,000 gallons of oil are now in the gulf, a spill more than twice as large as the Exxon Valdez. Recent news reports stress that no one knows how much oil is flowing, but everyone seems to accept the 5,000 barrels per day figure. We know from past experience that oil companies tend to minimize the amount of oil spilled and, unlike a tanker spill, there is no finite amount of oil that can be spilled in the worst case scenario.

Why are we just now seeing images of the leak?

Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) have been working at the site of the spill since the first days after the rig sank. They transmit photos and video to their operators at the surface. Of course, the ROV operators have their hands full, but surely these images must have been passed along to the Coast Guard and other federal agencies that are – we’re told – in charge at the scene. Surely we understand why BP might be slow to release these images, but one would hope the federal government would have more respect for the public’s right to know what’s happening in a publicly owned resource.

Why is the federal government continuing to exempt offshore oil rigs from environmental standards?

Read all the latest news about the oil spill, view pics, and take action to stop the next one.

Thanks to the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), we learned late last week that the Minerals Management Service has granted categorical exclusions to 27 offshore rigs since the Deepwater Horizon exploded. “Categorical exclusions” mean that the projects do not have to pass the environmental review required by the National Environmental Policy Act. Categorical exclusions were built into the law for projects that clearly have limited environmental impact, like hiking trails, not oil rigs capable of wiping out entire ecosystems.

And by the way, what would have happened had CBD not blown the whistle?

Speaking of other rigs, what’s up with the other 3,000-plus rigs in the Gulf?

At Wednesday’s hearing in the House Energy Committee’s subcommittee on oversight, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) revealed the “fail-safe” blowout preventer had: 1) a dead battery in its control pod; 2) a leak in its hydraulic line; 3) a “useless” test version of a key component; and 4) a cutting shear that wasn’t strong enough. We have no reason to think other oil companies are more devoted to environmental protection than BP, so why should we not expect this to happen again and again and again? How do we know it won’t? Why should we think the federal government is providing adequate oversight?

Why did BP not have emergency plans ready in advance?

BP has already tried – and failed – to put a containment dome on the biggest leak. We all sat around for days while BP fabricated the dome on shore. If such domes – ineffective as it proved to be – are the best response for such leaks, why are they not pre-made and standing by on every rig? Now we sit and wait as BP fabricates a “top hat” plug. (Memo to BP: why don’t you start work on Plans D and E now instead of waiting for your latest contraption to fail?) Perhaps Plan D is the famous “junk shot,” in which BP will attempt to inject shredded tires, golf balls and knotted rope into the well. That’s 21st century technology? The best you can do? Golf balls and shredded tires? This is why we cannot afford to drill in the ocean. This is why we especially cannot allow incompetents to drill in the ocean.

What’s going on with the environment?

We’ve seen press releases from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) about taking samples in the gulf, but we haven’t seen what the results are. True, science does not move at the pace of the 24-hour news cycle, but NOAA should have something to tell us. What concentrations of oil are they finding at various depths? How far from the wellhead are they finding oil? (It would help establish an estimate of how much oil has leaked so far.)

What about the EPA? The oil spilled is light crude, which contains low-molecular weight volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In acute exposure, VOCs lead to headaches, nausea, vomiting and upper respiratory inflammation. Like the NOAA, the EPA is testing for VOCs, but where are the results? After 9-11, EPA infamously told people the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe. It wasn’t. Now they’re not telling us anything. I suppose it’s an improvement, but not much.

When will gulf residents begin to see restitution?

This spill happened at the worst time of year. Everything that swims, flies or crawls in the Gulf of Mexico is laying eggs and raising their young right now, if they can. Many of the commercial and sport fishing seasons were about to kick into high gear when the fishing grounds were closed. People are out money right now. They need help paying their May bills. And don’t tell me fishermen can get work from BP towing booms back and forth across the gulf. That’s like being invited to attend the funeral of your livelihood, your father’s livelihood and what you had hoped would have been your children’s livelihood.

In the Exxon Valdez spill, Exxon kept the damages case tied up in court for 20 years (and got the verdict reduced to ten cents on the dollar). Twenty percent of the Valdez plaintiffs died before they received compensation. Will BP’s executives be as heartless as ExxonMobil’s? Will the Department of Justice stand by and watch as gross injustice is done? Does the federal government respond to citizens or corporations that make campaign contributions?

Why is the Department of Justice not investigating all the legally specious forms BP and Transocean are pressuring people to sign?

The media has reported that Transocean, which owns the now-sunken Deepwater Horizon, tried to force the survivors to sign waivers promising not to sue Transocean for damages before they were allowed to leave the hotel they were brought to after their rescue. Alabama Attorney General Troy King had to step in and stop BP from distributing waivers to Alabama coastal residents, in which they would promise not to sue BP for damages in return for a small sum of cash. BP tried to get fishermen to sign gag orders, preventing them from speaking to the media, if they wanted work helping with the cleanup. I’m told most of these documents won’t stand up in court, but its not just about court, it’s the intimidation factor of predatory corporate attorneys going after victims in their hour of maximum anxiety.

Congress needs to hear loud and clear from all of us: No more drilling. Clean energy now! Why on earth would we ever consider letting Big Oil endanger more of our coastal communities and ecosystems?

After the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, employees and volunteers working around the oil became seriously ill and many of the thousands of workers died from inhaling the toxic air and handling dispersants that contained benzene and other chemicals.

Those same chemicals are currently being used on the BP Deepwater Oil Disaster.

In the Gulf the people at risk of illness are the thousands of Louisiana fisherman rendered jobless by BP’s oil spill.  These fishermen have been left with no other option than to work for the same company that has taken away their livelihoods.

In BP’s most recent move to avoid responsibility, the company is requiring these men and women to sign the waiver below.  The waiver protects BP from being sued by their staff and volunteers for “claims and damages in connection with use of equipment connected with the Response Activities.”

In other words, BP has prioritized protecting its corporate interests and pocketbook over providing medical care for injuries and illnesses stemming from those workers and families cleaning up the BP mess.

This is BP's second attempt to dodge responsibility and limit their liability.  A previous BP agreement, that gave residents $5,000 in exchange for waiving their right to sue, was already struck down by Louisiana courts.

 

 

The Tokyo Two (T2), are two Greenpeace activists on trial in Japan for exposing a whale meat embezzlement scandal. Now, those implicated in scandal they uncovered almost two years ago must take the stand.  Through the investigation by Greenpeace and the T2, and subsequent evidence in court, it has been shown that the whaling industry is not just a government subsidized yearly whale slaughter disguised as scientific research, but also an industry fraught with corruption.  Junichi and Toru, the T2, are on trial for revealing this corruption that implicates government officials and crewmembers, one of whom will take the stand tomorrow. 

It remains to be seen whether the three judges who will decide the fate of the T2 will understand that whaling should be on trial and not two Japanese citizens.  The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has identified this trial as a politically motivated one, and the Japanese Prosecutor’s Office has a motive to silence the T2. See UNWGAD summary.   Government employees from the ICR (Institute of Cetacean Research/fake science body) have been identified as part of the corruption.  One former whaling crew member took the stand at trial in March to talk about ICR officials taking expensive cuts of whale meat off record.

For this reason and so many more, people across the globe have taken action by signing a petition to PUT WHALING ON TRIAL. Recently, the Greenpeace delivered some of these petitions put forward a request for the Prosecution Inquest Committee  (PIC) to consider reopening the investigation into the scandal brought to their attention by Greenpeace.  This committee is supposed to be a body of citizens that reviews decisions by the Tokyo Prosecutor’s Office.  In 2008, the Prosecutor’s office had promised to investigate the embezzlement scandal the T2 brought forard and instead sent dozens officers to arrest the T2.  Before Greenpeace could submit all of the evidence to the PIC to reopen the case they were denied.  Just like a political trial, there is a united front to cover up the scandal and to silence the T2.  See a Timeline of Events.

Junichi and Toru were within their rights of freedom of expression under international law by conducting their investigation.  In addition, Japan is bound by international agreement to uphold their right of citizens to obtain and share information, not take steps to suppress it.  Elements of the original investigation have been laid out over the course of this long trial: the stealing of whale meat, black market sales, government employee beneficiaries, and much more.  Tomorrow will be another opportunity to find out about the embezzlement of whale meat on the Nisshin Maru.  As the crew member who took part in embezzling whale meat takes the witness stand, the world will wonder why the T2 are the ones facing jail time.  Sign the petition: Arrest Me Too.

Keep up to date the about Tokyo Two and the whaling issue by joining the T2 facebook page.  

Get the facts: Whale Meat Embezzlement Scandal, The Cover-up, and Whaling on Trial

Past Blog Trial Coverage

 

 

The following update is from Molly Dorozenski, Media Officer for Greenpeace US, currently in Louisiana…

I’ve just returned for a week with the Greenpeace team based in Louisiana.

I think it's hard for people to picture just what the waters surrounding Louisiana look like if they’ve never been there.  Before I got here, the aerial shots made it look like a vast, empty expanse of ocean.  But the oil has made it to the barrier islands, the delta of the Mississippi, and the edges of the bayou.  On daily boat trips out on the water in a boat captained by a former shrimp fisherman named Carey, and eventually, the Greenpeace boat, “Billy Greene” I saw much of the beauty of the Gulf Coast that may soon be altered or gone.

The Gulf is teeming with life.  In the bayou, we saw pelicans and egrets, terns circling overhead.  Ducks, roseate spoonbills.  Mullet were leaping out of the water, 1-2 feet above the surface -- dozens of them.  On one boat trip, as we approached the area near the Gosier islands where the oil had been thick earlier in the week, we saw a pod of dolphins leaping around the boat, close enough to touch.  Now with reports of dolphins with respiratory issues, coughing, that we heard on the ground and media reports of six dead dolphins washed ashore, it seems especially sad to know they are swimming in those waters.

At Breton Island, we saw that the interior side had been surrounded by two layers of booms -- the inner circle were heavily discolored from contact with the oil, which means that the oil is washing beneath them and reaching the shores.  There were so many birds you couldn't even count them -- the island is home to 23 species, including the endangered brown pelican, least tern, and piping plover. 

At Port Eads, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, on mainland Louisiana, we saw reeds coated in oil, and dark thick globs of it in the sand.  Other than those marks of the disaster, the beach was beautiful white sand, and the waters were warm – it’s a place where I once might have liked to go swimming.  If the reeds die from exposure to the oil, it won’t be long before the beach washes away.

The other layer of landscape in the gulf is also impossible not to notice -- the infrastructure of a massive oil industry, platforms and piping, old, abandoned oil wells, and now, a light sheen on the surface of the water in many places, dirty booms and a slight lingering smell that suggests the heavy slicks are not too far off.  Over the week that I was there, it became terrifyingly easy to find the oil that was once hard to find on land.

Everyone we met in the gulf had the same feelings about this blowout: it’s bad, it’s getting worse, and it’s not going to be okay anytime soon.  From fisherman to boat captains, to the media clustered on the shores, to the politicians and all the regular people whose livelihoods depend, on one way or another, on the rich, vital gulf ecosystem, everyone agrees – no matter how BP tries to spin it, this is a disaster of epic proportions, maybe the worst we will see in our lifetimes. A Fox News producer told me that he looks through the camera lens so he can create one layer of remove between himself and the ugliness of what is happening.   We passed a roadsign that said “Obama send help” and at the marina, carved into the table, were the words “BP= Big Problem.”

It’s my job to work with the media at the Greenpeace, and I’m afraid that the reporters will go home, new stories will replace this one in the newspaper, while oil continues to pour out into the gulf, and BP scrambles to find a solution. If you want to help, keep talking about this story so the people around you don’t forget. 

Another way to help is to sign our petition to Congress telling them that now is the time for action to end our addiction to fossil fuels.

UPDATE: It's extremely important at this point that we do everything we can to prevent the next oil spill from ever happening. Take action now to tell Congress: No drilling, no coal, clean energy now! And if you want to do even more, check out this post I put up over on our Grassroots Blog to find toolkits for holding rallies in your community, writing letters to the editor of your local paper, and more: Want to help prevent the next
catastrophic oil spill?

Our team on the ground in Louisiana has sent us a number of new ways you can get plugged in to the animal-rescue and clean up efforts if you're in the Gulf region. There are 6 Ways to Help posted at that link, including how to report oiled wildlife (they recommend you don't try to help the wildlife without a trained expert), who best to donate to, and this bit on volunteering:

Tristate Bird Rescue & Research is coordinating on-the-ground volunteer efforts. Several other groups are helping to organize volunteers to help cleanse birds and otherwise protect both wildlife and human populations along the Gulf Coast. Our favorite ... is The National Audubon Society, which is helping connect volunteers with the best government or non-profit agency doing work related to the oil spill response. (But there are many many many others.) The government also has a volunteer hotline at 1-866-448-5816.

In general, organizations are urging people not to travel to volunteer.

The Louisiana Bucket Brigade and Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation are also great places to check out for ways you can help.

We're all horrified and saddened beyond words by the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf. If you find yourself actually close enough to lend a hand in mitigating the impact this disaster will have on the Gulf's coastline and wildlife, there's a volunteer info hotline you can call: 1-866-448-5816. That number also works if you want to report an oiled shoreline.

A website has been set up to help manage the response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster: www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com. You can also find numbers to report oiled wildlife or discuss oil spill-related damage, plus find updates on the cleanup from the Coast Guard, on that site.

The website of Mobile Baykeeper also has this:

According to consultants working for BP, the best thing we can do right now to prepare for oil making landfall is to clean up the shorelines. The less garbage and debris on shorelines the easier they are to clean up. We know the weather is not going to be friendly, but if you can get to your favorite shoreline today or tomorrow you can help speed up the clean up process.

DO NOT remove any live plants. Simply remove any garbage, large shells, drift wood, etc. Debris should be removed to the extent that wave and tides can reach.
 
Plans are being made to train and organize volunteers for cleanup efforts in the days and weeks to follow. We will let you know when we hear further details about this.

If you're in or near the Mobile Bay, Alabama area, they are a good resource to get in touch with as well.

Andre Muggiati is a campaigner from Greenpeace Brazil visiting the USA. He provided us with this first-hand account of going out and documenting the oil washing up on beaches in the Gulf of Mexico.

We started the morning going to a marine shop to buy the charts we needed to go off the coast and look for oil on the beaches. The guy from the shop, Mark, was curious about what we were doing there, and we told him we are from Greenpeace.

By the charts we requested, he knew we were there for the BP Deepwater Disaster oil spill, which led him to tell us, “We’ve been making a living off the oil industry, supplying them, for the last 20 years. At what cost?”

We could see all the concern about the tragedy in his face. But when I asked him his name and post at the shop (I presume he is the manager), he asked me not to mention that. “It could be bad for business.” So they will keep making money out of oil…

You can’t stay here

VENICE, LA – A glob of washed up oil sits on the shore near Port Eads, Louisiana, May 10, 2010. Greenpeace found the first traces of oil onshore at Port Eads, the southernmost tip of Louisiana. Dan Howells, Deputy Director of Campaigns at Greenpeace, and conservation specialist Rick Steiner collected samples of the oil on the beach and documented what they saw with photographs. The oil onshore at Port Eads shows that it is reaching the mouth of the Mississippi, putting even more species of Louisiana’s coastal habitats at risk—including animal and plant species that thrive only in these wetlands. Click here for more news and photos about the oil spill, plus ways you can take action to prevent the next spill. Photo by Dan Howells/Greenpeace.

Then we were off in the harbor, in Venice, LA, and headed into the mouth of the Mississipi, with a videographer from Reuters and a reporter from National Public Radio. A few miles away, we already see the thing is coming right into the river. Scary. The booms are extending everywhere. A bit later, we see workers from BP collecting sand from the beach. We have to stay behind the booms, about 100 feet (some 25 meters) from the beach. Rick Steiner, the specialist who is working with Greenpeace here, still notices a large dark spot on the coast.

As we try to approach the boom as much as we can (we can’t cross it), we hear a loud horn. A minute later a boat full of unidentified people approach us and tell us we can’t stay there.

We think, “They don’t have authority to say that!” and keep photographing the cleaning. We decide to go further, but then the Marine Guard approach us (probably warned by the unidentified guys).

“Bla bla bla, you can’t stay here, you can’t move forward, you will interfere with the cleaning .” How? We are soooo far away! But we obey.

As we leave the spot, we stop to ask to the guys in the first boat who they are.

“Are you guys working for BP?”

They hesitate, but say, “Yes.”

“Is this work to clean the beach?”

“You have to go back to town and ask the guys with the papers.”

Well, transparency is definitely not the word, here.

We stop at a beach just nearby, where our folks found the oil yesterday. Although I know I came here to see this, it is really shocking to see the oil spots in the sand as soon as we get off the boat. But it gets worse, as we see that the oil has been retained by the reeds, all over, as the tide went down.

I ask Rick Steiner, “ Is this just the tip of the iceberg?”

“Yes,” he says, “this is probably the first oil that leaked after the accident and it is reaching these beaches now. Even if they contained the leakeage today, there are at least 5 million gallons of oil down there, ready to resurface anywhere, just like this.”

This is terrible to hear. What’s worse is that the hurricanes season is coming and might bring up the oil that is in the water and spread it in the Mississipi delta. That’s the horriffic scenario we’re facing.

The lawyer wars

As I arrived at the hotel, last night, it was disgusting to see the advertising on the TV, where a lawyer was offering his services to the oil victims. It is even toll free. “ If you feel harmed and you are losing money in your business, call us now!” he says. It is directed to businesses, restaurants, fishermen, anyone. Very greedy.

On the other hand, BP is paying $5,000 to each fisherman, clearly with the intention of avoiding such suits. They were even asking them to sign a paper saying they would not sue BP, but stoped doing it, after the thing was publicized.

In another legal battle that seems to be starting, people are opening suits against BP and asking the government to make them stop throwing oil dispersants into the gulf. “Last weekend we could smell it from the docks”, a businessman told me. According to Rick Steiner, dispersants are as toxic as oil and have the only objective of sinking the oil, avoiding it rising to the surface as an oil slick. Good for the birds, bad for the fish. Worse for the environment.

The word "crisis" in Chinese is composed of two characters. The first represents danger, and the second represents opportunity. President Obama weathered the financial crisis. Today, the President faces his second crisis.

The BP Deepwater Oil Spill will likely be the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The President can continue on his current path — blame BP (it is BP's fault) and deflect questions about how his offshore oil drilling policies are likely to lead to more spills — or he could free Americans of one of the main drivers of recessions, environmental disasters, and terror strikes.

What would free America from all of this, and put President Obama firmly in the history books, is merely changing the engines of cars. The President should use this crisis as the opportunity to shift America's cars to 30% plug-in electrics and plug-in hybrids by 2020 and 90% by 2030.

Here's why: Oil prices have been a driver behind recessions since the 1970s. Recent studies now reveal that oil price increases were a major driver behind our current recession.

The President was in an embarrassing place Copenhagen last December, when he had little to offer a world that waited for his promised leadership on climate change. His current policies cut pollution by 10% of what other countries were promising. More creative, strategic leadership is needed from the White House if the world is to have a fighting chance in saving the climate.

The President can prevent future recessions, oil spills, embarrassments at climate treaty meetings, wars for oil, and cut off funding for terror attacks by adopting the moonshot proposal put forward by companies like Cisco Systems and PG&E, who called for the electrification of cars in this ambitious, feasible blueprint.

In giving utilities the new, lucrative business of powering cars, the President should demand that all new electricity is clean or efficient (i.e. energy efficiency, offshore wind, regular wind, solar, geothermal), and that utilities accept a cap that is part of a plan to cut global warming pollution by 40% by 2020 and cuts pollution to 350 parts per million of carbon pollution by 2050. Anything less would be fiddling while Rome burns.

There are many ways to go about this:

1. Simply roll out the blueprint;

Or, if you happen to feel urgency in the time of crises and would like to guarantee success, you do this as well:

1. Require that 30% of new cars are plug-in by 2020 and 90% are by 2030 through the EPA or Congress;
2. Rewrite national building codes to include outlets for plugging in cars across the country;
3. Shift oil subsidies, conservatively estimated at10 billion per year, to making the grid "smart" so that consumers can charge their cars at home at night and power their offices (for money!) during the day;
4. Require states to implement new rules for buying and selling electricity that favor renewables (time of use metering) and plug-ins without costing consumers more. This, plus the building codes, could be tied to highway funding or other programs;
5. Providing tax incentives to plug-in buyers; and
6. Simple steps laid out in the blueprint.

Simply implementing the blueprint would cut the emissions associated with transportation by over 50% by 2030. The grid improvements needed to make the grid smart would enable solar, battery storage, wind, and other renewables to play a much more significant part in America's energy production, moving America one more step towards Greenpeace's Energy Revolution.

The President can remain defensive, pointing fingers at BP, while gambling the health of our communities and economies on more offshore oil drilling, or he can be one of the great leaders of our times.

This post originally appeared on Huffington Post on May 11, 2010.

Now that BP’s jury-rigged contraption to contain its massive Gulf of Mexico oil spew has failed, the company's only resort is to continue pumping massive amounts of dispersant into the water near the wellhead, in an attempt to — what exactly?

The dispersant goes by the trade name "Corexit." It's supposed to be a pun on the words "corrects it." Marine conservationist and oil spill expert Rick Steiner says “Corexit” is called “Hidez-It” by insiders because its purpose is not to correct but deceive.

Read all the latest news about the oil spill, view pics, and take action to stop the next one.

Oil is toxic to marine life. Dispersant is toxic to marine life. Together, their toxicity exceeds the sum of their parts. The people running the spill response for BP are geologists, but what needs protection in the gulf is not geology, it’s biology.

One active ingredient in Corexit is 2-butoxyethanol, which in laboratory tests has been shown to reduce fertility, increase embryo deaths and increase birth defects in animals. Animals are the primary marine inhabitants of the Gulf of Mexico.

Another ingredient is propylene glycol, which you may know as anti-freeze or airplane de-icer. It has high biological oxygen demand, or BOD. This means that as it degrades in the water, it removes oxygen via biological processes. The more propylene glycol in the water, the less oxygen for plankton and fish.

In all, Corexit acts like a surfactant, the same thing that’s in your dish or laundry soap. The oil is more attracted to the surfactant than to the water it’s floating in. The oil forms globules and sinks to the bottom. This is a boon for BP, because it creates less of a photogenic oil slick on the surface of the gulf to be filmed by television news crews.

As we’ve seen in Prince William Sound in the two decades since the Exxon Valdez spill, oil that sinks to the bottom tends to be re-suspended in the water column by storms and with the frequency of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, we’ll see BP’s oil belched back up — with damage to the environment — for generations to come.

Why would anyone in their right mind pour chemicals that poison and suffocate fish into an oil spill that already threatens their lives? I think BP executives — in their long and sorry string of explosions, spills and mishaps — have demonstrated clearly that they are not in their right minds.

I’ll hazard a guess, though. The fewer dispersants you use, the more dead, oily birds and turtles you’ll have washing up on shore. The more dispersants you use, the more dead fish you’ll have — some of which will wash up on shore, many of which will sink to the bottom of the gulf and never be seen again. I imagine the PR department at BP prefers dead fish to dead birds and turtles.

If, when the lawsuits come, the plaintiff attorneys show up in court with plastic bags full of dead, oily sea birds, the jury is likely to award a bigger verdict than if the plaintiffs show up with plastic bags full of dead fish. Fish just aren’t as cute as birds. So I imagine the legal department at BP also prefers dead fish to dead birds.

Of course, what do shore birds eat? Fish and shrimp and other marine life. And if you kill a good portion of the marine life, it inevitably follows that the species that depend on that marine life for sustenance will also die. Just make sure they don’t get oily doing it.

Twenty-one years after Exxon’s huge spill, 20 of the 30 most affected wildlife species have not yet recovered.

People ask me: “Is BP doing enough?” My answer is that there is no “enough.” The tools we have to respond to oil spills are orders of magnitude too small to combat the damage they do. We can’t fix oil spills; we can only prevent them. And we can only prevent them by not drilling in the ocean.

Today, on the same day that oil began washing up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, a coalition of fossil fuel industry groups decided to sue the Environmental Protection Agency to stop them from forcing car makers to increase the fuel efficiency of their fleet. It’s been shown time and again that simply increasing the mileage of our cars to 40 miles per gallon would make all the oil the “drill baby drillers” are clamoring for completely obsolete. Fuel efficiency means we’d all save lots of money, we’d avoid future environmental catastrophes, we’d be more energy independent, and we would use less oil. But it’s only that last point that matters to industry.

Us using less oil means they make less money. And no ecological disaster, no destruction of communities, and no loss of life will deter them from their profit.

BP lobbied hard against the kinds of regulations that would have prevented the disaster in the Gulf, saying that they couldn’t operate under the government’s “extensive, prescriptive regulations.”  But they told us that instead of regulating them we should trust them, because a spill was “virtually impossible.” 

Massey Energy, the company whose mine collapsed last month and killed 29 people, has spent millions fighting regulation, with CEO Don Blankenship noting that government-regulated mine safety was “as silly as global warming.”  But don’t worry, he said, because the “safety and health of coal miners is my most important job.” 

This summer, Shell hopes to drill for oil in the pristine and turbulent seas off Alaska’s remote coasts. They’ve been given the same free pass that BP was given for their rig, probably because they assured regulators that “a large oil spill, such as a crude oil release from a blowout, is extremely rare and not considered a reasonably foreseeable impact.” Are you convinced? 

It’s time we stopped treating industry lobbyists with piles of cash like they’re trustworthy negotiating partners. They’re not. We can see their pure profit motive in today's lawsuit, and in the behavior of the fossil fuel industry for generations. We have a right to expect our government to do what’s in the best interest of our environment, our communities, our safety, our future. There is no way to safely drill for oil offshore. That this fact puts a dent in the bottom line of Shell or BP or Exxon doesn’t make it any less true. The question is, what will we do about it?

Please join me in demanding a ban on new offshore drilling, and if you’ve already done so, ask 5 of your friends to do it. Because if our government doesn’t step up we’ll just keep "trusting" the BP’s and Shells of the world with our lives and livelihoods forever.

Late yesterday afternoon, we found oil onshore at the southern tip of Louisiana near a place called Port Eads. I was on a tiny strip of beach with the Greenpeace team, and we were all shocked at what was there. The oil looked like paint spattered on the beach. In the marshy areas there was discoloration where it was starting to be absorbed. When we looked back at our footprints you could see the sheen of oil in the water. A close look at the reeds, which hold back erosion in the bayou, showed oil coating the base of the plants.



We chartered a boat with a shrimp fisherman whose livelihood has been taken away by the spill. After Hurricane Katrina, he had built up a lucrative shrimping business, but BP has put it to a halt. With the Gulf closed to fishing for the foreseeable future because of a toxic stew of oil and dispersant chemicals, there isn’t much work for him. Most of the other fishermen have gone to work for BP cleaning up the oil, but the pay is too low for him to support his family.

There is a sense among everyone that I talk to that the worst is yet to come. Closed fishing grounds are only the beginning of what will become the worst environmental disaster to hit this country. BP has been parading around talking about containment domes, booms and dispersant, but the truth is that they can’t contain the 200,000 gallons a day that are gushing from the Deepwater drill site. The environment and people’s lives are being ripped to shreds in the Gulf. And the worst thing is that this all could have been prevented.

We need everyone outside of the region to take action in their community to expose the BP disaster and pressure your elected officials to oppose future offshore drilling in the Gulf, Atlantic, Arctic, and everywhere else. This spill is a stark reminder of the cost of our country’s addiction to fossil fuels and the influence that energy corporations have on our government. There’s a better way than this. I’m sure of it.

With news of the oil spill spreading like wildfire, it seems as if the whales have been left in the dust. So I’m here to provide you with the latest in whale news. Last week there was a hearing on “U.S. Leadership on the International Whaling Commission and H.R. 2455, The International Whale Conservation and Protection Act of 2009” to discuss the upcoming 62nd annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

There has been much controversy since the United States Commissioner to the IWC appears to support a proposal that would lift the ban on commercial whaling by rewarding Norway, Iceland and Japan with commercial whaling quotas. Monica Medina, U.S. Commissioner to the IWC’ stated in her recent Congressional testimony, “We believe that the proposal represents a meaningful step forward, and is a possible foundation towards achieving a functioning IWC and improving the conservation of whales. We have encouraged other member countries to approach the upcoming discussions with open minds and constructive attitudes in the hope that a diplomatic solution can be reached.” In Commissioner Medina’s oral testimony she seemed concerned only about the “numbers”Japan will kill in the Southern Ocean with no mention that it would have to be zero whales killed in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary to be acceptable to the United States.

Justin Cooke, Scientific Consultant and Representative of International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to the IWC Scientific Committee also gave testimony. As a member of the IUCN he is required  by the IUCN charter to base his advice on scientific findings. He was quoted as; “I should emphasize that none of what I have said should be construed as criticism of the very sincere efforts of the US delegation to these negotiations, led by the US IWC Commissioner Monica Medina. I know that Monica has been highly motivated to achieve the best possible deal for the world’s whales. However, we need to appreciate that one is dealing here with very experienced negotiators from the whaling countries, who know the whaling issue inside out, who are on top of the science, and who have plenty of skill and practice in calving out deals that aren’t what they seem to be. Such negotiations require a thorough grasp of all aspects of the subject matter.” He advocates to keep the political and scientific aspects of the proposal separate.

While Monica Medina has her heart in the right place I have to question if she has the international negotiating experience to achieve the conservation goals the American public expect from the Obama Administration.

So, that’s the latest in whale news. If you want something to happen, then it is up to you.We have 110,000 signatures, help us reach 150,000. Take action and tell Obama that the legalization of commercial whaling would be a huge step backwards.

The following update is from Dan Howells, Campaigner for Greenpeace US, currently in Louisiana…

Yesterday, Friday May 7, we met a few media crews in Biloxi Mississippi. We got on a boat with one of the crews and headed out into the waters of the Gulf. Rumor has it, and there are lots of rumors, this disaster of a spill is moving but the million dollar question is where is it moving and where/when will it hit the coast. They may be closing another area to fishing to the West of the mouth of the Mississippi so the oil must be going there? Pods of journalists are spread out along the shores looking for the picture they want.  One journalist commented the lack of visible oil is good for the environment not good for pictures. 

--Dan

On April 20, 2010, a BP offshore oil rig exploded, killing workers on the rig and spilling tens of thousands of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. BP's Deepwater Horizon oil well, located 5,000 feet below the ocean's surface, is now leaking between 5,000 – 60,000 barrels (210, 000 – 2,520,000 gallons) of crude oil into Gulf Coast waters each day, with devastating consequences for Gulf Coast communities and the fragile wetlands, bayous, and coastal waters on which they depend.

We've put together a timeline dating back to July 2007 when the Department of Interior released a report finding that there is a history of accidents, fires and even deaths at offshore oil drilling projects.

It's time for history to stop repeating itself. Let's put an end to this sort of diaster so that our future will be safer. Take action and tell Congress that the time for action is now. Congress must put a ban on new offshore drilling that prevents this threat from spreading to other areas of the country.

--Michelle

Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu once said, "The environmentalists are wrong, actually. We can drill safely off the shores of America."

Today the world is watching in horror as BP fails to prevent millions of gallons of oil from gushing into the Gulf from some of the newest and most technologically advanced equipment in the world.

There are hundreds of these claims by politicians, the media, and oil companies that offshore drilling is somehow environmentally friendly.

• “Oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills.”– President Obama
• "We're actually getting evidence that drilling could help the environment." - Connell McShane, Fox News
• "Offshore drilling must be done in an environmentally safe and responsible way," - Virginia Congressman Glenn Nye
• "Oil and gas can be produced in an environmentally-safe manner. - Govenor Bob McDonnell
• “If you really cared about the environment, you would let us drill for our own oil.” – Glenn Beck, CNN
• "The ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and was left out there.  It's natural.  It's as natural as the ocean water is. Well, the turtles may take a hit for a while, but so what?" - Rush Limbaugh
• "Gulf: learn from Alaska's lesson w/foreign oil co's: don't naively trust- VERIFY" - Sarah Palin

The current spill, described as more like an underwater oil volcano, is proof that oil drilling is dangerous for our oceans, our fishing industry, and our coastal communities.

Now that they can no longer claim oil spills don’t happen, will our politicians in Congress prevent the next spill by banning offshore drilling?

This blog originally appeared in Huffington Post on May 10, 2010.

I'm down at the oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico — or what for now is the Gulf of Mexico. Rick Steiner, a marine conservationist and oil spill expert, flew over the Gulf Wednesday morning and said, "It's not the Gulf of Mexico any more. It's the Gulf of Oil."

Rick's been helping governments respond to oil spills for the past 30 years (an unusually prescient career choice). A resident of Cordova, AK he found a spill in his front yard in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.

Read more blogs, news, and take action to prevent the next oil spill

“Right after the Valdez spill, someone told me, ‘Lawyers still to be born will be litigating this spill.’ I laughed at him, but he was right. It’s been 21 years and the litigation between the federal government and Exxon is still not over.”

The fact that people who lost their livelihoods in the Exxon spill waited 20 years before they saw a nickel of compensation from Exxon is not happy news here, but Rick pulls no punches and gives straight answers. It’s as welcome — and as rare — as a cool breeze in Louisiana.

“The executives at BP must be reading the Exxon spill response playbook because they’re doing exactly what Exxon did,” he said. For those of you without access to the oily inner sancta, the playbook’s rules are these:

1 — Understate the amount of oil spilled.

2 — Understate the environmental damage caused by the oil.

3 — Overstate the effectiveness of your company’s response.

4 — Try to buy off the locals with tiny amounts of money (BP is offering $5,000 each to coastal residents in Mississippi) in exchange for waivers promising not to sue for damages.

5 — Slap gag orders on anyone doing business with the corporation. (Fishermen who want work from BP in the cleanup efforts have to agree in writing not to speak to the media. The gag orders are legally meaningless; it’s the intimidation factor that counts.)

Following the guidance of point three, BP has strung miles of bright orange boom everywhere there’s a TV camera. As if booms are some kind of magic wand. Booms are useless unless skimmers pick up the oil they collect and no one has seen any skimmers. Beyond that, the oil from the spill is bubbling up from a mile below the ocean. By the time it gets to the surface, it’s so thoroughly mixed with water it just slips under the booms.

Nonetheless, BP had a couple hundred shrimp boats on the gulf Wednesday, trolling booms back and forth. It’s not an oil spill response, it’s Response Theater. As Rick points out, in the best of circumstances (and we’re very far from that in the gulf) only ten percent of the oil is ever recovered. In the Exxon spill, after $2 billion, three summers with 1,000 boats and 13,000 workers, only five to seven percent of the oil was recovered.

One worry here is that the massive spill — which may spew oil for many weeks to come — will slip around the Florida peninsula and be carried up the east coast by the gulf stream. At the Exxon spill, which entailed a heavier grade of crude in the much more closed Prince William Sound, the oil was carried 800 miles down the Alaskan coast. There are several countervailing currents in the gulf, at all depths and of
course, this oil is moving at every depth the gulf has. No one can predict where it will go.

“There’s never been a successful response to a marine oil spill. Ever,” Rick says. “We’re addicted to oil and like any addict, we are taking larger and larger risks to get our fix and the consequences are more and more disastrous.”

So what’s the solution? Break the addiction. We have to stop drilling in the ocean. The results are too catastrophic. Instead of reading from cue cards prepared for him by oil lobbyists, Barack Obama has to shift our government’s energy policy to privilege efficiency and clean renewables over fossil fuels. And Congress must ensure that any legislation aimed at dealing with global warming does not contain any giveaways to dirty fossil fuels, period. Not only will that prevent the next marine tragedy, but it’s our only chance of arresting global warming before we burn our species off the planet.

The Deepwater Horizon accident continues to spill millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Echoing the sentiment of concernced people all across America, Greenpeace activists delivered a strong message to Congress, "Choose a clean energy future now."

The disaster in the Gulf is a tragic reminder of the impacts of America's addiction to dirty and dangerous sources of energy like oil, and it must serve as a wake up call to Congress of the urgent need to immediately stop plans for any new offshore oil drilling. 

The oil industry's stranglehold on our energy policy has protected oil company profits while sacrificing our health, local economies, and our environment.  It's past time for Congress to shut out the polluter lobbyists and urgently move us toward clean, renewable energy.

 

How much oil is flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from this disastrous oil spill? Our new counter will keep tabs as the oil continues to flow...

Put this on your site. Grab the code:

<iframe src="http://go.greenpeaceusa.org/spill-widget/vertical.php" height="325" width="150" border="0" scrolling="no" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px;"></iframe></iframe>

It's a bad time to be an ocean-dweller.

First, we have the overfishing crisis, which continues virtually unabated. Every day, we yank hundreds of thousands of pounds of life out of the sea, often in strikingly inefficient and destructive ways — bottom trawls rake the floor of the ocean, pulverizing corals and flattening any animals unable to evade them, while pelagic longlines indiscriminately slaughter curious seabirds, turtles, and sharks as collateral damage in our unrelenting quest for seafood.



To make matters worse, President Obama, who was elected in part by an engaged and hopeful environmentalist demographic, has completely turned his back on the oceans and their largest denizens — whales. His 2008 promise to strengthen the international moratorium on commercial whaling has been completely subsumed by an insidious new agenda that seeks to dismantle the moratorium, legalize whaling in the Southern Ocean (including Japan’s ongoing hunt for endangered fin, sei, and humpback whales), and create an unspoken tolerance among the world’s governments for this intolerable activity.

And above it all, offshore drilling has finally revealed itself as exactly what we have always feared it would be — an inevitable environmental cataclysm. The ruptured Deepwater Horizon pipeline continues to release untold amounts of toxic crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, strangling birds, fish, and any other life forms unfortunate enough to be caught within its suffocating expanse… which is currently the size of the State of Delaware, not to mention up to 45 feet deep in some areas.



Our oceans and their denizens are besieged on all sides. Given these seemingly insurmountable odds, it is difficult to maintain any sense of optimism when one considers the state of our world’s waters. Still, all is not lost. All three of the aforementioned menaces have sparked resistance, and with the right kind of passion and leadership, we just may find a way out of this mess after all.

Although overfishing remains a tremendous problem, Greenpeace’s recent Carting Away the Oceans report highlights some significant progress: quite a few major retailers have taken strong steps towards the development of sustainable seafood operations. Companies like Target, Wegmans, Whole Foods, and Safeway are making positive sourcing decisions that reduce environmental degradation and enable their customers to shop with more confidence. Even Trader Joe’s, which earned both ire and infamy last year for its indifference to sustainability in seafood, has turned a corner. A recent announcement on the company’s website indicates that Trader Joe’s has discontinued orange roughy and is currently developing a sustainable seafood policy as well as more informative and transparent labeling. Beyond this, the company has called out the need for marine reserves in fishery management and has promised to use its purchasing dollars to support visionary leadership in industry (such as closed-containment salmon). The work has only just begun, but it is comforting to know that this company, which was once an incorrigible laggard in these areas, may now be in the process of becoming a true leader.

Our government's efforts to legalize whaling and reward Japan, Iceland, and Norway for their continual disregard of international law and the will of the vast majority of the Earth’s population seem to have hit a snag as well. Monica Medina, the lead US delegate to the International Whaling Commission and the champion of the legalization effort, seems to be backpedaling a bit in the face of enormous public resistance. Opposition to this despicable initiative is so vocal, in fact, that Greenpeace's petition urging Congress to reconsider has received over 100,000 signatures — and the number is growing every day.

It’s not easy to find something positive to say about the horrific oil disaster in the Gulf, but maybe — just maybe — we can find a way to coax a silver lining out of this mess. One can surmise that if it is this difficult to repair oil drilling mishaps in an area as accessible and temperate as the Gulf of Mexico, it would be infinitely more challenging in the Arctic. And there will be mistakes in the Arctic. There will be spills, fires, and other accidents — they are inevitable to some degree, as we have so painfully learned. So perhaps our government will read the writing on the wall and reinstate a total moratorium on offshore drilling, including the new leases in the Arctic. Another way to stop the next oil spill from happening is to tell Congress that dirty fossil fuels have no place in climate legislation, which should be aimed at reducing our addiction to fossil fuels. While this won’t quell Deepwater’s hemorrhaging, save Louisiana’s shrimp industry, or clean the crude off of any brown pelicans, it would certainly be a massive positive step towards precluding even more — and even worse — nightmares like this from occurring in the future.



So yes, things look grim for our oceans, no doubt about it — but there is hope. There is always hope. Countless people are struggling against the crises facing our oceans, doing their utmost to heal this planet that we are ravaging so blindly. And it is those people, and their efforts, and the possibility of a better future for us and for our children that keeps hope alive. It is undoubtedly a bad week to be a fish, or a whale, or a turtle, or a Louisiana shrimper — but next week just might be a little better.

The weather along the Gulf of Mexico finally cleared today, but with the wind backing around to the north and east, the spill remains out to sea.

Retired University of Alaska marine conservation expert Rick Steiner joined us today.  He's worked on oil spills around the world, most significantly on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound Alaska. 

Rick says that the fact that this spill emanates from the bottom of the gulf (5,000 feet down), where the water temperature is approximately 1 degree Centigrade (and the oil is hot) means that by the time the oil reaches the surface, it has thoroughly mixed with water and therefore does not appear to be the kind of gruesome slick that is so famous from previous disasters.

It's a PR boon to BP that this is so, because it means that the oil spill remains hidden from public view.  It does not, however, mean there is not a tremendous environmental tragedy unfolding.  As we speak about this, we need to make that point clear.  It's not just about what we can see from shore and that BP has been proactively taking steps to keep the damage hidden.

The dispersant being used at the wellhead – tradename “Corexit,” is nicknamed by Rick “Hidez-it” because the real reason it is used is to keep the damage out of sight.  He points out that oil is toxic to wildlife, dispersant is toxic to wildlife, but the toxicity of the two combined is greater than the sum of the parts.

A fisherman we spoke with also noted that if dispersants are used, it saves BP money because they can hire fewer fishing boats – at $1,500 per day each – to skim oil.

As we noted last night, when dispersants are not used, the oil comes ashore and kills birds, when it is not used, it stays in the water column and kills fish, but it's worth noting that killing fish means killing birds eventually because of, y’know, that whole food web thing.

On another BP front, we hear that BP is demanding that fishermen who they hire in the cleanup sign gag orders, agreeing not to talk to the media.  Rick says it’s one of the many similarities to the Valdez spill.  BP’s reading from the playbook Exxon wrote.

The rules are:

1 – Understate the amount of oil spilled and environmental damage done.

2 – Overstate the effectiveness of the oil company’s response (or more accurately, the oil company’s “response theater”).

3 – Try to buy off the locals for a pittance in exchange for waivers that they will not sue.

4 – Get as many people under a gag order as possible.

We are warning the locals that it took 20 years of court battles to get Exxon to pay damages to the people of Prince William Sound and that the final settlement was only one-tenth of the original award.

Rick said, “Right after Valdez, someone told me, ‘Lawyers still unborn will be litigating this spill’ and I laughed at him.  Well, it’s been 21 years and the litigation is still not finished, so he may be right.”

 

--Mark

In the immediate aftermath of what is unfolding as one of the most significant ecological and economic disasters in U.S. history, the response from the White House seemed more like damage control for itself rather than damage control for the Gulf States.

The White House postponed its awards ceremony that it scheduled to celebrate the safety of offshore oil drilling.

One must look no further than President Obama's April 2nd statement to understand why his administration acted so defensively. Addressing critics of offshore drilling (such as yours truly), he said: "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced."

In the President's defense, BP, Halliburton, and the other companies behind this spill must take the lead on cleaning up their mess. The White House has scrambled top staff to the Gulf States with great speed. And nobody could accuse the President of leaving any rock unturned in the efforts to contain this disaster.

The difference between this disaster and Katrina is that President Bush saw the storm coming and did nothing. President Obama had few warning signs that this specific event would happen in this place. But now that he knows what may come from his off-shore oil drilling policies, President Obama's Katrina will come if he continues to promote off-shore drilling and the next disaster strikes.

The destruction of millions of peoples' livelihoods is not worth our addiction to oil. Greenpeace and the Gulf Restoration Network are calling on the President to reverse his position on off-shore oil drilling. In addition, the President should use this as an opportunity to break our addiction to dirty oil and energy by shifting oil subsidies to plug-in hybrids and ensure that all new cars are clean by investing in a new electricity grid and agreeing with utilities that they can power all new cars starting in 2015 if they produce all new electricity with energy efficiency or clean energy and agree to a cap on carbon.

This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post on May 3, 2010