UNITED STATES: Greenpeace occupies Arctic-bound barge

UNITED STATES: Greenpeace occupies Arctic-bound barge

BY SEAN HEALY

Greenpeace activists in Alaska have occupied a massive barge carrying equipment bound for oil giant BP's Northstar development, a controversial artificial drilling island currently under construction in the Arctic Ocean.

From the Greenpeace vessel MV Arctic Sunrise six activists boarded the 420-foot barge shortly after midnight on August 7 and set up a solar- and wind-powered campaign and communications centre in the control room.

Northstar is the Arctic's first offshore oil project. Should it proceed, Northstar will threaten the pristine and vulnerable Arctic ecosystem and fuel global warming from a region where temperatures are already rising at three to five times the global rate. Over the past 40 years, the thickness of the Arctic ice pack, which serves as habitat for marine mammals such as polar bears and walrus, has declined by 40%.

Greenpeace is calling on BP to turn the barge around before it reaches the Northstar construction site, cancel the project and invest the savings in its solar division.

The campaigners dispute BP's recent claims in a $200 million public relations campaign that the company has a serious commitment to renewable energy and is moving "beyond petroleum" to protect the planet's climate.

This year BP will spend more on its new solar logo than it spent last year on its much-vaunted solar division. Over the next three years BP plans to spend 50 times more on new oil exploration and drilling projects than renewables.

"'Burning the planet' would be a better slogan for a company opening up a whole new frontier for oil exploration in the very place where global warming's impacts are most acute", said Melanie Duchin, a Greenpeace campaigner aboard the Arctic Sunrise. "And until BP cancels Northstar and starts seriously investing in renewables, a polar bear sitting on a melting ice-cap would be a fitting corporate logo."

From GLW issue 416