We received another reminder today of the passion, enthusiasm and spirit that we will all need to overcome political barriers to change, as separate community demonstrations in Victoria and Queensland protested the madness and immorality that is export coal.
In Melbourne, several hundred people put off their lunch break to converge at Victorian Parliament House, home […]
Greenpeace activists in the UK have been acquitted of criminal damage by arguing that the coal-fired power station they shut down was causing more property damage than they were. A jury has let them off despite the fact that they painted the Prime Ministers name down the side of a chimney at Kingsnorth power station.
Kingsnorth […]
On Sunday night Cairns local residents helped to create a 3000 candle art installation in the shape of a wind turbine on Cairns city esplanade. The event marked the end of our highly successful 6-week tour up the eastern seaboard from Sydney to Cairns. It was a beautiful statement of the community’s support for our […]
We’ve made our message loud and clear over the past 6 weeks. The Tour began with the release of our Energy [R]evolution Scenario, which shows how Australia could phase out coal-fired power by 2030 through a combination of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Shortly after we released another report, demonstrating the job opportunities in turning […]
We arrived in Cairns yesterday afternoon, our final stop in the Energy [R]evolution tour. After nearly 6 weeks at sea, it will be strange for us on the campaign team to soon be sleeping in beds that don’t rock!
The Port of Cairns is like a breath of fresh air, because unlike the other ports we’ve […]
There’s been a flurry of climate sceptics voicing their opinions in the media in recent weeks, a reminder that this debate is still alive and well. While the majority of Australia’s political leaders now acknowledge the fact of human-induced climate change and the threat it poses, it appears that some people still doubt the phenomenon […]
The papers today are running a story about how the Arctic sea ice may completely melt in the summer within the next 5 years. Climate modelling from just a few years ago predicted that this wouldn’t happen until at least the end of the century. Trends like this should make the devastating impacts of climate […]
Another Saturday, another balmy, sunny open boat day in far North Queensland. This week we are in Townsville and with the 400 people who visited the ship today, the total number of people who’ve been on board since we began in Sydney 5 weeks ago climbed to over 5000.
That’s over 5000 people who have heard […]
We’ve been anchored off Mackay for 3 days now, because late in the day after our coal ship painting protest we were notified by the Townsville Port Authority about ’security concerns’, and other issues, that would have prevented us from docking at the port.
Initially, there was a requirement that we would be required to pay […]
Our coal ship painting action the other day put both Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett on the spot, forcing them to respond publicly about their plans to expand the coal industry. Both politicians used the development of so-called ‘clean coal’ technology as their defence.
‘Clean coal’, or carbon […]
Greenpeace activists finished their painting just moments before a police boat turned up this morning, with a final tally of 20 ships painted with messages like “Bligh exporting CO2”, “Coal is killing the Reef” and “Stop coal expansion”.
While 10 activists were taken into custody by police, Premier Bligh was questioned about the protest […]
As I write, 10 Greenpeace activists are painting the sides of coal ships waiting in a queue outside Hay Point terminal near Mackay. This is the largest coal port in Queensland and there are nearly 50 ships in line ready to be loaded.
I’m on board the Esperanza, which is anchored nearby. We’ve been out […]
A poll we released today shows that 4 out of 5 Australians want our export coal industry to be capped or reduced. Nonetheless, at both state and federal government levels, there are plans for the massive expansion of the industry. The Rudd government has plans to double our national export capacity, while just 2 weeks […]
It was sobering to have internationally-acclaimed reef scientist Charlie Veron on board the ship for the past few days. The campaigners and crew on board had the opportunity to hear from the man who has discovered 20% of the world’s coral species how dire the situation really is for the coral reefs of the worlds. […]
If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say that there’s no point in Australia doing anything about climate change because China and India are going to keep guzzling energy anyway, I could probably begin immediate construction of a baseload solar thermal plant. This refrain is commonly employed whenever the issue of […]
The latest evidence of the Queensland government’s blatant coal protectionism is a CSIRO report which has been sitting on Energy Minister Geoff Wilson’s desk for a year.
The report finds that large-scale renewable energy plants could provide ALL of Queensland’s electricity needs, and recommends that the Queensland government start funding renewable technologies with some of the […]
Cruising up the Whitsunday coast, it seems absolute insanity that anyone could think of endangering this incredible environment to profit from an excessively polluting rock-to-oil project, which would turn local shale reserves into synthetic crude oil to be further refined into diesel or petrol.
The local community at Airlie beach are running a well-established campaign against […]
It’s a balmy Saturday morning on the Esperanza and the sea is as calm as a lake. We are sliding past rugged southern Queensland islands and every so often a pod of whales breaches within a hundred metres of the ship. There’s a momentary illusion that all is well in the world.
However, as we near […]
Premier Anna Bligh chose to announce plans for the massive expansion of Queensland’s export coal industry at the same time as the Rudd government was releasing its so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme earlier this week. In hindsight, it was easy to see there was no contradiction between the two, because Penny Wong’s policy more closely […]
Yesterday Penny Wong released the government’s not-so-Green Paper outlining their intended emissions trading scheme (ETS), or so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The ETS is the mechanism the Rudd government wants to hang its hat on as the mark of their commitment to climate change action. Although the signs so far have not been promising – […]