Today is the day. The very first barrels of Arctic oil have found their way to my home country. Gazprom, Russia’s biggest energy company, has shipped the first tanker with crude oil from the Arctic to the Rotterdam harbor, the Netherlands.
One day Arctic sea ice may be a thing of the past in summer. A distant memory of what used to be. And something our grandchildren will look at with awe in the natural history books.
Nine months after being illegally seized at gunpoint Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya Arctic oil platform in the Pechora sea - our Arctic Sunrise has been released.
At 9am on a Friday morning in the Greenpeace Sydney office, our giant LEGO friend, Katy, received a phone call from a supporter informing her that Shell is using it's partnership with the well-loved LEGO brand to increase fuel sales and divert attention from its Arctic oil drilling.
Yesterday a team of Greenpeace staff and giant LEGO people headed to Sydney's biggest toy shops to tell LEGO to quit its dirty deal with Shell by plastering 'save the Arctic' stickers all over its toy boxes.
After spending two months in a Russian prison for taking part in a peaceful protest drawing attention to the dangers of oil drilling in the Arctic - it's no wonder that the Arctic has a special place in my heart.
Great news - after being held for nearly 10 months, the Arctic Sunrise has finally left Murmansk! From the helm, Captain Daniel Rizzotti said: "We sail home with with the voices of 5 million Arctic Defenders in our ears. This is a new beginning."
Emma Thompson recently went to the Arctic aboard the Greenpeace ship Esperanza. She wrote these words after walking out onto the fragile sea ice for the first time alongside her 14 year old daughter Gaia.
