Your Name on the Arctic Sunrise
It belongs to all of us.
Don’t let them destroy it.
PUT YOUR NAME ON THE ARCTIC SUNRISE – HERE
Help protect this important and unique environment and its inhabitants by supporting Greenpeace with a donation to help fund their work. After months without proper maintenance while in Russian custody, their ship the Arctic Sunrise requires a thorough overhaul and refitting including the replacement of equipment removed by the Russian authorities.
The Arctic Sunrise so when she sails into the sunrise, we all sail with her.
People who care about the planet believe that there should be a global sanctuary in the Arctic, which will help preserve its unique wildlife and habitat and allow the Arctic to continue to help stabilise the world’s climate.
More Information Available on SaveTheArctic.org
Why does the Melting of the Arctic Sea Ice Matter to Me?
More info on SavetheArctic.org
Rosneft is a massive Russian company whose pipelines spill over 2,000,000 tons per year. Now it’s moving into Arctic waters, where it plans to build over 100 rigs.
Together with Exxon, Rosneft plans to drill in an area overlapping the Russian Arctic National park, a sanctuary for polar bears, walrus and narwhals.
The Arctic could be devastated.
All for a few last drops of oil.
Environmental Activist
As an exemplary environmental activist, The Arctic Sunrise has taken part in campaigns and protests across the world, from withing 450 miles of the North Pole, to Antarctica’s Ross Sea, and it has Navigated both the Congo and the Amazon rivers, raising awareness of issues threatening the areas. Among other things, it has campaigned to stop whaling, taken part in protests in support of sustainable fishing, taken action to stop North Sea trawlers fishing cod towards extinction and campaigned against the Star Wars weapons programme.
The Arctic Sunrise is classified as a “1A1” Icebreaker – the second highest ice strengthening notation at the time of her construction in 1975. She was originally used as a seismic survey vessel, named Polarbjørn (“polar bear”) and was later used by the French Government. Greenpeace purchased the ship in 1995, having resorted to forming a “shell company” called “Arctic Sunrise Ventures Ltd” through which it made the purchase as the previous Norwegian owners had refused to sell the ship to Greenpeace.
Read MoreMsg from Earth: You’re Amazing
Msg from Earth: You’re Amazing
For All Those Who Stood Up for the Health of the Planet and its Inhabitants
Via its Warriors at Greenpeace:
“You are incredible. Thanks for everything you’ve done in 2012. Let’s do it again in 2013.”
Read MoreOlympics 2012 Greenwash Gold Awards
Olympic Values
When I think about what the modern day Olympic Games stand for and promote, the first thing that comes to mind is a worldwide celebration of sporting excellence and a coming together of communities and countries from around the globe.
Sporting events such as the Olympics have a very unique and special place on the world stage, as it is a time when people forget their differences for a few short weeks and focus all their energy into a single united event. This is a time when the entire world’s media attention is pinpointed on one place, and in 2012 that attention was directed at the UK.
Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympic Movement saw in the Games an ideal opportunity to develop a set of universal principles – or Values – that could be applied to education and to society as a whole, as well as to sport itself.
These Values, as they appear on the London2012 website are:
- respect – fair play; knowing one’s own limits; and taking care of one’s health and the environment
- excellence – how to give the best of oneself, on the field of play or in life; taking part; and progressing according to one’s own objectives
- friendship – how, through sport, to understand each other despite any differences
Environmentally Friendly and Ethically Aware
As far as sporting events are concerned, the event has been hugely successful, but sadly the organisation, funding, and ethical issues which have been raised leave us with one hell of a nasty taste in our mouths.
The London 2012 organising committee announced to the world that they were going to be putting on an environmentally friendly and ethically aware event, in spite of this, it seems as if pound signs were flashing in front of their eyes when they decided which partners and sponsors to sign up with.
You might have thought that with the whole world looking and younger generations watching the event with impressionable eyes that they would have been very selective in who they chose to partner with; however, looking down the list of sponsors, it appears that both environment and ethics quickly fell to the wayside.
The Best of the Bunch?
When we dig a little deeper into who exactly the Olympic sponsors are, what we discover is quite simply disgusting. A number of companies have been highlighted by the Greenwash Gold 2012 Blog, which held a vote for readers to decide upon the worst offending sponsors. Rio Tinto ended up with the gold medal for their participation in the games, which is rather ironic as they were actually the providers of the Olympic medals!
Above: The Greenwash Gold Award Ceremony in Trafalgar Square
Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto are a huge British based company who have worldwide operations in different mining and extraction processes and their company image is certainly not one to be proud of!
The local people in the surrounding areas of many of the mines and quarries have been battling against Rio Tinto for a number of years due to the large scale pollution problems they have afflicted. One example of this is their mine in Utah, which is said to be responsible for over 30% of the air pollution in the area. Incidentally the air quality is so poor that over 1,000 people die each year as a result of this pollution.
The Utah facility is one of the locations that the metal for the Olympic medals actually came from, which just goes to show how much the Olympic Committee care about their green credentials! There are numerous other cases from all over the world, where Rio Tinto have shown less regard for the health of the local people and environment than they have for their profits.
BP
Another company which was in the running for the Greenwash Gold award was the huge oil company BP. Now surely it would not have taken much detective work to find out that BP are actually one of the most environmentally destructive companies on Earth, yet this point obviously seemed irrelevant to the members of the Organising committee who were cashing in on the sponsorship deal.
What sort of exampling are we setting for the rest of the world when companies such as these are being advertised at a supposedly ‘environmentally aware’ event? BP are involved in the extraction of limited natural resources from the Earth and they make billions of pounds each year from the destruction and pollution of our planet; yet they are plastered all over billboards, products, venues, and media programs, being praised as positive Olympic partners.
They even went as far as to shut down their solar power department recently as it was deemed to be unprofitable. What sort of ethical and environmental message is that sending out? Amazingly, to top it all off, BP were actually given the Sustainability Partner award by the organisers of the games!
DOW Chemical Company
The third company that were being considered for the gold medal for the Greenwash Gold Award were the DOW Chemical Company. Dow has one of the worst customer relations and environmental track records of any company out there, and it seems almost unbelievable that the Olympic Games would want to associate themselves with business like this.
From chemical spillages to air and water pollution, to merging with even more controversial companies than themselves, it seems difficult to see any reason why the games would want to be involved with them……..except for a big pay cheque!
Morality Vs Money
It seems as if money reigns supreme in almost all aspects of society and that even an event which is supposed to be a showcase of sporting talent, ends up being another billboard opportunity for the destructive mega companies of the world.
With huge amounts of people from all over the globe watching, it could have been a great opportunity for the organising committee to highlight some positive, environmentally sound and ethically conscious businesses. They claimed to be striving towards these values, yet when you look down the long list of questionable sponsors it seems as if morality and positive image took a backseat to the large wallets of the multinational giants.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GreenwashGold
Read MoreCreate an Advert for Shell’s Destruction of the Arctic – Quickly…
Here’s a chance to show your creativity in response to Shell’s bid to destroy the Arctic.
Quickly – get there and get your ad up before this site gets closed down!
By the way… how many birds does it take?
GreenPeace Tells Shell: Don’t Destroy Our Arctic
Green Peace have been taking their message directly to Shell.
In a few weeks, Shell will begin drilling for oil in the Arctic. An oil spill in this fragile environment will be devastating. Stop Shell by signing up now to support a global Arctic sanctuary, protected from oil drilling.
Live video covers their action below.
