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Greenpeace
is an independent campaigning organisation that uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems and to force solutions which are essential to a green and peaceful future.
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Bearing witness
Northstar will use untested technology that will bring
a one-in-four chance of an oil spill. Furthermore, the project threatens
to spearhead an expansion of offshore oil and gas development to this
distant region, and lead to a sprawl of oil rigs across the Arctic Ocean.
Remote it may be, but Greenpeace wasn't going to allow Northstar to
operate away from the public gaze. So in February 2000 our protesters
parachuted and snowmobiled their way to just outside BP's site, and
easy-to-spot filthy stain in the Arctic whiteness.
Braving temperatures as low as -50º Greenpeace activists set up a protest
camp named Sirius from which to dog BP's operations, record the damage
and show the oil company that the world was watching. Mainly powered
by solar panels and wind turbines, connected to the outside world by
state-of-the-art communications equipment, and later removed with barely
a trace, Sirius - the brightest star in the night sky - shone the light
on Northstar.
Long-time Greenpeace activist Henk Haazen of the Netherlands spoke recently
about Northstar, and how he embraced the challenge of Sirius as team
leader.
"The whole concept of the Sirius Arctic camp was extraordinary.
It was a technological and logistical challenge and not many organisations
could have pulled it off.
The idea was to travel by snowmobiles and sledge to our
position 1.5km from Northstar, then, living in tents, prepare a landing
strip and wait for three or four days for the place to come with insulated
living quarters.
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Click
on image to view in larger format.
Wojtek Moskal, one of the eight activists based
at Greenpeace's Sirius ice camp, keeps a close - and cold - watch
on the construction of BP's Northstar project.
Greenpeace opposes the opening of new oil frontiers
because climate scientists tell us we can only afford to burn
one quarter of the world's total oil reserves to avoid catastrophic
climate change. At current rates of burning fossil fuels we will
pass safe limits within 40 years.
"Finally the cargo
plane arrived. But the airstrip was so lumpy that, although the
pilot was supposed to come back twice, he got scared and never
returned." Long-time Greenpeace activist, Henk Haazen.
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