Vincent

Holland

I have been working for Greenpeace since 1999 on the Greenpeace ships as a mate and engineer. On the Esperanza I am the 2nd mate and I'm in charge of safety on the ship as well as being involved in actions and general ship duties.

In my time with Greenpeace I have sailed on the Sirius, the Arctic Sunrise and now the Esperanza since April. One of my first actions was against the Norwegian whalers where I replaced a guy who had been run over by the Norwegian coast guard and was in intensive care. The whalers shot at one of our inflatables with an elephant gun.

One of my particular interests is bio-fuels; the use of vegetable oils to run vehicles and even ships. By just adding a little ethanol to vegetable oil you can run any diesel engine much cleaner than with regular diesel. Your car smells like a snack bar and you are not polluting the air as much or using up the earth's resources. The only problem I can see is that people may become fatter because they are always wanting to stop and buy fish and chips.

It seems like such an obvious solution to me but the oil companies will never want to let it happen. I would like to see the use of bio-fuels become more common so that our politicians do not have to kiss the oil company's butt all the time.

Cheers and peace

Vin.