Turning ocean destruction into brighter ideas

Blogpost by Tom Lowe

Deployed in their thousands and killing non-target species in their millions, fish aggregating devices (FADs) are a scourge to our oceans, devastating marine life to supply companies like Thai Union.

Made up of nets, metal and bamboo frames, buoys and ribbon, these marine snares also have beacons which tell their owners where they are and often the amount of sea life that has gathered beneath them. This bundle of electronics is made up of rechargeable batteries, solar panels, LED lights and circuitry.
But it’s not just the damage they do at sea – this gear often ends up either in huge trash heaps on land, or washed up on reefs. So, while the crew of the Greenpeace ship Esperanza have been recovering and dismantling every one that we find in the Indian Ocean, our enterprising on-board whizzkids have been using some nifty tricks to recycle – or upcycle – the components to provide shade from the elements as well as rugged, solar-powered power supplies and lamps.
The shade part is easy: just prop the FADs up on stilts and – ‘hey presto’ – there’s your shelter from sun, wind and rain.

But the power supplies and lamps are the clever part. So with these things potentially washing up somewhere near you, we’ve made a walk-through guide on instructables.com so you too can learn how to convert some of the most commonly-found types of FAD beacon into lamps that can provide light for an entire night, or charge cell phones and laptops using the power of the sun.

We’ve put the other parts of the FADs to good use too: the buoys will go to coastal communities for artisanal fishing.

Also, via a local NGO, we're passing on the solar panels to village tinkerers to find their own creative uses for the them.
Why not check out the instructable, or tweet @gp_espy with your ideas about what to do with an old FAD?
And join us in fighting unsustainable fishing practices.

Eric is the Bosun onboard the Greenpeace Ship Esperanza for the #notjusttuna Tour.

Blog post by: Tom Lowe

Tom Lowe is a Multimedia Editor for the Communications Hub at Greenpeace International.

All blogposts by Tom Lowe
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Ajude-nos a solarizar o Brasil!

Postado por icrepald

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terça-feira, 31 de maio de 2016

Por meio de um financiamento coletivo, vamos levar energia solar para mais duas entidades beneficentes!

A nossa campanha de energia solar tem um grande desafio para os próximos anos: chegar a 2020 com um milhão de telhados solares no Brasil. Para esse sonho se tornar realidade, precisamos nos unir e trabalhar junto ao governo e à população para incentivar o conhecimento e uso da energia fotovoltaica. O Brasil é um dos países com maior incidência de luz do sol. Então, devemos aproveitar para disseminar essa fonte de energia limpa e 100% renovável!

Pensando nisso, lançamos uma nova campanha na plataforma online Catarse que visa levar a energia fotovoltaica a duas instituições de caridade: a Casa Santa Gemma, localizada na cidade de Uberlândia (MG) e o Abrigo Paulo de Tarso, da cidade de Nazaré (BA).

Essas instituições não foram escolhidas por acaso. Ambas fizeram parte do jogo Solariza, no qual internautas votavam em uma entidade beneficente para ganhar um sistema de energia fotovoltaica.  A Casa Santa Gemma ficou em segundo lugar e o abrigo Paulo de Tarso, em terceiro.

Como acreditamos na importância de levar a energia solar para essas entidades, criamos a campanha “Energia Solar para todo o Brasil” e lançamos um financiamento coletivo como forma de levantar o dinheiro necessário para a instalação de placas solares em suas sedes.

Em março, lançamos a primeira etapa do financiamento coletivo, mas infelizmente não alcançamos a meta. Agora, estamos somando ainda mais esforços para chegarmos ao objetivo final:começar a grande revolução energética para levar a energia solar de norte a sul do Brasil!

Artivists take to the seas to save the Arctic

Blogpost by Mike Fincken

My name is Mike and was one of the three judges of the #SaveTheArctic poster competition. What an honour it has been! We've just chosen the top entries and soon I will meet the three lucky young winners; Anastasia, 21, from Russia; Sara, 18, from Spain; and Emile, 20, from Canada. It will be my pleasure, as captain of the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, to welcome them on board for a voyage to the Arctic where the sun will never set.
  Arctic poster competition winners.
I followed the competition closely and can confidently say that I've seen every single one of the over 2000 original posters from people in 75 countries around the world. I've tweeted some of my favourites along the way, like Bear Walks into a Bar.
There were other funny ones – like giraffes poking their heads above the rising sea level. Some dramatically scary but powerful entries – a fist of dollars throttling a polar bear. Life of Pi made it there in a lifeboat filled with Arctic mammals. A few displaced penguins made it to the Arctic – I had to point them South. It was really difficult to choose amongst the creative images because each one left impressions that a thousand scientific journals could not do. I was exposed to "artivism".
Urban 'Art Festival' for the Arctic in Barcelona.
M. K. Asante, author of It's Bigger Than Hip Hop describes the artivist: The artivist (artist + activist) uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression – by any medium necessary. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation.
While I was moved by many of the posters in the contest, it was Sara, Anastasiya, and Emile that captured this so strongly that I was swept into the feeling of their work, and my eyes kept returning their pieces.
Arctic poster competition entrant.
The latest season in the saga of the Arctic is about to begin and there is always something you can do to help. You don't have to join the boat to be part of the crew. With social media you can amplify everything and together we can #SaveTheArctic.
View a gallery of some of the top 55 posters at Save The Arctic.
Mike Fincken has been sailing with Greenpeace for over 20 years. This summer he captains Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise ship to Svalbard, Norway to document the effects of destructive fishing in the Arctic.

Hunting for ghost nets on Sylter Aussenriff

Blogpost by Annet van Aarsen 

Not a lot of people know this, but the North Sea is one of the most beautiful places in the world to make a dive. On a perfect day, the visibility is endless, the water is a beautiful blueish green and – if the tide is calculated right – there is almost no current.

On the seabed, you can find hundreds of old wrecks. Some heavily damaged, some still looking like a ship. They are almost magical time capsules. They are little paradises, full of life. Without exception the wrecks are heavily overgrown with anemones: brilliant white and soft orange colours. You see schools of fish swimming between throughout the wrecks. in nooks and crannies you find the homes of hundreds of big North Sea crabs. Sometimes you see impressive lobsters as well. And if you look closer, you’ll see all sorts of colourful little animals: nudibranchs for example, or fragile looking tube worms.
I have been diving since 2001, after I took a course during a holiday in Malawi. After I got my first diving c-card I made some dives in tropical waters. But it didn’t take long to learn to appreciate the wonderful cold waters of Northern Europe. My first North Sea dive was in 2002 and from that moment I was hooked.
Unfortunately, since those early dives I have seen a big change. The schools of cod disappeared from the wrecks. We started to find more and more lost fishing gear. And sometimes, when you arrived at a wreck, it was like entering a graveyard. There would be big lengths of lost gillnets, draped over the body of the sunken ship. In them, the last cod that can be found in this area. Dead, rotting… Of course this would attract other animals. Scavengers, like the North Sea Crabs. They also get stuck, and die very slowly.

In 2009, with a group of volunteer divers, we started to clean up this mess. Removing the nets and fishing lines, so no more animals could get stuck. But also documenting - taking pictures -so that everybody could see the problem, and maybe even more importantly, show them the beauty of our cold waters. If nobody knows how special the North Sea really is, there will be no change, and this fragile nature won't get the protection it needs. When in 2012 the Ghost Fishing Foundation was founded, I joined immediately.
And here we are today, onboard the Arctic Sunrise, one of the famous Greenpeace ships. Greenpeace Germany is targeting the big pile of lost and abandoned ghost nets on Sylter Aussenriff, a beautiful area of the North Sea that desperately needs the protection it deserves. This is a protected area, but in reality the protection is only on paper. The Greenpeace campaign team asked the Ghost Fishing Foundation to help. Of course we said ‘Yes!’

We are here with nine volunteers divers. The conditions are almost perfect, except for the visibility. At the moment, blooming algae are a bit of a problem, but hopefully they will disappear soon. It is sunny, no wind, the sea is as flat as a mirror. Twice a day we jump out of the pilot door, into the water (eight degrees at the moment). Today we were hunting ghost nets on an unknown steel wreck at a depth of 23 meters. It's old - it has a steam engine. And yes, there are ghost nets. As a matter of fact, we have hit the jackpot. There is a big lost trawlnet hooked on the sharp steel parts of the wrecks. But also many gill nets. We have put lift bags on the big trawlnet and are carefully cutting it loose from the wreck. It is a special feeling when you see big parts of the net leaving the wreck and floating to the surface of the North Sea. Bye bye, good riddance.
Tomorrow we will go down again. The hunt for ghost nets is not over. If you are looking for them, you will find them on every wreck. The coming days, we would like to show you the problem. Hopefully, we can also show you the beauty of the North Sea and Sylter Aussenriff.
Annet van Aarsen, 47, from Leiden, the Netherlands is a volunteer diver onboard the Arctic Sunrise.

INFOGRAPHIC: What you should know about the heart of the Amazon

Blogpost by Alia Lassal

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The Tapajós River is one of the last free-flowing rivers in the entire Brazilian Amazon. But this river in the heart of the rainforest and the people and ecosystems that depend on it face a serious threat.

Here’s what you need to know. Click to see the whole infographic:

 

This infograThis infographic is based on information from the Greenpeace Brazil report The Battle for the River of Life.

Now that you know the threat the Tapajós faces, take action! Help protect the heart of the Amazon. 

Alia Lassal was an intern with the Americas Communications Hub at Greenpeace USA

What my grandmother would say about President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima

Blogpost by Daisuke Miyachi

World leaders are meeting in Japan for the G7, but on a side trip, President Obama is doing something no sitting US president has done before: visit Hiroshima. The city was flattened during World War Two by the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. Now more than ever, we need leadership to make sure that history doesn’t repeat itself. We need to go nuclear-free.

The people of Hiroshima have waited nearly 71 years for a sitting US president to visit their city, and witness the scars from the first nuclear bomb ever used in war.

My grandmother won’t be there to welcome Mr Obama as she no longer lives in the city.  She is a Hibakusha, one of the survivors of the bomb who was exposed to its radiation. For the past few years, I’ve been listening to the stories of the Hibakusha after attending a peace ceremony in Hiroshima in 2013 and hearing one of the survivors tell her story. She begged me: “Please, listen to my story while I am still alive”.

There were nearly 16,000 children in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped. Thousands of others had been evacuated to the surrounding countryside. But they were all affected. Some died instantly, others days or weeks later from radiation poisoning. Many of those who were spared the bombing lost their families. They became known as the A-bomb orphans, and there were 6,500 in Hiroshima alone after the war.

Peace Memorial Museum testimonies

If you go to the museum of the bombing in Hiroshima or Nagasaki, you can listen to the voices of those who were there.

“The world was dark. There was nothing. People lay dying in the streets, their heads soaked in water because of the burning. There were dead horses. Dogs, cats and birds had all disappeared. After the bombing, people kept dying. A smell like fish filled the town.”

Photo provided by Mr. Noboru Katayama
The people in this photo lived in Nakajima-honmachi, the place that is now the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park. They all died in the bombing.

When you examine the photo, you see only women and young children, those who could not be evacuated to the countryside. Most of the men were enlisted as soldiers. About 90% of the people remaining in Hiroshima were women, children and the elderly.

The people in this photo were at Ground Zero when the bomb dropped. The flash from the blast sent temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees C, completely obliterating them. There were no bodies to recover.  

The suffering of survivors

A survivor of the bombing, Tadamichi Hirata remembers his mother’s words: "I want this war to finish. I want us to live together as a family.”

This wish was never granted. The mother and her younger child died in the bombing.

Some of the survivors, even now, do not want to talk about what happened to them. Their suffering didn’t end with the bombing. Thousands died of radiation sickness after the war. Others faced years of discrimination in employment and marriage because of fears of the radiation they had suffered.

My grandmother also didn’t talk much about those terrible moments. But when she did, her words were very simple "Everything collapsed. Every living creature perished. We should never make such a big mistake again.”

If she had been able to be at Hiroshima for Mr Obama’s visit, I think that is what she would have told him.  And I hope it is what other survivors tell him.

There has been a lot of talk about an apology.  But stronger than an apology, I think, would be the words “Never again”.

President Obama has made a courageous step to come to Hiroshima. But the US, which still has 4,700 operational nuclear warheads, is not learning from the mistakes of the past. Rather than rid the world of nuclear weapons, President Obama’s administration has proposed a US$1 trillion plan to update and expand his country’s nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years. That’s at the same time the US is cutting funding for nonproliferation efforts.

No more. It’s time we reimagine global security not around war, but on peace. As my grandmother told me: “We should never make such a big mistake again”.

No more Hiroshimas, no more Nagasakis, no more war.

Daisuke Miyachi, is a former staff member at Greenpeace Japan. Shortly after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, he was part of  Greenpeace Japan's radiation team checking radiation levels in Fukushima. He is originally from Hiroshima and has been working as a storyteller - remembering and recounting the stories of victims of the atomic bombs.

Shell spills again: Pipeline leaks 20,000 gallons of oil in northern California

Blogpost by Ryan Schleeter

For the second time in two weeks, Shell has spilled thousands of gallons of oil, this time in California’s Central Valley.

Less than two weeks after dumping nearly 90,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Shell Oil is at it again. The company’s San Pablo Bay Pipeline, which transports crude oil from California’s Central Valley to the San Francisco Bay Area, leaked an estimated 21,000 gallons into the soil near in San Joaquin County this week.

Responders are on the scene to clear oil that’s reached the surface, which county officials say covered roughly 10,000 square feet of land. As of today, Shell representatives claim the pipeline has been repaired, but have not resumed operations.

Local government officials and Shell responders are investigating the cause of the leak, and currently report that no oil has entered drinking water sources or populated areas.

While two large oil spills in two weeks may seem like a pretty epic failure — particularly for a company that just said “no release [of oil] is acceptable“ — in reality this is what business as usual looks like for an industry built on polluting our environment and driving climate disaster.

In fact, this same pipeline sprung a leak just eight months ago in almost the same location, spilling roughly the same amount of oil into the ground.

Adding irony to injury, the spill occurred on the site of one the state’s largest wind energy developments, the Altamont Pass Wind Farm. Wind energy, it should be clarified, does not release toxic chemicals into the soil or contribute to runaway climate change. Perhaps Shell responders on the scene will take note.

Interestingly, Shell officials decided to wait three days before releasing a statement to the public about the spill — after shareholders convened at the company’s Annual General Meeting in The Hague, Netherlands. The spill was first detected early Friday morning, but not publicly reported until Monday evening Pacific time.

Environmental watchdog groups are still monitoring the impacts of Shell’s spill in the Gulf, some pointing to the oil industry’s history of under-reporting the extent and impact of spills as reason to stay vigilant.

What’s increasingly clear is that companies like Shell aren’t going to stop polluting in pursuit of fossil fuels we can’t afford to burn on their own — we’re going to have to rise up to stop them.

History shows us that the more fossil fuel infrastructure we have (and we have a lot in this country) the more spills like this we’ll see. So let’s not build more — business as usual for the fossil fuel industry cannot continue.

Help put an end to leaks, spills and fossil fuel pollution while fighting for the climate at the same time. Tell President Obama to end all new offshore drilling today!

Ryan Schleeter is an online content producer at Greenpeace USA.

A version of this blog was originally posted on Greenpeace USA.

We’re calling ‘lights out’ on Thai Union’s ocean destruction

Blogpost by Tom Lowe

Being in the middle of the Indian Ocean at night is incredible: you feel the vastness of the sea around you, the raw power of the waves, and the thick darkness.

Now imagine from miles away, you see a glowing mass on the horizon. As you get closer you make out the source: intense beams of light from an array of approximately 80 high-powered lamps, searing into the water all night long. Marine life is teeming under the surface, drawn to the brilliance of the light.

That’s what we found when we encountered the Explorer II, an ominous-looking vessel in tuna giant Thai Union’s supply chain. It’s not like any ship we’d ever seen, and its lights seem to only have one purpose: a controversial method used to attract all kinds of ocean animals before other fishing vessels come and set nets around the lot.

That’s right: everything.

Activists on board the Esperanza have been out in the Indian Ocean for over five weeks cleaning up Thai Union’s supply chain; tracking and removing destructive fishing gear which plays the same role as the Explorer II. Marine life gathers underneath the gear and then ships come and set their nets around it. But the Explorer II is a whole new scale of operation and the potential for overfishing and indiscriminate harm to marine life is huge.

Unlike other ships, the Explorer II doesn’t move around. It anchors itself to one spot – we’ve repeatedly found it using the underwater Coco de Mer seamount north of the Seychelles – so fishing vessels know where to find it. Then it just sits there, beaming light into the water to attract fish.

With the help of citizen research by supporters in the UK, the Netherlands, France, and Italy, we know that this ship’s Spanish owner, Albacora Group, is supplying Thai Union and its European brands including John West, Petit Navire and Mareblu.

And what we’ve found points to the Explorer II likely engaging in reckless fishing practices – the kind that are killing marine life indiscriminately, driving overfishing by emptying our oceans and robbing local fishing communities of their livelihood.

We couldn’t sail by and let business as usual continue. So we’ve confronted the vessel, blacked out their lights with environmentally-friendly paint and driven them from their perch on the seamount. They didn’t like the attention and fled – we pursued and, as we write, we’re still on their tail.

And just today, at a political summit on tuna fisheries in the Indian Ocean, the use of the kind of lights on vessels like the Explorer II was banned.

It’s easy to feel small in this vast sea, but we as humans are impacting on it massive ways. It takes a movement of hundreds of thousands of people to demand change and respect for our oceans, but fortunately, that’s exactly what we have.

Why don’t you join the wave?

Tom Lowe is Multimedia Editor at Greenpeace International, aboard the Esperanza.

This is BIG! McDonald’s, Tesco, Young’s Seafood... commit to safeguard the Arctic

Blogpost by Frida Bengtsson

Amazing news! Today an entire industry including major global brands McDonald’s, Tesco, Young’s Seafood and Iglo agreed to push back against destruction of our pristine Arctic waters.

Together with the Norwegian Fishing Vessel Owners Association, Fiskebåt, which represents the entire Norwegian oceangoing fishing fleet, Russian Karat Group including Ocean Trawlers and Europe’s largest processor of frozen fish, Espersen, these brands are saying “no” to the further expansion of cod fishing into the previously-frozen Northern Barents Sea.
This is huge. Never before has an industry stood up for Arctic protection and YOU made this possible. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world took action against bottom trawling in the Arctic — to stop heavy nets scraping marine life from the seabed. Today’s announcement shows how we can create real change by acting together.

So what does this mean?

We are witnessing a truly important moment when global brands in the fishing industry start to say “no” to Arctic destruction and agree to prevent fishing fleets from expanding their search for cod into sensitive and previously ice-covered areas in a region twice the size of France.


There’s now a self-imposed industry-wide moratorium on the expansion of bottom trawling in one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet. Vulnerable animals, including the polar bear, bowhead whale and Greenland shark are now one step closer to safety from harm.

But our work is not over yet. Long-term Arctic protection is going to need commitment from the government. Let’s use this momentum to ramp up pressure on Norway’s Environment Minister, Vidar Helgesen, to follow the seafood industry’s lead and create a Marine Protected Area that is off limits to all extractive industries.

Call on the Norwegian government now to protect this truly unique and vulnerable area. It’s high time they acknowledge the growing demand to protect the fragile Arctic environment, not only from millions of individuals but also from the industry.

The Greenpeace ship, Arctic Sunrise, will be in the Arctic this summer to see that the fishing industry lives up to its commitments and to make sure that the Norwegian government follows this corporate initiative with firm legal protection.

 Frida Bengtsson is a Senior Ocean Campaigner with Greenpeace Nordic.

Walmart assume política de Desmatamento Zero para toda a carne vendida nas lojas

Empresa se comprometeu a entregar à seus clientes a garantia de origem de toda carne que vende até 2017. Anúncio é resultado de pressão do Greenpeace e de consumidores

O Walmart tornou pública, na manhã desta quarta-feira (25), sua política de compra de carne bovina, que visa impedir a entrada de produto com origem no desmatamento e outras violações socioambientais na Amazônia. A empresa apresentou também as ações de comunicação que pretende colocar em prática para informar seus consumidores sobre a origem do produto, em resposta a campanha Carne ao Molho Madeira, lançada pelo Greenpeace no final do ano passado.
Uma das novidades do anúncio é o compromisso de ampliar o monitoramento de carne bovina. O procedimento, que já era obrigatório para fornecedores da Amazônia, será exigido para 100% do volume comercializado. A expectativa da rede é entregar ao consumidor a garantia de origem de toda carne até 2017.
“Ao publicar sua política de compras de carne bovina e reafirmar o compromisso com Desmatamento Zero, o Walmart demonstra que a companhia está atenta às demandas da sociedade e que está disposta a avançar na direção em que a floresta precisa”, afirma Adriana Charoux, da Campanha da Amazônia do Greenpeace.
A empresa passará a exigir o Desmatamento Zero e demais critérios do Compromisso Público da Pecuária também para fornecedores que operam fora da Amazônia, o que significa que, agora, o Desmatamento Zero passa a ser regra para as compras da rede em todo o Brasil. O anúncio confirma que, além de inaceitável o desmatamento não é mais necessário.
Em novembro do ano passado o Greenpeace publicou o relatório Carne ao Molho Madeira no qual analisou e ranqueou os maiores supermercados do país de acordo com suas políticas de compra de carne bovina da Amazônia. Dentre os três líderes do mercado, o Walmart obteve a melhor avaliação, com problemas no quesito transparência. Com o anúncio de hoje, a empresa endereça as questões apontadas, como a de tornar pública a política de compras e comunicar o consumidor final no ponto de venda.

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Área desmatada e queimada, no Pará, para receber gado. (© Lunae Parracho / Greenpeace)

Após longo período para implantar o sistema (mais de 5 anos), o Walmart estabeleceu em 2013 uma política interna de compra de carne baseada nos critérios mínimos do Compromisso Público da Pecuária, solicitando dos frigoríficos que atuam na Amazônia o controle das fazendas de fornecimento direto, para evitar a contaminação por violações socioambientais tais como qualquer tipo de desmatamento, uso de trabalho escravo, invasão de terras indígenas e unidades de conservação, grilagem de terra e violência no campo. Desde o final de 2015, os dados de fornecedores de carne bovina com plantas frigoríficas no bioma Amazônia estão inseridos na ferramenta de gestão de risco e compra baseada em tais critérios socioambientais. A rede vem monitorando cerca de 75 mil fazendas que fornecem diretamente gado para 30 plantas frigoríficas que operam na Amazônia.
A pecuária continua sendo a atividade que mais desmata a floresta, ocupando 60% das áreas abertas na Amazônia, segundo dados oficiais do governo federal. É também a atividade que mais utiliza trabalho escravo na região norte. Os supermercados sabem disso, e sabem também que, como um dos principais consumidores dos frigoríficos brasileiros, são decisivos para virar a mesa do desmatamento na Amazônia. Ações como as apresentadas pelo Walmart mostram que essa mudança é possível.
O restante do setor que ainda não se comprometeu com o Desmatamento Zero deve fazer isso o mais rápido possível. A sociedade não quer mais desmatamento e vem deixando isso claro. O mercado deve agora ouvir o chamado dos consumidores e assumir sua parte na responsabilidade de trabalhar por uma chance de futuro.
À sociedade cabe o dever de reavaliar seus próprios hábitos de consumo. Reduzir o consumo de carne e buscar novas opções de alimentação é bom para o meio ambiente e para a saúde.

Breaking free from fossil fuels – the risk we take is not taking action

Blogpost by Jennifer Morgan

Last week, #BreakFree2016 wrapped up across the globe. Greenpeace joined with many inspiring organisations in a global wave of peaceful actions that lasted for 12 days and took place across six continents to target the world’s most dangerous fossil fuel projects.

In places like the Philippines, Germany and Indonesia, thousands of people gathered together to take action. They occupied mines, blocked rail lines, linked arms, paddled in kayaks and held community meetings in 13 countries.

The wave of activity is stemming from a growing global awareness that the impacts of climate change are real and increasing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that April 2016 marked the 12th consecutive month of record warmth for the globe. Research released by Greenpeace India reveals that in India coal is the largest overlooked source of air pollution and identifies air pollution emission hotspots in India visibly linked to thermal power plants in the area. Whether it be local air pollution or climate impacts, the impacts of fossil fuel on people is clear.

A global wave of peaceful direct action

Communities on the front lines of climate change aren’t waiting for governments or corporations to act. They are taking bold action to defend their communities, and the world needs to listen.

Communities like those in Colorado who told the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to “keep it in the ground” when the BLM were holding an auction to sell off fossil fuels on public lands. Or those who took over a fracking site near a school.

In the UK, hundreds of climate protesters took control of the largest opencast coal mine to shut it down for a day. In South Africa, hundreds stood up to South Africa’s most powerful family with a march that delivered coal to their front door, despite their attempts to silence civil society by pressuring police to revoke permits for a march.

In Aliaga, Turkey 2,000 people marched to the gates of the Izmir region’s largest coal dump, and surrounded it with a giant red line, as a call to end plans for the massive expansion of coal in the country. In Germany, 3,500 people shut down one of Europe’s biggest carbon polluters, occupying a lignite mine and nearby power station for over 48 hours, reducing the plant’s capacity by 80 percent.

In the Batangas, the Philippines, 10,000 marched against a proposed coal plant. There were many more and the numbers just kept growing.

Each case was its own success, and together, they demonstrate a growing global climate movement.

Where to from here?

People are demanding elected officials and multinational corporations end destructive investments and be held accountable if they do not #BreakFree from their dependency on fossil fuels.

We need to continue to unmask and hold accountable elected officials and the corporations behind the tax breaks, lax regulations and back door deals that trample human rights, cause insufferable poverty and deplete our natural resources. 

In addition to breaking free from fossil fuels, people’s demand for alternative energy options is growing louder. Communities are demanding investment in ambitious renewable energy projects. They want renewables and sustainable solutions that move us away from toxic air pollution, rivers of sewage, polluted oceans and deforested lands and provide them with clean energy. With the falling costs of renewables, and the ability to install solar in small villages, people can #BreakFree to a healthier way of living.

We need to continue to use peaceful direct action as one of the key tools we have to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

We must take a stand to protect our climate and the health and welfare of people and communities. Doing nothing is not an option.

#BreakFree2016 was just the beginning – not the end – of the people’s fight against dangerous fossil fuel projects. We ask you to join in the fight for climate justice and for a rapid transition to 100 percent renewable energy, keeping oil, coal and gas in the ground.

Jennifer Morgan is an Executive Director at Greenpeace International.

Blog post by: Jennifer Morgan

Jennifer Morgan is the Executive Director of Greenpeace International.
Previously, she was the Global Director of the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute. A climate activist, she has been a leader of large teams at major organisations, and her other ports of call have included the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Climate Action Network, and E3G.

All blogposts by Jennifer Morgan

Breaking free from fossil fuels – the risk we take is not taking action

Blogpost by Jennifer Morgan 

Last week, #BreakFree2016 wrapped up across the globe. Greenpeace joined with many inspiring organisations in a global wave of peaceful actions that lasted for 12 days and took place across six continents to target the world’s most dangerous fossil fuel projects.

In places like the Philippines, Germany and Indonesia, thousands of people gathered together to take action. They occupied mines, blocked rail lines, linked arms, paddled in kayaks and held community meetings in 13 countries.

The wave of activity is stemming from a growing global awareness that the impacts of climate change are real and increasing. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that April 2016 marked the 12th consecutive month of record warmth for the globe. Research released by Greenpeace India reveals that in India coal is the largest overlooked source of air pollution and identifies air pollution emission hotspots in India visibly linked to thermal power plants in the area. Whether it be local air pollution or climate impacts, the impacts of fossil fuel on people is clear.

A global wave of peaceful direct action

Communities on the front lines of climate change aren’t waiting for governments or corporations to act. They are taking bold action to defend their communities, and the world needs to listen.

Communities like those in Colorado who told the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to “keep it in the ground” when the BLM were holding an auction to sell off fossil fuels on public lands. Or those who took over a fracking site near a school.

In the UK, hundreds of climate protesters took control of the largest opencast coal mine to shut it down for a day. In South Africa, hundreds stood up to South Africa’s most powerful family with a march that delivered coal to their front door, despite their attempts to silence civil society by pressuring police to revoke permits for a march.

In Aliaga, Turkey 2,000 people marched to the gates of the Izmir region’s largest coal dump, and surrounded it with a giant red line, as a call to end plans for the massive expansion of coal in the country. In Germany, 3,500 people shut down one of Europe’s biggest carbon polluters, occupying a lignite mine and nearby power station for over 48 hours, reducing the plant’s capacity by 80 percent.

In the Batangas, the Philippines, 10,000 marched against a proposed coal plant. There were many more and the numbers just kept growing.

Each case was its own success, and together, they demonstrate a growing global climate movement.

Where to from here?

People are demanding elected officials and multinational corporations end destructive investments and be held accountable if they do not #BreakFree from their dependency on fossil fuels.

We need to continue to unmask and hold accountable elected officials and the corporations behind the tax breaks, lax regulations and back door deals that trample human rights, cause insufferable poverty and deplete our natural resources. 

In addition to breaking free from fossil fuels, people’s demand for alternative energy options is growing louder. Communities are demanding investment in ambitious renewable energy projects. They want renewables and sustainable solutions that move us away from toxic air pollution, rivers of sewage, polluted oceans and deforested lands and provide them with clean energy. With the falling costs of renewables, and the ability to install solar in small villages, people can #BreakFree to a healthier way of living.

We need to continue to use peaceful direct action as one of the key tools we have to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

We must take a stand to protect our climate and the health and welfare of people and communities. Doing nothing is not an option.

#BreakFree2016 was just the beginning – not the end – of the people’s fight against dangerous fossil fuel projects. We ask you to join in the fight for climate justice and for a rapid transition to 100 percent renewable energy, keeping oil, coal and gas in the ground.

Jennifer Morgan is an Executive Director at Greenpeace International.

Blog post by: Jennifer Morgan

Jennifer Morgan is the Executive Director of Greenpeace International.
Previously, she was the Global Director of the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute. A climate activist, she has been a leader of large teams at major organisations, and her other ports of call have included the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Climate Action Network, and E3G.

All blogposts by Jennifer Morgan

15 fatos que você não sabia sobre o desastre de Chernobyl

Postado por therrero

Na manhã de 26 de abril de 1986, um dos reatores da central nuclear de Chernobyl explodiu. E causou a maior catástrofe ambiental da História. Foi o acidente que a indústria nuclear dizia que nunca aconteceria.
Vinte e cinco anos depois, o acidente nuclear de Fukushima no Japão nos lembrou que o risco de outra Chernobyl permanecerá sempre presente enquanto tivermos usinas nucleares ativas. Aqui estão 15 fatos que nem todo mundo conhece sobre Chernobyl.
1. Mais de 5 milhões de pessoas ainda vivem em áreas contaminadas pela radiação, mesmo 30 anos depois do acidente

Para retribuir apoio ruralista, Temer pode cancelar avanços na área ambiental

Governo interino começará com grande retrocesso se desfizer os poucos e atrasados gestos de Dilma pela demarcação de terras indígenas, quilombolas, Unidades de Conservação e reforma agrária

Este texto foi publicado no Portal UOL

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Indígenas em marcha pela garantia dos seus direitos em Brasília, 12 de maio de 2016 (© Alan Azevedo / MNI)

Por Asensio Rodrigez e Marcio Astrini
O presidente em exercício Michel Temer pode apagar um dos raros momentos positivos do governo Dilma Rousseff voltado ao meio ambiente e às populações tradicionais. A nova administração estaria estudando uma fórmula para revisar decretos presidenciais publicados a partir de 1º de abril, o que inclui a identificação, declaração e homologação de terras indígenas e quilombolas, titulação de Unidades de Conservação, desapropriação de terra para reforma agrária e a criação do Conselho Nacional dos Povos e Comunidades Tradicionais. No caso dos territórios indígenas, os atos não tratam apenas de ações pontuais de governo, mas sim do acesso dessas populações a direitos que lhes são garantidos pela Constituição Federal.

Confira aqui a lista completa de decretos e atos presidenciaispublicados após 1º de abril

Dilma deu as costas durante todo seu mandato para estas questões. Porém, dias antes de seu afastamento, resolveu compensar em partes seu fraco desempenho. Antes tarde do que nunca. No entanto, a ameaça de Temer em desfazer o que foi decretado não só repete como aprofunda os erros de Dilma mostrando, logo na largada de seu governo, um péssimo cartão de visitas para o meio ambiente e para as populações tradicionais. Trata-se de uma ação que geraria uma forte reação por parte dos movimentos socioambientais não apenas perante a opinião pública, mas também na esfera jurídica. O receio de que o presidente em exercício tome tal atitude tem justificativa.
No fim de abril, em reunião no Palácio do Jaburu, Michel Temer recebeu da bancada ruralista um documento chamado “Pauta Positiva”. Nele, há uma longa lista de retrocessos para questões socioambientais, como a diminuição dos direitos indígenas e de populações tradicionais, liberação de compras de terras por estrangeiros, revisão dos direitos trabalhistas na área rural, diminuição do controle sobre o trabalho escravo e de sua definição, liberação ainda maior do uso de agrotóxicos e o enfraquecimento das regras para o licenciamento ambiental no país, entre outros. Um dos pedidos, o de incorporação das atividades do Ministério do Desenvolvimento Agrário ao Ministério de Desenvolvimento Social, já foi atendido pelo atual governo.
Essa é a conta da bancada ruralista pela fidelidade que demonstraram a Temer na votação do impeachment. A revisão dos decretos está explicitamente citada nela. Seria uma espécie de pagamento da primeira parcela de uma lista de desejos que levariam o país a andar para trás. Agora, o presidente em exercício precisa decidir se, neste tema, usará a caneta para satisfazer alguns de seus aliados de ocasião ou em benefício do país.
Asensio Rodriguez é diretor-executivo do Greenpeace Brasil
Marcio Astrini é de políticas públias do Greenpeace Brasil

O governo é provisório, nossos direitos são originários

Participe da campanha contra a revisão de demarcações de Terras Indígenas usando a hashtag #DemarcaçõesJá nas redes sociais. Você também pode escrever uma mensagem para o Ministro da Justiça e para o presidente Michel Temer.
Para escrever para o Ministro da Justiça, Clique aqui
Para escrever para o presidente Michel Temer, Clique aqui 

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Carta aberta dos Povos Indígenas a Michel Temer

A Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Apib) divulgou uma carta aberta ao governo interino de Michel Temer, afirmando que não admitirá nenhum retrocesso nos direitos indígenas 

 

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A Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (Apib) divulgou na tarde desta sexta-feira, 20, uma carta pública ao governo provisório do presidente interino Michel Temer. A mensagem levada é direta: os povos indígenas não vão aceitar nenhuma medida que promova retrocessos nos direitos constitucionais dirigidos a estas populações, com destaque ao direito à terra.\
Além de criticar o governo por ter dado sinais de querer revisar a demarcação de terras indígenas, o documento pede também explicações sobre “os reais motivos que levaram o novo Ministro da Justiça e Cidadania a excluir da sua estrutura governamental a Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI), conforme Medida Provisória N° 726, de 12 de maio de 2016, que dispõe sobre a organização da Presidência da República e dos Ministérios”, diz a carta.

Leia na íntegra no blog da Apib

Why there's no place I'd rather be than on a Greenpeace ship in the North Sea

Blogpost by Paloma Henriques

Everything is different on a ship. Walls are bulkheads, ceilings are deckheads, floors are decks, right is starboard, left is port, back is aft and front is stern. At sea, the ground wobbles beneath our feet, rocking us to sleep in our bunks, knocking us around the mess, which is a dining room, the galley, which is a kitchen, or the lower hold, which is a storeroom. I've been working as a volunteer deckhand on the Greenpeace ship, Arctic Sunrise, for just over a week.



We're sailing in the Sylt Outer Reef, off the coast of Germany. Thilo Maack, our German deep-sea diving campaigner onboard, explained that this area is actually a marine sanctuary, where dumping and drilling are banned in an effort to set limits on the relentless exploitation of our world’s oceans. The problem is, industrial fishing has not been banned. Bottom trawlers continue to gouge the seabed, giant walls of net catching brown shrimp and everything else in their path, including endangered harbor porpoises. Unbelievably wasteful, up to 80% of the catch in this industry is "bycatch", the innocent bystanders of the ocean, thrown back dead and dying into the sea. And that’s just one of the many fishing industries still allowed to operate in a "sanctuary" where already a third of species are at risk.

Disappearing worlds

It was nearly six years ago that it really sunk in for me what we humans were doing to the sea. I was working for Greenpeace on the Frontline team as a canvasser, stopping people in the streets of Los Angeles to tell them about the campaigns and sign them up as members of the organization. I remember being blown away when I learned that 90% of big fish are already gone, eaten by us in the last 60 years alone. Since then I've learned aboutwhat’s so incredible about our seas and worth protecting. Through reading books, watching documentaries and finally, this year getting my Open Water certification for scuba diving, I've fallen in love with life under the sea in all it's strangeness, vivid colors, and alien intelligence.

Over lunch, I asked Thilo about his favorite North Sea creatures. His eyes lit up as he told me about the spiny dogfish, a kind of shark that lives up to 70 years, rears only three offspring, and is commonly killed for a small piece of it's belly. Like many places in the world, whole populations have been eradicated from the North Sea, like the incredible bluefin tuna, with unparalleled swimming abilities, able to go 100 kilometres an hour and turn on a dime, unmatched by any human construct. They're all gone, taken for granted and literally chopped up for pet food.

Things add up

Being on a Greenpeace ship is not all high-speed boat chases and confrontational direct actions. Whether you're volunteering to make calls at a phone bank to organize your community to go to a rally or cooking a vegan meal for a group of activists, whether you're standing bundled in the streets of Chicago in the winter, canvassing to raise money and get petitions signed, or scrubbing the toilets with vinegar on the lower deck of a protest ship, it's the little mundane tasks that add up, collect, and finally tip the balance of power in favor of, to paraphrase Irving Stowe at the first Greenpeace benefit concert, a culture of life.

As I tie my bowline knots, mop the decks, or inventory gear lockers, I think, this is what activism looks like. I may not always know what I'm doing, I'm still learning a lot about life on a ship, but I do know exactly why I'm doing it.

As the sun sparkles over the undulating fabric of the North Sea as our green rainbow flag flies on the mast. I think of the Phyllis Cormack and the Vega, the first Greenpeace protest boats that sailed into nuclear test zones and kickstarted a global organization, and wonder what beautiful things will spiral out of our actions today, your actions today.

Paloma Henriques, 28, from Los Angeles, California, USA, is a Volunteer Deckhand onboard the Arctic Sunrise.

Adeus a Paulo Kageyama, um guerreiro da biodiversidade

Greenpeace Brasil se solidariza com a família deste grande professor que tanto trabalhou pela preservação do meio ambiente 

 

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(Reprodução/©SOS Mata Atlântica)

É com muita tristeza que recebemos na manhã de ontem a notícia de falecimento do professor Paulo Yoshio Kageyama. Agrônomo, professor da Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (USP/ESALQ), este grande profissional deixa um legado precioso de conhecimento, dedicação e luta.
Kageyama é parceiro de longa data do Greenpeace e sempre esteve à bordo de nossas campanhas, somando em conhecimento e trazendo grandes ideias. No final dos anos 90, ele foi fundamental para a construção da campanha contra exploração de madeira ilegal na Amazônia – o início de uma longa caminhada que hoje fazemos rumo ao Desmatamento Zero. Também foi grande parceiro na luta contra a liberação de transgênicos no meio ambiente, tendo atuado diretamente na Comissão Técnica Nacional de Biossegurança (CTNBio) e com os movimentos sociais em prol da agroecologia e da agrobiodiversidade. No Ministério do Meio Ambiente, onde foi diretor de Conservação da Biodiversidade, era uma porta sempre aberta ao movimento ambiental.
Kageyama era, antes de mais nada, um ser humano único: doce e lutador. Um tipo raro, cuja perda deixa o mundo menos diverso e mais triste.

Break Free: An unprecedented wave of people power is keeping fossil fuels in the ground

Blogpost by Mike Hudema

Break Free was an unprecedented wave of people power.

Over twelve days, on six continents, in countries all around the world people acted. Individuals, communities, local and international groups all came together to Break Free from fossil fuels.

In Germany, thousands with Ende Gelände shut down Europe’s largest coal plant — occupying it for over 48 hours and reducing the plant’s capacity by 80 percent.

Hundreds stood up to South Africa’s most powerful family with a march that delivered coal to their front door.

 Image credit: Shayne Robinson | Mutiny Media

10,000 people marched against a proposed coal plant in Batangas, the Philippines.

3,000 people sent an ear-splitting message to Indonesia’s president with a whistle demonstration against coal in Jakarta. A few days later, twelve activists climbed the cranes supplying coal for the Cirebon Coal Power Plant, dropping banners to Quit Coal and for Clean Energy, Clean Air.

In Australia, an armada of kayakers blocked the Newcastle harbour entrance while 70 people blocked a critical rail crossing preventing any coal from getting to the port for over six hours.

In Ecuador, people from across the country gathered to peacefully protest fossil fuel extraction at a oil refinery. They also planned to plant gardens at the site to feed those affected by the recent earthquake that rattled the country, but they were forced to leave the site before they could finish.

In Aliaga, Turkey 2,000 people marched to the gates of the Izmir region’s largest coal dump and surrounded it with a giant red line, as a call to end plans for the massive expansion of coal in the country.

 

Dozens of people occupied train tracks overnight in Albany, New York in the United States to stop oil-filled ‘bomb trains’ from rolling through communities — including less than 100 feet from low-income public housing.

And on unceded Coast Salish Territories outside of Vancouver over 800 people surrounded Kinder Morgan’s pipeline terminal by land and by sea preventing anything from coming in or out for the entire day.

Image credit: Marlin Olynyk | Survival Media Agency

That’s just to name a few.

In total tens of thousands took to the streets, occupied mines, blocked rail lines, linked arms, paddled in kayaks and raised their voices, pushing the boundaries of conventional protest to find new ways to keep coal, oil, gas and tar sands in the ground.

Thousands, worldwide risked arrest — many for the first time — to say that it’s time to Break Free from the current energy paradigm that is locking the planet into a future of catastrophic climate change and to speed the transition to a 100 percent renewable energy future.

Driving this unprecedented wave of demonstrations is the sudden and dramatic acceleration in the warming of the planet. April shattered all temperature records — becoming the seventh straight month to do so. Fires, fueled by record dry temperatures, are raging across North America and Russia.  Just this week, it was reported that five Solomon Islands have been swallowed by the rising seas.

Combined with the growing number of planetary warning signs is the growing gap between world governments’ stated climate ambitions and their demonstrated actions in approving new fossil fuel projects. Break Free was about starting to close that gap.

I’m not sure if world leaders follow hashtags, but I hope that for a short time they followed #breakfree2016. I hope they saw the amazing stories of courageous people pouring in from countries around the world. Stories of people standing up, of people taking the actions we need to take, and pushing us all to break free from fossil fuels and speed the move to a 100 percent renewable energy future.

Break Free shows that all around the world, people are ready to act. And if leaders are ready to move on climate change, then we will be there to support them.

But we aren't waiting. The clock is ticking, and we don’t have any time to waste. It's time to restore the balance.

Mike Hudema is the climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Canada.

A version of this blog was originally posted by Greenpeace Canada.

Veja as fotos mais marcantes da Mobilização Nacional Indígena

Uma semana de resistência do movimento indígena em imagens

Semana passada, em meio a aprovação do impeachment e ao turbulento momento político do país, a Mobilização Nacional Indígena conseguiu reunir mais de mil indígenas de todas as regiões do Brasil para a 12ª edição do Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL).
Acampados em volta do Memorial dos Povos Indígenas, em Brasília, as lideranças realizaram plenárias, encontros com o presidente da Fundação Nacional do Índio, com ministros e deputados. Foi realizada também a marcha principal do ATL, que contou com um percurso de 10km. O objetivo principal: garantir os direitos dos povos indígenas previstos na Constituição Federal de 1988.
Confira a seguir galeria de imagem com as fotos mais marcantes do ATL 2016:

Quer saber mais? Visite o blog da Mobilização Nacional Indígena, onde é possíve encontrar a cobertura completa do ATL 2016, com fotos e vídeos

Disruption, change and the growing wave against Thai Union tuna

Blogpost by Tom Lowe

The waves are surging higher around the Esperanza today. We’re headed north towards busier fishing areas, the horizon line heaving up and down as the ship barrels every which way amid the rolling, white-peaked swell.
 
Waves crash against the Esperanza bow. 12 May 2016. © Will Rose / Greenpeace

For the past few weeks, we’ve been hunting reckless fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean that supply Thai Union, the mega-company responsible for producing much of the tinned seafood on supermarket shelves across the globe.
We’ve been collecting these unscrupulous vessels’ fish aggregating devices (FADs), which enable them to scoop up huge volumes of any and all types sea life, pick out the marketable tuna and dump everything else – the ‘bycatch’ – back in the sea, dead.

Greenpeace crew members on the Esperanza pull in a FAD (fish aggregating device) for inspection. 17 April 2016. © Will Rose / Greenpeace

Spending a couple of days at port in northern Madagascar, witnessing sustainable local fishers catch fish to feed their families and communities, stiffened the determination of this ship’s crew to go out and stop Thai Union suppliers from pillaging our seas.
Here in the Indian Ocean, fishing using FADs scoops up over four times as much bycatch as free school fishing. That means needlessly killing a lot more species – some of them, like the silky shark, of which between 480,000 and 960,000 are killed by FADs each year in the Indian Ocean alone, are near threatened species.

 
Silky Sharks near a FAD in the Indian Ocean. 26 April 2016 © Will Rose / Greenpeace

If you don’t think that’s acceptable, you’re not alone. Hundreds of thousands of people who passionately feel the same have shown they stand against it – and now it’s time to turn up the heat.
What starts out here in the ocean ends up on our supermarket shelves – from John West in the Netherlands and UK, to Petit Navire in France and Mareblu in Italy - so in the coming days, we’ll be ratcheting up the pressure on Thai Union to clean up their act. For every FAD deployed in their name, we’ll hunt another down; for every needless bycatch, we’ll be standing in the way.

 
John West tuna cans in FAD net. 27 April 2016 © Will Rose / Greenpeace

The people on board the Esperanza are people just like you: they’re from the Philippines, from Spain, from Russia and Australia. They’re French, Korean, South African and Chilean. They’re from Italy, Indonesia, Germany and also from close to where this destruction is taking place: Madagascar and Réunion Island. And they’re all out here in the middle of the Indian Ocean to disrupt Thai Union’s destructive supply chain.
But you are the one with the power to turn the tide on Thai Union and make them change. Show them you mean business.

Their reckless fishing is emptying our oceans to fill their tins. And if they think they can get away with it, they’ve got another think coming.

Tom Lowe is a Multimedia Editor at Greenpeace International, on board the Esperanza